April 20, 2003

Pastor Christa von Zychlin

Our Savior’s Evangelical Lutheran Church

Hartland, WI.  53029

Easter Vigil 2003

What we have this morning is the celebration of the greatest, most glorious, and happiest mystery that the world has ever known. 

Why do we do this crazy thing on Easter morning, of getting up before anybody in their right mind wants to get up,

Why do we go against everything our bodies and our minds, and most of consumer society tells us is the right time to get up on a Sunday morning, when you have a rare day off, and you could maybe you should just be lounging in your bed or off on some exotic beach side “spring vacation”??

Why did you get up while it was still dark, to come to a church where it is still pretty dark, to hear a story that you’ve probably heard before?

Maybe that’s a mystery, too, a holy mystery.

 It was still dark, you see,  when Mary Magdalene crossed the rocky ground of the place of the tombs, to the new tomb where they had placed the body of Jesus.  Why was she up so early?  What pushed her out, on a chilly Jerusalem morning, what compulsion did she feel, to see the place, one more time, where they laid him, to come to grips with the death, the political, mob-inspired, horribly painful death of the man she had come to know as Teacher and Lord?

 As we read and listened to our soldier’s accounts of their experiences in Iraq, many Americans were struck by the way in which our soldiers were struck by the raw  physicality of death.  Real blood from real bodies.  Real cries from real people.  Real sobbing, by real families.  It’s not just a story, it’s not just a movie, it’s not just a video game.  Whether it’s Iraqi children or American sons & daughters, war is real, death is real, grief is real.

 In exactly the same way, the crucifixion of Jesus was very real.  It was messy.  It was long & drawn out.  It affected real people.  And maybe it was the realness of it all that pushed Mary Magdalene out of her bed way before sunrise, to go and see the tomb, where they laid him.

 And what she discovered was what? a round stone door, that was gone.

 xxxxx

I think maybe she went screaming to Simon Peter and the others,

“They took him, they took him, they took him.”

 “They didn’t even wouldn’t even couldn’t even leave a body alone.  It’s a mystery to me, how people can be so horrible, that they would rob a grave.”

  then … weeping is too nice a word, crying her heart out in the dark is more like it, totally consumed by rage and pain and betrayal… how can people be like that?  How can God let this thing happen?

 And suddenly there is a  stranger, who calls her by name.

 “Mary.”

 And she turns “ Rabouni– my teacher…!?!”

 My Lord Jesus, he’s alive!

 Is it because it was not quite light that she didn’t recognize him?  Or is there another mystery here, that our human understanding and ability to recognize, to really see another human being is so limited,  that the eyes of our faith in God are so dim, that the understanding of our faith in the life beyond this life is so fragile

that it’s only by God’s voice that we recognize or understand any thing by at all.

 “ It’s not by my own understanding that I believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him”, says M. Luther in the small catechism… “but it’s God who calls & enlightens ME.”

 “Mary” the stranger says,  And then she knows,  It IS him.  It’s Jesus.  It’s the Lord over Life himself who has made the round stone door of death to disappear.

 Why are you here this morning, who pushed you out of bed before the sun had even begun to rise

Could it be part of this morning’s holy mystery that you are here? 

 Together with Mary Magdalene, with Peter, with the beloved disciple, together with our newly baptized little sisters in Christ: Emily Elizabeth, Brittany Ellen, Melissa Ann,

May you hear the risen Lord speak your name too, this morning, and every Easter morning

May you recognize Jesus by his voice, and know that now you too are part of the greatest, most glorious, and happiest mystery that the world has ever known. 

 A Blessed Easter to you.

Amen.

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