The Empty Tomb!
TRANSCRIPTION:
Christ the Lord is risen today – Alleluia!
I am Pastor Suzy Todd, and I welcome you to Easter worship with Dearborn First UMC. Over the last 7 weeks or so of Lent, we’ve journeyed together through a lot of uncertainty. We’ve worked on being honest about the fact that alongside our faith we feel discomfort and fear – even pain. But it is awful hard not to rush past all the ick stuff, when we know the end of the story.
Christ the Lord is risen today – Alleluia!
Before we get there… let’s remember where the world was in the moments before the Good News was discovered.
Image credit: Rod Long via Unsplash.com
Hope was dead.
The followers of Jesus counted on him to overthrow the Roman Empire.
They expected him to give the Jewish people an esteemed status in the eyes of the world.
They anticipated the diaspora of Jewish people to return to Jerusalem and be united.
But hope had died.
The government had taken Jesus into custody, found him guilty of nothing, but imprisoned, tortured and executed him anyway. They were not alone in their guilt. The religious power structures egged it on. They demanded his punishment. And the masses of people who had lined the streets just a week ago with high expectations of Jesus’ reign? They either sat by passively or shouted, “crucify him!” from the mob.
The intersection of political might, religious dogma and a public refusing to stand up for justice is a dangerous place to be! The collision (and collusion) of these evils nailed Jesus - God incarnate - to the cross.
On that Friday before Easter, Jesus’ followers thought the war against evil had been lost.
On that Saturday as Jesus lay in a tomb - They thought evil had won.
But then Sunday came.
We have four distinct stories that survive about that Sunday morning. Each of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) gives us a slightly different account.
Let’s read the oldest account. The one from the Gospel of Mark.
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they could go and anoint Jesus’ dead body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they came to the tomb. 3 They were saying to each other, “Who’s going to roll the stone away from the entrance for us?” 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away. (And it was a very large stone!) 5 Going into the tomb, they saw a young man in a white robe seated on the right side; and they were startled. 6 But he said to them, “Don’t be alarmed! You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised. He isn’t here. Look, here’s the place where they laid him. 7 Go, tell his disciples, especially Peter, that he is going ahead of you into Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you.” 8 Overcome with terror and dread, they fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
In ancient Near East literature, there’s not an importance placed on historic or scientific accuracy. The people of that time and place wrote to convey a message. In the case of the Bible, a message about their understanding and experiences with God. So, the four accounts preserved in the Gospel books of the Bible have variations.
But there are some things that are consistent in all accounts. And that should tell us what is important in this story.
Photo by Bill Gullo on Unsplash
Consistently:
Women go to the tomb first - in all four accounts
In Mark it’s Mary, Mary and Salome
In Matthew it’s just Mary and Mary
In Luke it’s Mary, Joanna, Mary and unnamed others
In John, Mary Magdalene goes alone
Jesus’ body is not there
In John it’s male disciples who have raced to the tomb on Mary’s word of the rolled away stone, who first discover that the body is missing
But in the other Gospels it is the women who make the discovery
There is someone at the tomb
In this account from Mark, it’s a young man dressed in white, sitting in the tomb.
In Matthew it is an angel atop the rolled away stone
In Luke it is two men who materialize beside the women as they search the tomb.
In John there are two angels, and then Jesus whom Mary mistakes for a gardener
And lastly, in EVERY account there is a spreading of the Good News.
From the differences in accounts, we guess at each author’s personal reason for conveying the story. From the shared commonalties we uncover the essential importance, the truth, of the story.
THE IMPORTANCE OF WOMEN
It is important that the women got to the tomb first because of the social standing of women in that time and place. In a parable, shortly before his death, Jesus teaches that “those who are last will be first. And those who are first will be last” (Matthew 20:16).
In this very hierarchical world, women had far less social standing than men. They would have been counted among the “last” in society. To insinuate that a man submitted in any way, was to call him a woman. It was to declare him without agency, of little value to society - property. Women were property – bought and sold with dowries dependent on their beauty and their purity. So, these accounts of the women being first to the tomb, is a manifestation of Jesus’ teaching that the last will be first.
