A sermon preached at Good Shepherd, Berkeley, on Easter Day, April 4, 2021

Readings for Year B: Isa. 25:6-9; Ps. 118:1-2, 14-24; Acts 10:34-43; Mark 16:1-8

[Peter said:] We are witnesses to all that Jesus did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.

They ate and drank with him. They were with him, once again, as friends and disciples. It sounds sort of normal, doesn’t it? A bit like what we hope for in our own lives as the current pandemic virus loosens its grip on our world. It sounds almost, well, ordinary—though, of course, it’s also anything but ordinary. This was, after all, “after God raised him on the third days”—three days after they had seen him dead and buried.

Peter’s account of it all sounds clear and confident and well-practiced and free of any confusion, even though he’s talking, in this passage from Acts, to an audience of aliens with whom he was none too comfortable—a Roman centurion and his household. He doesn’t really understand why God has insisted that he go speak to them. But he’s trying to sum up his experience briefly and matter-of-factly. If the Holy Spirit has plans for this odd encounter, then the Spirit will have to take charge of it. Peter doesn’t know what else to do. (And, as you may remember from hearing the full story on other occasions, what the Spirit does is to convert this whole bunch of Gentiles, leaving Peter to struggle with the aftermath!)

But however calm and collected Peter’s story of the Passion and Resurrection sounds, we know that, on that first Easter Day, it was quite different. We read the Easter story from St. Mark’s Gospel today. It may not have seemed quite familiar. We don’t read it very often; usually, we choose the other alternative in the lectionary—the one from John’s Gospel with its wonderful story about Mary Magdalene’s strange and wonderful encounter with the Risen Christ. 

But Mark, too, tells us something very important about the Resurrection. He makes it clear that it was a profoundly unsettling experience for those first witnesses:

[The women] had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, siting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 

This “young man,” sounding suspiciously like an angel, says to them: “Don’t be alarmed! You’re looking for the man who was crucified. He’s not here. He’s been raised. So go tell his disciples to meet him in Galilee.”

And then comes the strangest verse in all of Mark’s Gospel: “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” Boom! End of story. End of Mark’s Gospel, at least in the oldest version we have of it. They told nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. 

Of course, the fact that Mark can tell us the story suggests that the women did eventually tell somebody. But Mark has chosen to leave us with the first raw shock of Easter, before the rejoicing had had time to set in. It’s there in the other gospels, too. But Mark makes us almost taste it and feel it. “They told nothing to anyone, for they were afraid!” This can’t happen! This couldn’t happen! If this has happened, our world is being turned on its head! 

I don’t mean to take away the joy of Easter here. I just want us to feel a little something of the shock, the disorientation, even the fear. Then, perhaps, we can discern more clearly what the joy of Easter is telling us. The powers of sin and death, even though they are very much alive in our world (as this last year has so strongly reminded us), are not invincible. They have already been crippled by the events of Good Friday and Easter Day. 

And we’ve heard a vision, this morning, of the future that will ultimately replace our world of sin and death. Isaiah had already provided it hundreds of years before:

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples

a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines. . . .

And he will destroy on this mountain

the shroud that is cast over all peoples, . . .

he will swallow up death forever. 

Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces. . . .

Does the vision of a great al fresco feast—a great picnic in a beautiful place bringing together all sorts of people in peace—seem too trivial to capture the joy of Easter? I hope not. The idea of a world where death doesn’t have the last word—does it seem too fantastic for us to entertain? I hope not. For these are the visions that can inspire us to live more freely and generously here and now. 

And, in the long interim while we wait for these hopes to be fulfilled, we have with us the Risen Jesus—an uncanny figure and yet very real. He is far beyond us; yet, he is here for us. He can come and go through closed doors; and yet, his friends can touch him; they can eat and drink with him. Easter was terribly strange and alarming for those first disciples and, at the same time, strangely familiar and, as they began to get past their initial shock, utterly exhilarating. It turned their whole world on its head, and it also opened up a future they could never have imagined otherwise.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!