Easter Day

 The Collect

Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord's resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Psalm
118.1-2, 14-24

The Readings

1 Corinthians 15.19-26     +     Luke 24.1-12

Why seek ye the living among the dead? ~Luke 24.5

There are many wonder-filled moments recounted in the post-resurrection stories in the Gospels, and we will be invited to hear and ponder some of them over the coming weeks of this Easter season. But one of my favorite moments is this one in Luke’s account of the women’s discovery of the empty tomb, when these ‘two men in shining clothes’—angels, presumably—ask them this remarkable question:‘Why do you look for the living among the dead?’

What a strange, unsettling question! I wonder if the women initially thought, ‘What kind of question is that?! We are here—among the dead—because we’ve come to anoint the body of a dead man! We saw him die! We watched as his body was placed in this tomb! What kind of question is this?’ And yet the angels speak as if it is the women who are behaving strangely: Why are you here in a tomb looking for someone who is alive?
 
This day is strange and wonderful. Easter is the church’s central proclamation, but what an astonishing proclamation! And yes, perhaps, now as then, a claim difficult to comprehend—what do we do with such news? The women at the tomb are bewildered—yet they believe, and bring the message to the others. The men, not so surprisingly, initially think they are talking nonsense. Their resurrection faith will come soon enough, though. And then that faith spreads, but we see also in the New Testament resistance to that faith, a resistance not so different from objections today: ‘You can’t be serious about this resurrection of the dead stuff?’
 
St. Paul states rather bluntly just how serious he is in his letter to the Corinthians. In his celebrated passage in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul states in no uncertain terms that the resurrection really is what it’s all about; that if Christ has not been raised then we should close down the shop and go home; we’ve been duped and we’re wasting our time! But, he says, but in fact Christ has been raised—and that makes all the difference.
 
Herbert McCabe, a 20^th century theologian, wrote about the difference between seeing the resurrection of Jesus as a religious event and seeing it as a cosmic event. To see it as religious event is to say that Christ’s resurrection means that, although he died, he lives on in the faith of his followers—in word, and sacrament, and sacred memory. That is undoubtedly true. But to stop there is to make the resurrection something that really matters only to the church, and individuals within it. But the catholic and apostolic faith we confess proclaims that the resurrection is not just a religious event. It is not just about the church; it is about what God has done for all the world, whether or not the world believes it. Whether or not sometimes the church believes it! The strange, wonderful proclamation of this day is not about what we can manufacture or make meaning of through our own efforts at faith and understanding. 'Faith seeking understanding' certainly has its place. But Easter is first and finally about what God has done: Christ is risen, and death has lost its sting! This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes! Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen. Alleluia. Amen. 

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