STARTLED BY GRACE

Rev. Dr. Mary Lou Howson

Luke 24: 1-12, Easter

April 04, 2010

Early on that first Easter, the disciples were still huddled behind locked doors in the upper room. They were afraid. As dawn broke, it brought just one more day for them to wrap themselves in the shroud of confusion and grief – for the only power they could see was the world's evil. The religious authorities and the state had spoken and Jesus was crushed and dead. They had seen him bring life from death. They had experienced the transforming love of God through him but they could not reconcile it with God's very real silence these last days. It was hard to taste any hope at all. Life itself felt like death.
The women who followed him were not quite so fearful – the Romans didn't crucify women – they weren't important enough to matter. But their grief and confusion also held them in the grip of death. They had watched him die. They had been there and they could not wash the pain from their eyes.
Yet they had one more task to complete. Men were forbidden to touch dead bodies because they were ritually polluting. Caring for the dead was women's work. So it was that they rose early, to make their way to the tomb in order to anoint his body. It was the last thing they could do for him.
Thus it was not surprising that when the women found the tomb empty, they assumed that someone had stolen his body. What other explanation was there? Death is death. It never occurred to them how odd it would be for someone to steal a naked body and leave the grave clothes behind. Even the angels who asked them why they were seeking the living among the dead could not penetrate what they were convinced they knew – that life does not emerge from death.
When the angels finally did convince the women that Jesus had risen and that they were to go and tell the men who were still locked in the upper room, the men would not believe them. They considered the women to be telling "idle tales." Although, Peter did get up and run to the tomb to see for himself. They had all heard him say that he must die but that he would rise again but the idea had not penetrated their minds because it was unthinkable – they could not take it in.
Now I want you to look at something for a minute and tell me what it is.
H I J K L M N O
This exercise is just a simple way of reminding us how often we, too, fail to see what is right in front of our eyes because we aren't looking for it or because it appears in an unfamiliar form. Like the disciples we cannot see what we cannot imagine. Albert Einstein said it in a intellectual way: "No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it."
What are the things that so often keep us from seeing? . . . That keep us bound to the ways of death? . . . That make our lives far more painful than they need to be? . . . That blind us to the truth that can liberate us and the love that can heal us?
Let me give you one example. My father was a trust attorney who worked for a bank. A couple of weeks before he died, he said to me that he wished he had been able to work with plants because that was what he really loved. When I asked him why he hadn't, he said that he wouldn't have made enough money. He had learned early what was acceptable to his parents and what was not. At the cost of his own heart, he had done what he was supposed to do. All of us have similar stories of times we remained in tombs of our own making and could see no way out. Often it takes new vision and courage to risk moving beyond the barriers that we and others impose on ourselves. The Middle East is currently a tomb of its own making. Ireland, after centuries of destructive behavior, had hopefully built enough of a new consciousness to be emerging into new life.
Remember that there were angels in the tomb to point the women toward resurrection. I believe that there are always angels in our tombs with us, that we are never alone in our suffering or abandoned in our pain. God's love keeps vigil with us no mater how dark the night, no matter how cold the tomb, no matter how empty our heart, no matter how lost our soul. God is there, watching and waiting, nudging and calling until we are ready to be transformed with Christ and step out into new life.
For God raised Jesus from the dead so that we, too, could be freed from the powers of death and receive new life. As we sang earlier
Soar we now where Christ has led,
Following our exalted head,
Made like him, like him we rise,
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies.

All we need do is to begin to live in the amazing, life-giving, life-renewing grace of God. For love's redeeming work is already accomplished. We need only join the risen Christ on the road.

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