April 12,  2009 The Feast of the Resurrection also called Easter Sunday Year B Acts 10:34-43 or Isaiah 25:6-9 Psalm 119:1-2, 14-24 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 or Acts as above John 20:1-18 or Mark 16:1-8 Click here for sermons from previous weeks The Rev. Virginia W. Nagel Ephphatha Parish of the Deaf Episcopal Diocese of Central NY Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! Have you ever been in a group of people who have all experienced the same thing? What usually happens, after the event, is that everyone tells what they remember or how they experienced that thing that has happened. And, of course, no two stories are exactly the same, even if the people were all watching the same thing as it happened. You see this in the newspapers when something happens...everyone who saw it tells a slightly different story. And if you go to court to watch a trial, you will see that every witness will tell their story a little differently. Today is Easter Day, the feast of the Resurrection...when we remember Jesus coming back to life after being dead for three days. If you look in your Bible, you will find that there are several different stories about this wonderful miracle. Mary Magdalene, the close friend of Jesus, who worked with him for several years after he healed her, had an interesting story to tell. She had gone to the tomb to mourn for Jesus, and when she got there, she found the tomb was empty. She was very upset. She thought that maybe the high priests, or maybe the Roman soldiers, had taken Jesus' body away and hid it somewhere. It bothered her a lot, just as you would be bothered if you went to visit the grave of someone you loved a lot and found it had been dug up and the coffin was empty. She wandered around the garden where the tomb was, crying. When she met a man, who she thought was the gardener, she asked for his help: Jesus' body is not in his tomb! Have you taken it somewhere? If you have, please tell me where it is, so I can go and claim it and bring it back to the tomb where it should be. She was crying so hard, that she didn't even recognize that it was Jesus himself that she was talking to! And then she was so happy and excited, she tried to hold onto him, to make sure he would not disappear again. He had to gently remove her hands from his shoulders, and remind her that she must not touch him. Well, she went back to tell the other disciples, and when she got there, Peter and John heard her story. They immediately started running to the tomb. John was younger and got there first, but he was afraid to go into the tomb and see for himself. When Peter arrived, he entered the tomb, and saw that it was empty. The interesting thing is that we are told in today's reading that John believed that Jesus had risen from the dead, even though he did not go into the tomb to see. We are not told if Peter believed or not. They went back to the others, and told them what they had found...but, that night, when Jesus came to them, they were all shocked and frightened, and thought Jesus was a ghost. So maybe the others didn't really believe what Peter and John had told them, after all. Jesus had told them several times before he died that he would die, and come to life again after three days, but it seems that perhaps they had not paid attention, or maybe they did not understand or believe him, because when it all happened, they found it difficult to accept what their own eyes showed them. Mark's story of that first Easter is different. He tells us that three of the women went to the tomb early on Easter morning, bringing spices. The Jewish people did not embalm their dead, but wrapped them in fine linen cloths with spices to cover the smell of death. There had been no time for that on Friday, because they had had to bury Jesus quickly before sundown when the Passover would begin. So they had just wrapped the body in a linen cloth and put it in the tomb. Now, the women were going to finish the work of burial. They worried about how they would move the huge stone that closed the tomb. But when they got there, they found an angel was sitting on the stone, that had been rolled away. He told them that Jesus was not there, because he was now alive again. And he gave them a message to give to the others. They were to tell the others that they should go to Galilee, and meet Jesus there. But the women were so terrified that they went back to theothers, and were afraid to tell them what the angel had said, because they didn't think the others would believe them. Maybe they didn't believe the angel, themselves...we don't know. Anyway, they kept quiet about the whole affair, and it was not until later that day that they heard the others talking about Jesus being risen from the dead. There are other stories, too...the one about the disciples walking to a nearby town who met Jesus on the road, and the story about Jesus coming to the group in the upper room, where they had had dinner together on Thursday night. Each story tells us a little that the others do not tell us. But all of them give us the same main fact: Jesus, who was crucified on Friday and whom we buried that afternoon, is alive again! He has risen from the dead, just as he said he would! And so...what do we say about all this? For hundreds of years, Christians have had a special greeting for Eastertide: Alleluia! Christ is risen! and we answer, The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! Back To Top Home