People who are excluded from – or face significant hurdles to- accessing power are easily marginalized.
In an empire where brute force is leveraged, the small, frail and ill live under the real threat of death.
In an empire where money buys access to power – the very real needs of the unemployable, disinherited and hungry are ignored.
In a theocratic empire where a single understanding of God is deemed wholly correct and all others heretical, we can invoke the will of God to demonize each other.
That’s who these women at the tomb are: small, unemployable, excluded from the inner sanctum of the temple. They are disempowered and marginalized. They are hungry for a new world order – one where they no longer live under threat from a strongman government. No longer at the mercy of temple authorities regulating their lives. They have the most to gain from a Jesus-shaped world and they hold onto hope.
To these women, endangered by their powerlessness, the empty tomb means the threat of violence and death is no longer effective – God has conquered death. To a marginalized person, the empty tomb is a sign that Pilate and Herod, Sadducees and Pharisees – the most powerful forces they know - are not the most powerful forces anymore.
Not even the intersection of political might, religious dogma and an apathetic public can kill God.
Image credit: @kellysikkema via Unsplash.com
“HE HAS BEEN RAISED; HE IS NOT HERE.”
The absence of Jesus’ body in the tomb tells us that no matter how devastating things look, it’s not the end of the story.
I cannot imagine being Kilmar Abrego García. This is a man who fled from gang threats in the country of his birth, El Salvador. He came to the US and was granted by the US courts the necessary paperwork to live and work here. On March 15, 2025 – more than a month ago – he was wrongfully (supposedly from an administrative error) deported back to El Salvador, the place he fears. Even though our courts have demanded his return, our executive branch continues to claim it is not possible.
That’s devastating. It surely seems hopeless. But, as people of Jesus – we never lose hope. We refuse to sit by passively and allow an unjust empire to go unchallenged. We call our congressmember. We march in the streets. We keep his name and face in the press. We demand justice because we know the empty tomb is for him and others like him who are living nightmares.
We are the spiritual descendants of these women of the empty tomb. We are people who know - no story is finished while the stone is in front of the tomb. We, with a hope that persists in the face of morally bankrupt rulers like Herod and Pilate have hope that if death can be overcome, then so can the injustices of our world.
But sometimes that hope is hard to hold onto. Maybe today you’re struggling to hold onto it.
WE ARE NOT ALONE: BUILDING A KIN-DOM TOGETHER.
The good news is that we do not have to do it alone – indeed, we cannot do it alone. Every account of the Easter story includes someone else at the tomb. A man, an angel, two men, a gardener – someone is always there for those first witnesses.
This journey from death to life; from devastation to hope is a group project.
Sometimes we need rest. Sometimes we need to lament.
Sometimes we need to stay in bed all day with the covers over our heads…
And on those days… our companions will pick up our slack.
We may individually walk through seasons of despair, but we do not all gather there all at once. When we need respite, our companions fill in the gaps. They lament with us, console us or just sit by our sides.
Good companions remind us that we don’t have to do it alone. They remind us that we are God’s children doing God’s work in the world. When we lose our footings, faithful companions remind us that hope is not dead. God is alive.
“We may individually walk through seasons of despair, but we do not all gather there all at once.
When we need respite, our companions fill in the gaps.”
RESURRECTION IS COMING
and we will get to see it if we’re bold enough to enter the tomb. If we refuse to ignore the world’s pain and instead peer directly at the sight of the wound, we might be surprised.
John 20:11-17 says:
11 Mary stood outside near the tomb, crying. As she cried, she bent down to look into the tomb. 12 She saw two angels dressed in white, seated where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head and one at the foot. 13 The angels asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”
She replied, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they’ve put him.” 14 As soon as she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she didn’t know it was Jesus.
15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she replied, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him and I will get him.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabbouni” (which means Teacher).
