Vigil of Easter
April 8, 2023
Text: Mark 16:1-8
Alleluia!
Christ is risen! He is risen,
indeed! Alleluia!
At
first blush, the response strikes us as odd.
The young man (a holy angel) no sooner preaches His Easter sermon, that
the Lord is risen, indeed, and the women flee the tomb in fear, with trembling
and astonishment, and say nothing to anyone.
But
if we think about it, we can understand.
What the angel has said about the empty tomb, and the body that should
have been there, is beyond anything they’d ever experienced, and so, beyond
their wildest imagination. And we all
think seeing is believing, but we have to remember that in these first moments
of Easter Dawn, all these women had to go on was the angel’s preaching. All they had was the Word. The risen Jesus had yet to be seen by
anyone. But they had seen, these
women, the dead Jesus. Blue and
bloodied. Cold. Limp.
Lifeless. Laid in this very tomb,
sealed with this very large stone.
And
now this News! Go and tell His disciples
and Peter. Well, who would believe
them? Wives’ tales! Silly women with their flights of fancy. That’s what they’d say (that’s what they did
say [Luke 24:11]). I mean, come on!
So
they said nothing. They said nothing
to nobody, the Greek literally says.
Uh uh! No way! At first, that is. We know from the other Gospels, and from the
longer ending of Mark, that the women were privileged to be the first to
see the risen Jesus. The women
who had faithfully cared for Jesus throughout His earthly ministry, and
provided for His needs form their own means (Luke 8:1-3). The women who were not ashamed to wait
and watch with Him in His dying hours on the cross (Mark 15:40-41). The women who followed Joseph of
Arimathea and the Savior’s corpse to the rock-hewn tomb, carefully noting where
the body was laid, that they might come again when the Sabbath had passed, to
give Him a proper anointing (vv. 42-47).
They are the first to see the risen Jesus, and the first to
tell the Good News to the Apostles. And
it is no wives’ tale. When the risen
Jesus invades your life, He unseals your lips, and casts out your fear.
But
there were other things that were silenced that day… silenced forever! Grief.
Sorrow. Sin. Guilt.
Shame. The damning sentence of
the Law. The accusations of the
devil. Death. Hell.
And so… fear! The risen Jesus,
with His mortal crucifixion wounds, stops all those things in their
tracks. He shuts their mouths. They may no longer boast. They have no claim on you. You belong to Jesus. You are bound for life and resurrection
with the risen Jesus. But those things
are death-bent and hell-bound. The Lake
of Fire awaits them.
This
evening, the angel preaches to you.
You came here tonight in the darkness of a sealed tomb, but now the
stone is rolled away, and the angel declares it: “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was
crucified. He has risen; he is not
here. See the place where they laid him”
(Mark 16:6; ESV). Now, what are you to
do with that? Do you run away in
fear? The response, actually, would be
understandable. Let it sink in that the
Easter account is not just a nice story to give us positive feelings in the
early spring. This News is as shocking as
if Grandma clawed her way through the coffin and the sod to cook the Easter ham
(well, she might. You probably don’t do
it right). In fact, this is more
shocking, because Jesus is not a zombie. He is alive. He is Life. Your Life. And the Life of the world (John 6:51).
This
is beyond your experience, and even your wildest imagination. And who would believe you, anyway? Especially these days, when people think all
this religion stuff is silly and superstitious, and makes a claim on them that
no silly superstition has a right to make.
That is why you’re so afraid to talk about it with friends and family
members who deny Jesus, or are in the process of walking away from Him. It’s easier, and safer, to say nothing to
nobody. You may well tremble, and be
silent… At first.
But
when the angel’s preaching sinks in…
When you hear the Gospel accounts, and in them, the voice of your living
Lord… When the risen Jesus appears in
your midst in the Upper Room, fears and locked doors notwithstanding, and shows
you His fleshly wounds: “Take, eat; this is My body! Take, drink; this is My blood!”… Your lips are unleashed and your fears put to
flight. You were here Good Friday, and
you saw Him crucified, dead, and buried.
Just like the women, only you saw it with your ears. As Paul says, it is through preaching that “before
your eyes… Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified” (Gal.
3:1). But now the 8th Day has
come, the Day of Resurrection, of New Creation. And it is that Day into which you are
baptized, and that Lord, the Risen One. And it is He who is now preached. Who can keep silent? The very stones will cry out (Luke
19:40). Especially the large one rolled
away from the tomb. “O Lord, open my
lips,” like you did the mouth of the sealed sepulcher, “and my mouth
will declare your praise” (Ps. 51:15).
Go
and tell… “go, tell his disciples and Peter” (Mark 16:7). Go, tell your brothers and sisters in
Christ. Confess it to one another. Go, tell your loved ones who don’t believe
that He is risen, or live as though He is not.
Don’t you dare live as though He is not. Preach it to the world. Who will believe you? What is that to you? That is God’s business. Whatever happens, when you go and tell, the
Holy Spirit will ride on the wind of the words to do what He will do. Do not bury this News in the ground. Speak it.
Speak it if it means the death of you.
Because, in reality, it means the life of you. And the life of all who hear it and
believe.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
Run with it. And perhaps
tremble. But do not be afraid. Rejoice.
And take a big breath of fresh resurrection air. New Creation is already breaking in. The tomb is empty. Jesus lives.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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