Easter Sunrise

The fragrance of rich spices hung in the air with grief as the women walked to the tomb. The sun had just risen and the women were on their way to care for Jesus’s body and anoint it, for death has its own smell. My youngest Adalyn has recently discovered that everyone has a tendency to wake up with their own scent. She calls these “morning smells.” She calls me in the morning. I come to her room and climb in her bed to cuddle her up to me and she says “mom, you have morning smells.”

The women early in the morning were prepared with their fragrant spices to layer over the morning smell of death. But something was amiss. There was a tomb that had been opened and at the right of where Jesus’s body had been was a mysterious “young man” in a white robe.

This would be like the funeral director coming in early to prepare the body only to find it missing and a stranger there in the room. These women were terrified. Dumbfounded. Mystified. Confused. They didn’t know how to process all that they were seeing, and who they were not seeing.

As if anticipating their response, the young man says “do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.”

The man points to where Jesus had been laid. See for yourself. Then he says to go and tell the others that Jesus is going ahead of them in Galilee. They are promised that they will see him there, just as he had said. The women flee the tomb in fear and excitement, not saying a word.

This is how the gospel of Mark ends, quite in contrast to the others. Later scribes came back and added in some more, probably because they couldn’t fathom why anyone would end a story with women running from the tomb in excitement and fear.

Mark’s Easter account gives us no lilies and trumpets, no earthquakes. We don’t even get to see Jesus. Mark doesn’t spend a lot of time explaining the resurrection. Plenty of others have tried; but ultimately all the science, history, and reason fall short in the face of the wonder of divine mystery that we gather and behold on the dawn of Easter.

In Mark’s gospel, Jesus is on the move, already ahead of them. The women have to tell the others and follow after him. Hmm.

In Mark 1: 16 when Jesus calls his first disciples, he says “follow me.” Again in Mark 8:33 when Jesus rebukes Peter, he uses the same language when telling Peter to get behind him. In other words, follow after me. Maybe here again at the resurrection, Mark wants us to see Jesus as ahead of us calling again for his disciples to follow him.

I wonder if the women dropped the spices as they ran from the tomb. Did they abandon what they had carried to care for death in search of new life? They had been walking to a graveside and now were running towards a resurrection.

Mark’s gospel ends in a movement towards the risen Lord. Will we chase after Easter this morning with the news of the One whom death could not hold?

In our running and telling, a new fragrance is born. In 2 Corinthians 2:14-17, Paul speaks about this saying “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him.[a] 15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing: 16 to the one group a fragrance from death[b] to death, to the other a fragrance from life[c] to life. Who is qualified for these things? 17 For we are not peddlers of God’s word like so many,[d] but as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God, we are speaking in Christ before God.”

Maybe you don’t like the smell of Easter lilies or are allergic to certain flowers and fragrances. It doesn’t matter. In Christ, you bear the fragrance of resurrection. Friar Francesco Patton said “The fragrance of the resurrection.. will mark the start of a new world and will be a perfume that can fill the whole of the created, the universe and our history.” The fragrance of resurrection changes everything.

I once knew a lady who had a signature fragrance that she always wore. The scent was lovely but quite strong, and so I always knew she was present before I ever actually saw her. Her fragrance encircled her and invited people into her presence. Maybe you have known somebody whose very presence seemed to carry the fragrance of Christ.

This morning, may the breath of our Easter Alleluias fill every space with the aroma of the risen Lord.

As Elizabeth Myer Boulton shares at the end of one her poems “Why do you look for the living among the dead when impermanence is the fragrance of everything under heaven? Can’t you smell this spring-bringing breath of God? It’s in the very air we breathe - every winter gives way in the end. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the breath of God, the Word of God, the Love of God, the Joy of God, the Whole Life and Resurrection of God will stand forever.”

Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia. Give praise to the risen Lord.