On August 25, 1996, the following headline from Vancouver appeared in the New Haven Register:  “Tears turn to laughter as dead couple returns.”  The newspaper article, circulated by the Associated Press, told the strange tale of a couple whose airplane had crashed in a remote lake, leaving an oil slick and the couples’ possessions and identification floating eerily on the water’s surface.  There seemed to be no doubt that they had drowned.  A few days later, as their obituaries were being written and funeral plans finalized, a coroner was flown out to the crash site to make the final report. 

 

And lo and behold, there on the shore just a quarter mile’s swim from where the plane had made its fiery nosedive, stood the stranded couple.  They had been living on fresh water mussels and waving their thinning arms in the air, trying to attract the attention of any plane that might be flying by.  They never gave up hope, and they found it in -- of all people -- a coroner, who came expecting death and discovering life.

 

On the first Easter Sunday, three women leave for a cemetery, for a tomb.  They know what awaits them at the end of their journey.  Or so they think.  They leave their homes before dawn that morning carrying spices to prepare Jesus’ body for burial.  Because that’s what they expect to find: a dead body.

 

We, of course, know what awaits them – an empty tomb.  That’s why Christians around the world gather today in joyous celebration.  But we often forget that, on that first Easter morning, the women come expecting death, and what they discover instead is something much different; the stone is rolled away and Jesus’ body is gone!  We know that Jesus is alive again.  But the women don't reach that conclusion right away.  Instead they are perplexed and frightened, until two angels tell them what has happened.  Then they believe immediately and run to tell the disciples the joyous news:  Jesus is alive!

 

The women accept the news of the resurrection without question, but the disciples react with disbelief.  Jesus' had told his disciples that he would die and rise on the third day.  Yet when they hear the women’s story about the empty tomb, they think it is nonsense, an “idle tale”; rather than believe that Jesus’ words have come true, they dismiss news of the empty tomb with the rationalization that someone must have stolen his body. 

 

Peter, one of the disciples, is curious enough to go and check out things for himself.  But even though he sees the empty tomb with his own eyes, seeing does not yet make him a believer.

 

No one expects the resurrection.  Despite what they see.  Despite what they have heard or experienced.  Despite what Jesus has told them.

 

How do you react to the resurrection?

 

Are you like the women at the tomb – you have to have some sort of divine encounter, perhaps with an angel – to convince you that Jesus lives again?

 

Or are you like the disciples and dismiss the resurrection story as the idle tale of preachers and religious fanatics?

 

Maybe you’re like Peter – curious, open, wanting to know more -- but not yet convinced enough to believe.

 

Or perhaps you need solid proof, like Thomas, the doubting disciple.  His story will be told in churches around the world next Sunday.  Even when the disciples say to him, "We have seen the Lord," Thomas does not believe.  Even when the risen Christ is standing next to him, he responds, "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe."  Thomas has to put his fingers into Jesus’ wounds to be convinced.  And when he does, Thomas is able to say, finally, "My Lord and my God!" 

 

Today, 2000 years after that first Easter morning, many of us approach the news of the resurrection like the disciples – as the idle tale.  Some of us are like Peter – curious but not yet believing.  And some of us are like Thomas, needing a personal encounter with the risen Christ before we will be convinced.

 

And many of us are like the women at the tomb, expecting to find death – of relationships, of hope, of a future.  We’ve all got dead places in our lives where we’ve sealed off life and hope and love.  We’ve all buried grief and pain, hurt and disappointment somewhere deep in our souls.  Easter is an invitation to let God into those places; it tells us that we don’t have to stay where we are, no matter where that is.  It assures us that we’re not trapped by our circumstances or our conditions, and we don’t have to live as though we were.  Neither held in place by our past nor chained by our present, Easter tells us our future is open.  God raised Jesus from the dead, and God will raise us from our dead places, too.

 

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  That is how the question is put by the stranger to the women at the tomb in Luke’s telling of the Easter story.  But perhaps what was meant was, “Why do you look for the dead among the living?” 

 

That coroner in Vancouver was looking for the dead and found the living.  So were rescuers in India three days after last December’s tsunami.  They had come to a village graveyard to bury victims.  But what they found was a two year old child, alive beside the body of her dead mother. 

 

Easter is about expecting death and discovering life, and Easter invites us to look for life in unexpected places; it bids us to look at the dead places in our lives and see where God is working to bring new life.  With “Easter eyes” we can look at tragedy, at disappointment, at rejection and heartbreak to discover that they’re not the ends we thought they’d be.  We can look at our losses and find that God has more to give us.  We can look at our failures and our defeats and discover that God isn’t yet finished with us.  And we can look at death itself and know by the grace of God, it isn’t the last word.

 

Have you buried our faith in a tomb of doubt and disappointment?  God can make it live again. 

 

Have you got dead relationships sealed in tombs of pride, guilt, regret and misunderstanding?  God can restore and heal them. 

 

Is your heart closed with bitterness, anger and fear?  God can open it and let in new joy. 

 

Easter is the loving and gracious act of a God who defies inevitability and redefines possibility.  It shows us a God who refuses to accept what is and who continues to make all things new.  Easter is God’s answer to every death we impose upon each other, the world, or ourselves. 

 

No matter whom you identify with – the women, the disciples, Peter, even Thomas – the Good News is that the resurrection is for all of us.  No matter what parts of your life exhaust you and drain you of a sense of life, Jesus can take them and fill them with hope and vitality and love. 

 

Christ was not only alive on that first Easter morning, he is here and alive with us right now; the resurrection places Jesus on this side of the grave – here and now – in the midst of this life.  He is standing right beside us, strengthening us in this life.  He is here today, here in the words we speak, here even in our fear and perplexity, even in our questioning and doubts.  Christ is here, to lift us up when we fall, to forgive and to heal, to transform and make new.

 

What are you expecting this Easter morning?  May you discover the Risen Christ, who turns despair into hope, hatred into love, sorrow into joy, and death into life.  Alleluia and Amen!

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