April 24, 2011 | Easter Sunrise Service

With Us Always

Victoria G. Curtiss
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Matthew 28:1–20

An empty tomb by itself is not evidence of resurrection. An empty tomb just means that what we expected to be there isn’t. When Mary Magdalene and Mary, or John and Peter, saw a vacant place where Jesus had been buried, they became afraid and distressed. They did not conclude that Jesus was alive. They probably thought grave robbers had been at work. The tomb had been vandalized. Jesus’ body had been stolen—a final act of indignation.

It is such a natural conclusion about the empty tomb that the chief priests and elders pounced on it after hearing from the men who had been guarding the tomb. The religious leaders paid the guards to tell a lie: their spin was to be that the disciples came and stole Jesus’ body while the guards were asleep.

Why would the chief priests and elders spend their precious money to further such deception? Something must have threatened them about how affected the guards were by their experience. The guards were forever changed. They experienced not only an earthquake, but saw an angel who descended from heaven and rolled away the stone from the tomb—not to let Jesus out, but to show he wasn’t there. The angel told the women, “Do not be afraid. Jesus has been raised from the dead. You will see him in Galilee.” The women left in fear and joy, to tell others. Eventually the guards recovered from being struck like dead men, and they, too, went into the city to tell others. The way they had been changed threatened the religious leaders; something big had happened beyond their control or comprehension.

We don’t know how to explain all this. The earth shaking, an angel strong enough to move a boulder, Jesus’ body nowhere to be found, and later, Jesus appearing to the disciples in Galilee. It is all such a mystery. But these are the means the Bible uses to say God’s powerful hand was at work. Through a great mystery God raised Jesus from the dead.

People of that first Easter knew Jesus had been raised through an empty tomb and encounters with the risen Christ. For us who were not around then but who in one way or another have met Christ ourselves—and I count myself as one of them—we know that Christ was raised from the dead because Christ is alive now. Jesus Christ is alive now, not merely in the sense of a great person whose influence lives on, but alive as an active presence and force—not as he once was, but in a new way, doing now what he did before: meeting people, getting inside us, calling and empowering us, comforting and lifting us, renewing and redirecting us, being with us always and everywhere.

This point was made by theologian Richard Niebuhr, who wrote,

We cannot penetrate far into the miracle of the resurrection. . . . [But this we can and do know: the] forsaken and rejected Servant of God has been given a name above every name among us. . . . He has entered into the life of the . . . world as the most persistent of rulers, the most inescapable of companions. His eyes are still upon us when we deny him; he is forever warning us about our ambitions to be great; he is always here teaching us to pray. He is built into the structure of our conscience. . . . He is present with his wounds and in his rejection.

Niebuhr concludes, “That Jesus Christ is risen from the dead . . . is one of the most patent facts in . . . history. Our evidence for it is not (finally) in beliefs about empty tombs or about appearances to others, but in our (own) acknowledgement of his power” (quoted by Eugene Bay in the sermon “Risen Christ, Risen Christian,” 31 March 1991).

Easter presents us with the truth of God’s victorious triumph of life over death. God blows apart our limited understanding with a love that defies all boundaries. All boundaries of physical space, all restrictions of chronological time, all limitations of the senses and of the intellect are shattered by a truth that cannot be thwarted by crucifixion or contained by a grave. The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ proclaims that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing. Not even death. Not the death of Jesus. Not the death of a loved one. Not your own death. Nothing can separate us—ever. Life eternal, Love eternal is ours. Jesus is alive and, as he promised, is with us always.

Theologian H. A. Williams wrote that the proclamation that Christ is risen speaks about all humanity, about the world: “All that separates and injures and destroys has been overcome by what unites and heals and creates. Death has been swallowed up by life.” Williams stated, “Resurrection as our final and ultimate future can be known only by those who perceive resurrection with us now encompassing all we are and do. For only then will [resurrection] be recognized as a country we have already entered and in whose light and warmth we have already lived” (H. A. Williams, True Resurrection, p. 13).

How do we recognize resurrection happening in our midst?

An artist, painfully aware of an utter emptiness and impotence, later finds his imagination gradually stirred into life and discovers a vision that he feels not only able but compelled to express. That is resurrection.

An individual finds less and less personal fulfillment in a highly successful professional life. She had identified with a limited and false portrait of herself, and its claims of safety had emptied her of all contentment. Yet in the midst of despair she discovers a broader basis on which to establish herself, a basis that allows for more of who she truly is and opens the way for a richer life. That is resurrection.

A long-married couple finds their relationship, once rich and fulfilling, slowly drying up into no more than an external observance. Then a new relationship emerges, less greedy than the old one, deeper, more stable, more satisfying with an inexhaustible quality of life because it does not depend on the constant recharging of emotional batteries. That is resurrection.

Suffering or severe illness or a catastrophe that wounds or kills someone we love—such suffering always has a huge impact. People are never the same again. Sometimes they shrivel up and atrophy. But appearances can be deceiving. Somehow those who suffer become aware of being in touch with a new dimension of reality. Somehow they have penetrated to the center of the universe. They are more deeply alive, aware of God’s grace. That is resurrection.

Mothers in Cabrini-Green watch one day care service after another leave their neighborhood until there is no accessible place left for them to take their children while they go to work. They come together to explore how to bring full-day affordable day care into their neighborhood. Their efforts and need spark the imagination of people of Fourth Church to join them to bring in early childhood development programming. That is resurrection.

People of South Africa dismantle apartheid after decades of oppression and struggle. A new country is born grounded in freedom, forgiveness, and reconciliation. That is resurrection. As South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu proclaimed, “Goodness is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Light is stronger than darkness. Life is stronger than death.” Victory is ours, victory is ours, through Christ who loves us.

Christ is risen! He unites, forgives, heals, and creates. Christ lives with us always, to the end of the age. Resurrection is ours. Alleluia!