On that day
And so it was, according to Luke, that the four women got up early in the morning, and gathered their spices together. It was of course a proper and loving thing to do, to go to the tomb and anoint the body of their beloved Jesus. They had always been close to him, really part of his inner circle, and now they had this one last chance to express their love again.

They probably didn't sleep too well anyhow, their heads spinning, their lives right down to the core rocked by the events of the week. So they might as well get up, organize the spices and perfumes, wrap them in a bundle, and with the first hint of light appearing in the east, begin their quiet walk to the tomb.

They were so flabbergasted by what had happened, they scarcely knew what to say. How could they? They each knew only in part. One could only think the worst, most vile thoughts about their own religious leaders. Yes, their Jesus had sparred with them over and over again. But he was a good man, anyone could see that. It was obvious that he knew his Torah. He could quote it, for heavens sake. Why couldn't they just let it go? Why did they have to get so angry?

As they walked in the early dawn another thought about the people. Why are people so stupid? Why are people so fickle? One day they sing his praises. They throw palm branches on the ground and bow down, and it sure didn't look fake, they meant it at the time. And then, just a few days later, they turn into a lynch mob. Crucify him, crucify him, crucify him! This mob mentality just swept through them, sucking everyone in, and then it was all over.

Then there were the disciples. The men! Have mercy upon us. They are so good, and they did give up a lot. They abandoned their livelihoods to be with Jesus. They asked a lot of questions and sometimes they seemed really smart but then at other times they were without a clue. But then at the end when it came down to it, just the other day, when he was there and his agony was unbearable who was there to watch and to pray? Not the men.

Another thought about the Romans. I hate them, she thought. They seem benign on the outside but they've shown their real colors now. They are just occupiers. Nothing more. And they have proven now again that they are brutes. They only want to preserve their power. They may make nice for awhile but once you talk a little too much, or begin to threaten their authority just a little too much, then they don't care and there is no chance of mercy.

History divides, the new is coming
Once again today we are thinking about the possibility of change, of transformation. The text we just read from Isaiah proclaims the prophet's glorious vision of what might become, what will become.
I am about to create new heavens and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind…
No more shall there be an infant that lives but a few days…
They shall not labor in vain…
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together…

The prophet's vision is that one day hope will prove victorious over despair.

And now the four women, according to Luke, come closer and closer to the tomb, in the shadowy early morning, and as they approach the last bend history is about to divide, and genuine, lasting hope is on the verge of taking a great leap forward.

They round the corner and are surprised, amazed, and confused by what they see. And in their shocked state they get a bit of a reprimand. Don't you get it? Why do you seek the living among the dead?

But we were just doing the normal, compassionate thing. We came to anoint his body and now we don't find him here so what is going on…. Somehow in those moments an important transformation began within the four women. They did an about face and spoke first to the people they knew best, the disciples, about what they had seen and heard. It didn't matter that they were dismissed for telling a foolish tale. Their transformation had begun and, as Mary Schertz writes ``nothing more is ever required of the disciples in the gospel of Luke than thisto forget oneself and take up the cross by telling the good news come what may.'' God, like Isaiah envisioned, was doing a new thing.

Luke's resurrection story, with its repeated use of the conjunction ``but,'' is full of surprising twists and turns. This is the truth of the gospel, that it is always full of surprising twists and turns. The gospel, Karl Barth once said, ``is not a natural therefore but a miraculous nevertheless.''

So the women walk into the tomb and, nevertheless, to their great astonishment, they don't find the stately body. He is not here, the one in dazzling clothes says, and then it is not, logically speaking, he is therefore risen. Instead it is the surprising ``but,'' the nevertheless, and then the hope-filled, he is risen!

Let the transformation begin
As the women returned to proclaim to the other disciples their minds must have been scrambled trying to figure out what was going on. How can this be? What does it mean? Where is he? Somehow in those moments a new kind of hope was being birthed within them. A new kind of hope that opened up new vistas, the new heaven and the new earth that Isaiah imagined. They couldn't quite see it, their minds couldn't yet imagine it, and there was no way to speak of it, but it was there coming, arriving, breaking into their lives, as sure as the sun was rising in the East.

And we still can't describe it very well. Our words seem wholly inadequate. But we begin to know and experience the hope in the breaking of the bread together with others, in the raising of our voices in harmonious song, in the still and quiet of prayer, in the hushed silence and smiles around a hospital bed, and in the joy and laughter of children at play.

We see the cross and we remember the firm word of Jesus, take up my cross and follow me. When we think on the cross carefully we remember that there are splinters and nails, and the hint of blood stains. It reminds us as well that there was trouble at every turn. Trouble with the good religious people of the time. Trouble with the local Roman political authorities.

But there are flowers hanging on this cross. They remind us of hope. They remind us that the way of the cross is the path to hope. They remind us that the ways of violence and death, of oppression and injustice, of sin and slavery, that these do not have the final word. We are people of hope. We are people who are stubborn enough, and insightful enough, to see past the shrouds which can impair our vision. We see Christ, the risen one, the one who lives within, the one who leads us and guides us, both now and evermore. Amen.

--April 8, 2007