17 Jesus said to her, “Don’t hold on to me, for I haven’t yet gone up to my Father. Go to my brothers and sisters and tell them, ‘I’m going up to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
The Gardener from John’s account of the Easter story tells us that God is with us, even when we do not recognize it. The people want a warrior God to shed the blood of Caesar – instead we get a gardener who coaxes life from the rocky soil of the desert. The people want a King who rules with edicts – instead we get a teacher, a Rabbouni, who teaches us to think with parables.
It’s far easier to imagine a God who comes and installs themselves into the top tier of the hierarchical roles we’ve pre-assigned – King, Warrior, Robber Baron, Priest. But Jesus shows up and brings an entirely new system, a new paradigm, a new way of living and acting in the world.
Jesus brings a KIN-DOM – where the last are first.
A KIN-DOM where people are healed.
A KIN-DOM where even adulterers, tax collectors and persecutors are redeemed.
A KIN-DOM where resurrection is possible - ALWAYS.
SPREAD THE GOOD NEWS - BE A VOICE FOR HOPE!
The last thing that each of these Easter accounts has in common is that they all end with either a mandate or a desire to go tell the world. To spread the good news. To be a voice for hope.
It’s hard to keep it to ourselves when we realize that there is nothing – not even death – beyond God’s ability to redeem. And once we grasp this – when we fully know it in our hearts and minds, we see it everywhere we look!
God is alive every time we refuse to comply with the orders of an unjust government.
God is alive every time we demands justice for immigrants.
God is alive every time we pack lunches in this library for the NOAH project.
God is alive in the gardens that surround this building feeding and sheltering God’s creatures.
God is alive in the church when it weeds out destructive theologies.
God is alive when we embrace the inherent beauty found in the depth and breadth of Creation and neighbors.
God is alive every time a hand is extended by someone who has seen the pain of the world and recognized it as un-holy.
Christ the Lord is risen today – Alleluia!
I will end today with the words of Bishop David Bard, the Bishop of the UMC in Michigan: "Live as if joy outlasts tears. Live as if justice overcomes. Live as if beauty always returns. Live as if beloved community is always possible. Live as if tenderness is our greatest strength. Live as if love is the most powerful thing there is."
That is what Easter is… Amen!
Prayer:
Eternal, empowering, Holy One,
we praise you for the promise of the Easter story. We give thanks for the fresh energy that the Easter story brings into our lives.
We are thankful that Jesus continues to be revealed in new ways and that we can experience God’s love, presence and vision for the world in our lives and in our times.
Gracious God,
we praise and thank you for the witness of the women who went to the tomb. Like us, they travelled that path with fears, grief and uncertainty. Like us they found joys and relief they experienced.
It is good to recognize ourselves as part of the history of your people who struggle between fear of what is, grief at what has been; and a desire to affirm a hope-filled but unknown future.
Unexpected, moving, evolving spirit of God,
you rearrange the playing field that we know so well. You move the first to last and the last to first. But you do not merely re-arrange the hierarchy, you crumble it before our eyes and construct a Kin-dom. We are constantly reminded of the ways you create and re-create through cycles of death and new life, through change and fresh beginnings.
We come into your presence today seeking new beginnings.
We pray for those among us who are struggling.
As your Easter people, we want new life to be offered and experienced by people and situations all over our world. We want hope to be known and embraced. We want your Kin-dom to come- so we pray the prayer Jesus taught saying:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kin-dom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. For thine is the kin-dom the power and the glory forever. Amen
Benediction
When it takes hold, resurrection doesn’t let go,
It rolls the stone from our deepest wound,
It shakes the dead awake,
It banishes the silence from our throats,
Let us go out into the world embracing the upheaval of resurrection
And let us proclaim hope in all places, at all times.
“Live as if joy outlasts tears. Live as if justice overcomes. Live as if beauty always returns. Live as if beloved community is always possible. Live as if tenderness is our greatest strength. Live as if love is the most powerful thing there is.”
~Bishop David Bard
