The Resurrection of Our Lord, Year C 2025

Easter Sunday, Year C

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Chris is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!

What is the most unbelievable thing we face in our society right now? I suppose we could say that “Blue Origin” trip to orbit with the 6 all-female crew on board? Have you seen this? Lots of people who think the whole thing was a hoax. I’m leaning more toward the massive growth of Artificial Intelligence in the last 2 years.

These “AIs” are basically large computers that are, somehow, “learning”. They’re growing smarter and smarter. They’ve gotten to the point now that you can translate languages in real time. I can speak into my phone in English, and the person on the other end can choose their language and hear my words in their own tongue. In real time. The delay is barely detectable. And that’s just one of the many things they’re designed to do for us. They’re going to start managing our emails for us. Those of you with 14,000 unread emails? Hope is on the way. It won’t be long and they’ll be managing our schedules and calendars for us. They’re already doing research and doing weeks of work in seconds, or even less. One of the people I listen to in keeping up with current events has studied this with great intensity. I trust him when he says by this time next year, our lives will be drastically different because of AI. I’m not saying we’ll be bowing before our new robot overlords, but I’m certain that much will be different.

What else could we say is unbelievable? I’d say the state of our government and our economy and all that… but that’s sure to ruffle feathers. I could say how unbelievable it is to me that in much of our country, our nation’s flag is considered hateful. That’s pretty hard to believe.

Ok, I’m on rocky ground now. But when have you encountered something unbelievable, but it came true? With the way movies and Computer Generated Graphics have come so far these days, they can put a dragon on the screen and make you believe he’s alive. Or spaceships invading our planet and blowing up the White House. Or robots made from liquid metal trying to wipe out all of humanity. The special effects we see are so amazing, what could we see that would shock us anymore?

I say this because the event we celebrate today is not getting the response it deserves. And I don’t blame any of you. I’m guilty of it, too. We’ve all been numbed to the idea of someone being raised from the dead. To us, it’s a combination of “old news” (we’ve heard about this for a long time), and the comparison of it to Hollywood special effects. It just doesn’t grab our attention like it would have 2,000 years ago.

As to the Hollywood comparison, the Gospels don’t really tell us what the resurrection looked like. We just know that Jesus’ dead, lifeless body was laid in a tomb on Friday night, and by Sunday morning, his body had mysteriously de-materialized through the bands they had wrapped him in. (John’s Gospel account gives us some hints about this.) They weren’t unwrapped. They weren’t cut off. The way John tells us they were just “laying there” - it had to have been some supernatural means that got him out of his burial cloths.

Just for fun, I’d encourage you to look up the latest news on the Shroud of Turin. The latest evidence has erased all the skepticism about it being several centuries too new, and the coloring might have been faked. Nope. This relic might actually be the burial cloth that covered Jesus’ dead body. And in the moment he was resurrected, his glorified body glowed so brightly that it burned the image into the fibers of that cloth… without setting it on fire. Amazing. Worth looking up.

But none of the Gospel writers tell us what the resurrection looked like. Maybe if they had told us, our special-effects-spoiled brains would be more amazed by this event. Sadly, they don’t tells us. But they couldn’t - they weren’t there to witness it. So we have to go on only what we have. The body is gone, and the linen cloths were lying by themselves in the empty tomb.

The other problem I think we have is that this is old news. Everyone in our church family (except the youngest children) have all heard this story before, many times. Jesus died, but didn’t stay dead. He was raised from the dead. He conquered death, and now we get to enjoy eternal life with him. This is not old news. This is GOOD NEWS. THE GOOD NEWS. But let’s back up.

Jesus died on that Friday so long ago. His death was sad, tragic even. But it was necessary. His followers felt defeated and scared that they might get the same fate… and if the story stopped on Friday, we likely wouldn’t be here right now. Yes, it was vitally important for Jesus to die for us. He took our sins to the cross with him. In his death, we are freed from our bondage to sin. Without his death, our sins would keep us forever separated from God. And that means eternal death. None of us want that, and God doesn’t want that for us. That’s a cold, empty, lonely way to spend eternity.

But the story doesn’t end on Friday… because Friday then moves to Sunday. Our attention turns from the cross to the empty tomb. What does that tell us? That now that Christ’s death has happened, it achieved what it was meant to: atonement for our sins. THEN God gets on to the good stuff: now we’re free. Free from what? Well, free from sin. We already said that. The better question is not free *from* what? The better question is free *to* what?

Because we are free *from* sin, it doesn’t have the hold over us it once did. Now, we are free to be Christians. We are free to live the way God would have us live. We are free to love God and love neighbor. We are free to enjoy creation the way we were always meant to. No, the world isn’t perfect yet. That’s still coming. And we’ll see it someday. How do I know? Because the tomb was EMPTY.

Raising a dead person back to life was an amazing feat. But this was not merely a resuscitation. This was a resurrection. Jesus’ flesh was now “glorified”. This is a glimpse of what we think of when we say “the resurrection of the body” in the Creed. This is what we will all have when Christ returns. A body that won’t get sick or diseased. It will not know pain and it will never die. It will be truly amazing for all of us who have been saved.

Easter has gone through a lot since the day the found the empty tomb. Somewhere along the way, a rabbit got mixed in, and we got eggs and chocolate and pastel colors and spring break… these things are not what the Resurrection of Our Lord is supposed to mean. So let’s not get distracted by them. Please don’t think I hate Peter Cottontail. I don’t. But he doesn’t get center stage today. Today is about Jesus Christ, our Resurrected Savior.

His resurrection means, once more, that God keeps His Promises. God foretold all of this. Jesus even taught his students that this would happen. And even the people who learned at his very feet didn’t quite get it. They saw him die on the cross and they sort of gave up hope. They thought it was over. And then they found the empty tomb. And then he appeared to the women to tell them he was alive. And the two men who are clearly angels appear and confirm it for them: “He is not here (in the tomb), but has risen.”

Brothers and sisters, I just want us all to consider that this miracle of Jesus’ resurrection would have been truly unimaginable in his day. They would not have been able to even think it possible that Jesus could rise from the dead (even though many saw him do the same for others - even his friend Lazarus, who had been dead for 4 days). They didn’t have the same bias and numbness that we do. This would have been utterly astounding to them. “Marvelous” in every sense of that word, too.

The symbol of our faith is the cross, because on that cross, Jesus paid the price for our sins. He made it possible for us to come back to God, after our sins separated us. But the empty tomb says to us “now what?” Your sins have been paid for because your Savior died for you. And he didn’t stay dead, to show you that you have been freed from your bondage. You don’t have to fear death. You have an eternity to look forward to. An eternity of peace, love, joy, fulfillment… all with God and our fellow believers. So what are we to do now, knowing that Christ is alive? What do we do while we await his return?

Today, we celebrate. We will celebrate the meal he commanded us to celebrate. The meal that reminds us of the work he did on the cross. But it’s also the meal that we call “a foretaste of the feast to come.” This meal reminds us of the past, but it also points to our future. We enjoy it now as a reminder of God’s promises to us, and as a way to come as close to Christ as we can get for now. But this meal also lets us know that a great feast is coming, and God invites us to that table, too. And that feast will be never-ending. That feast will be an eternal celebration of all that God has done. And that feast is guaranteed to us because the tomb is empty. Let us never get so numb that we are no longer amazed at that miracle.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Hallelujah!