Saint Luke's Lutheran Church

As a newly ordained pastor, serving a rural congregation in a small midwestern town, Chuck was planning his very first Easter service. He wanted this Easter to be a memorable one for the members of his congregation. Now Chuck had a flair for the dramatic, so he arranged for the local funeral director to deliver a casket to the church after dark on Holy Saturday and set it up in the front of the church. When the people arrived on Easter morning, there among the trumpeting lilies sat a hand-rubbed walnut casket - open and empty.

Pastor Chuck had accomplished his goal. It was an Easter not soon forgotten. However, many prominent and influential members of the church did not think that the open and empty casket had enhanced their Easter but spoiled it. Some of them said they did not want to be surprised or shocked when they come to church - especially on Easter. Some of them raised concerns about the impact that this casket would have on the younger children. They all questioned their pastor's judgment and common sense. It was all just too dramatic and perhaps too real for such a staid and conservative congregation. No, that Easter was not soon forgotten.

Pastor Chuck's methods may have been lacking in good judgment, but his message was right on target. At the very center of the Easter story is an open and empty casket, an open and empty tomb. This is exactly what the women in our Gospel found when they arrived at the cemetery that first Easter morning. The two Marys and Salome had watched the whole thing from a distance. They had watched as Jesus was led out of the city to the place of execution. They had watched as Jesus was stripped of his clothes and nailed to the cross. They had heard the insults of those who mocked him, and they had heard him cry out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" They had watched him take his last breath, and then they lingered at the cross while Joseph of Arimathea got permission to take Jesus' body. They watched as Joseph wrapped the stiffening body in a linen shroud and laid it in his own, newly hewn tomb, sealing it with a large stone. Then, because it was almost the Sabbath, they went home to wait until the first day of the week.

So early Sunday morning they came back to the tomb to finish what Joseph did not have time to do - to anoint Jesus' body with the spices and the perfumes they had prepared and so to give him a proper burial. This was nothing out of the ordinary here at all. People died all the time, and the city of Jerusalem was surrounded by family tombs. It was the custom for family or friends of one who had died to prepare the body for burial in this way. There is nothing more ordinary than death and burial.

What was out of the ordinary here was what they found when they got there - a tomb open and empty. The stone that Joseph had so carefully put into place had been removed, and Jesus' body was gone. It its place was an angel, dressed in dazzling white, who said that Jesus was alive and that he would meet his disciples in Galilee.

At that instance, like a flash of lightning, the ordinary had been transformed into the extraordinary. Suddenly, what had started out to be an ordinary pilgrimage of grief, like so many others, what had promised to be an ordinary anointing with burial oils was transformed into an extraordinary encounter not with death, but with resurrection. It was so extraordinary, that it left these women dazed and shocked - more dazed and shocked when they watched Jesus die - so dazed and shocked that they ran away, trembling and bewildered. In fact, they were so frightened by what they had experienced that they were afraid to say anything to anyone. A dead body they could understand, but an empty tomb was just too disturbing. Death they could understand, but resurrection was just too amazing.

Today, this Easter morning, God is also calling us from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Death is still the norm in our world. We were reminded of this on September 11, 2001, when in four devastating acts of terrorism nearly 3,000 people died. We were reminded of this most recently in the invasion of Iraq, where over 100 American soldiers died along with 10 embedded journalists, where as many as 5,000 Iraqi soldiers died along with over 1,600 civilians. We are reminded of the ordinariness of death when we read about the 152 people who have died of SARS in the past five months. We are reminded of this every day when we read the paper or listen to the news or scan through the obituaries. And we are reminded of this every time we go to a funeral home or a memorial service.

Because of its ordinariness, we are more comfortable with death than we are with resurrection. Because of its ordinariness, we are better at waging war than we are at making peace. Because of its ordinariness, we are more accustomed with brokenness and sin than we are with wholeness and holiness. Because of its ordinariness, we are more comfortable with the old life than we are with the new. Change - deep and radical change - is not only difficult, it is resisted. This is true for spouses trying to learn how to submit to one another rather than control one another. This is true for nations trying to forge a truly new world order. This is true for a dysfunctional family trying to break the cycle of manipulation or abuse. This is true for a society trying to break the cycle of poverty or racism. And this is true for every one of us who has ever tried to turn away from the ways of the world and live by the ways of God. While we may be more comfortable with the old, however, what we really want - what we really need - is resurrection and peace, wholeness and new life. So today God calls us to the tomb, and invites us to see it empty and open.

Because this tomb is empty, our world is no longer the same. Easter shocks and awes us, not with military strength or precision bombings, but with the power of a love that was willing to die for the sins of others but would not stay dead. Easter is God's way of bringing about a regime change, replacing the real axis of evil - sin, death, and the power of Satan - with the reign of love and abundant life and the Spirit of God. Jesus' resurrection brings new hope to a world entombed in despair. Jesus' resurrection brings the hope of peace to a world that is entombed in conflict; the hope of love to a world that is entombed in hatred; the hope of life to a world that is entombed in death.

For Easter is not just about an empty tomb. It is about a living Lord. The God who calls us from the ordinary to the extraordinary also sends us back again. The angel at the empty tomb does not say that Jesus is gone, but that he has gone ahead of them into Galilee. Jerusalem was the holy city - an extraordinary place where extraordinary things happened. Galilee was an ordinary place, where ordinary people lived ordinary lives. Galilee was the place where Jesus had first called his disciples. That is where Jesus is going to meet his disciples.

Today, on this Easter Sunday, we gather in this place to remember and to experience an extraordinary thing - the resurrection of our Lord. But we will not stay here. Tomorrow Easter will be over, and we will go back to our ordinary lives. And yet nothing is really ordinary any more. Easter has changed everything. Jesus lives, and that means that death no longer dominates our lives. Jesus lives, and that means that we are able to live a new life.

Today God calls us to come and see a tomb that is open and empty. Today God also sends us back into our daily lives so that we can bring the extraordinary peace and joy, love and hope to the ordinariness of our world. Christ is risen. He is risen, indeed. This is the Christ who is with us now, and this is the Christ who is going before you into Galilee. Amen.