"No Idle Tale" - Sermon for Easter Sunday

No Idle Tale
Easter Sunday (NL3)
March 31, 2013
Luke 24.1-16

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed, alleluia! Happy Easter, my sisters and brothers in Christ, to whom I bring words of grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. Amen

It seemed to them an idle tale.

What a time this has been, since Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem on Ash Wednesday, beginning his journey (and ours) to the cross and empty tomb. It has been a series of ups and downs along the way. Jesus spent some great quality and quantity time with his followers, preaching, teaching, and healing, explaining the way of the kingdom. Yet, as we discovered along the way, not all who listened were favorable to his message.

Even so, Jesus enters Jerusalem to the cheers of the crowds, only to be met with the jeers of the religious leaders, who engaged Jesus in larger disputes, ending with his trial and crucifixion. Not all of those leaders were antagonistic. Joseph of Arimathea, who resonated with Jesus’ vision of the kingdom, asked for Jesus’ body and out of deep respect, laid it in a fresh tomb.

Then there were the women, the ones who had been following Jesus since Galilee, who were there with him at the cross. Now they were coming to anoint his body with spices because time had run out, the Sabbath coming upon them too soon. When they get to the tomb, they are first perplexed that the stone has been rolled back and oddly, the first thing they find when they arrive is nothing. Then terrified by the appearance of two heavenly beings in dazzling garments and they are given something: they are given a word. “He has been raised.” “Why do you look for the living among the dead,” they ask. After being reminded of Jesus’ promises, they rush to tell the eleven, Jesus’ most trusted friends, and many others of this baffling news. It is to them “an idle tale,” well beyond belief.

Another translation calls their message nonsense, which is still too tame a word. The Greek word here is leros and it is the same as the one from which we get our word delirious. In other words, the eleven think that the women are crazy, nuts, out of their minds. And they are right, are they not? After all, Jesus was certainly dead, and dead is dead. Arland Hultgren, a professor at Luther Seminary, says it takes a lot of faith and courage to believe in the resurrection. David Lose, one of his colleagues, says that if you don’t find the resurrection at least a little hard to believe you’re probably not taking it too seriously. Resurrection thinking is crazy thinking, because it is not resuscitation. There is something completely new and different that happens.

It is important to linger at the empty tomb for a while and not rush too quickly to the resurrection. On my worse days I wonder if God called me to be a preacher for this very reason, not so much because I’m crazy (though I am that), but because I need to preach the resurrection to believe it, and as I believe it I continue to preach it. In other words, my prayer is always, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. One woman asks another, “Can this possibly be true?” The other, who is going through an awful time replies, “It had better be, or this life would be even more hell than it already is.” So, on my better days I think, “The resurrection is not too good to be true; it’s too good not to be true.”

It’s important to recognize that the empty tomb, in and of itself, does not bring about faith. Resurrection faith will come, albeit slowly, to the disciples and to us, but it will take an appearance of the risen Christ to do it. Fortunately, the power and love of God are not thwarted by our shaky belief and expectations. This is good because the families of Dennis, Leone, Elma and countless others desperately need it to be true. Resurrection faith will come, and if the risen Christ hasn’t brought it to you, he will. Yet, when it comes it will change everything, because it’s too good not to be true. Christ is risen, he is risen indeed, alleluia! That’s no idle tale. Thanks be to God. Amen.