Mark 16:1-8
A chocolate bunny went to his therapist.
- The therapist asked: “How have you been doing lately?”
- The bunny said: “I don’t know…doc.
- I’ve just been feeling so hollow inside.”
For 364 days each year…we tell children not to eat anything they find in the dirt.
- Then…on Easter…we say: “Go ahead…kids: Search on the ground for candy!”
And…of course…you know the Easter Bunny’s favorite music…don’t you?
- Hip hop.
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Easter jokes are part of an ancient tradition.
- For hundreds of years in Germany…Lutheran pastors would begin their sermons on Easter Day with a joke.
- The custom even had a formal title:
- It was called “the paschal joke.”
- The empty tomb and resurrection were seen as God’s great joke on the world.
- And you know that since every good joke requires a surprising punchline…
- The end of the paschal joke included the biggest shock of all: Jesus … has been … raised!
The problem with today’s resurrection story is that it lacks the punchline of an appearance by Jesus.
- Mark tells us that on Easter morning…Mary Magdalene and two other women encounter a cold and empty place when they show up at the tomb.
- They have suffered the crucifixion of their friend and teacher Jesus…
- And they are mourning his death deeply.
- Now they go to his tomb to pay their respects…and what do they find?
- A deserted place.
- After seeing a young man and hearing about the resurrection…they go out and flee from the tomb.
- Terror and amazement have seized them.
- They say nothing to anyone because they are afraid.
The poet Robert Frost captures their emotions well when he points out that the most frightening of empty places are always close to home.
- He writes: They cannot scare me with their empty spaces / Between stars — on stars where no human race is. / I have it in me so much nearer home / To scare myself with my own desert places.
Mary Magdalene and her friends certainly know what he is talking about.
- And each of us…at some time in life…must struggle with an empty space…a desert place.
- We feel it when we get the message that we are being laid off from work.
- Or when we open our mutual fund statement and discover that our investments have tanked.
- When we realize that we owe more on our mortgage than our house is worth.
- Or when we open the email from the college admissions office and learn that we have been rejected.
- When we receive the call from the doctor…saying the biopsy has come back with a cancer diagnosis.
- When a spouse says she is leaving.
- A boyfriend says he wants to break up.
- A partner says there is no future in the relationship.
- These are desert places.
When Mary and her companions enter their desert place…they retreat into silence.
- They feel like they have traveled to a space between stars…where no human race is.
- Yes…it is true that the mysterious young man in the tomb says:
- “Do not be alarmed…you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth…who was crucified. He has been raised.”
This is good news…the Easter morning good news of resurrection life.
- But the women cannot grasp it.
- They hear what the man is saying…but it falls flat.
- He says: “Look…there is the place they laid him” …the empty space.
- But it doesn’t work as a punchline.
OK then…we are ready for an Easter laugh…an upbeat report…a story that lifts our spirits and gives us hope.
- But day after day…we keep hearing news about empty spaces and desert places.
- Like the chocolate bunny…we feel hollow inside.
- More emptiness than fullness.
- More decline than increase.
- More fear than joy.
- More failure than success.
- More separation than reunion.
- Mary Magdalene felt it when she went with her friends to the tomb of Jesus.
But when we least expect it…there comes an unexpected Easter punchline:
- Jesus “is going ahead of you to Galilee…there you will see him, just as he told you.”
- The young man in the tomb says that Jesus is alive and is moving ahead of us…always ahead of us.
- He appears when we least expect it…and surprises us with his resurrection life.
- There is nothing predictable about the way that the Risen Jesus will behave.
- He is going to sneak up on us.
- You never see the big laugh coming.
Jesus revealed himself first on Easter morning.
- But then he continued to appear…again and again and again.
- Paul’s message to the Corinthians…this morning…is that the resurrection is not a one-off.
- Resurrection reversals continue to have an impact…as Jesus reveals himself over and over to people who know him.
What does Jesus look like when he appears in our lives today?
- Jesus shows himself most clearly in places where his life and teachings are followed.
- He appears in places where disciples are exemplifying Jesus with their hands and feet.
- He appears in the world through those who extend hospitality and grace to others.
- He appears when we serve a world in need and work for reconciliation among all people everywhere.
Today…many are living in empty spaces and desert places.
- Loneliness is on the rise.
- Community organizations are breaking down.
- People have a void inside them that needs to be filled with Christ’s resurrection love and grace.
We try in vain to fill our hearts with everything around us:
- But more stuff does not help…since this infinite abyss can be filled only with the Holy.
- Life apart from God is empty.
Our emptiness will not be eliminated by a new career…a new spouse…a new house…a new car…a better salary.
- Instead…the hole in our lives will be filled by following the resurrected Jesus into the future.
The good news of Easter is that Jesus is alive!
- And we can laugh because God is full of surprises.
- Full of reversals.
- Hitting us with the news that Jesus is raised from the dead.
- He is moving ahead of us…always ahead of us.
- Filling our emptiness and leading us into the future.
- That’s God’s joke on the world…with the greatest of punchlines.