Date: April 17th
Preacher: Pastor Ashley Rosa-Ruggieri
First Reading: Acts 10:34-43
Psalmody: Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:19-26
Gospel: Luke 24:1-12
Let me tell you a story. A story that we are very much still in the middle of now, but one that I am sure I will be using for future ministry conversations for years. At the start of the season of Lent, as we joined together on Ash Wednesday, we buried our alleluias in recently thawed soil. I must confess to you all that I am really not that much of a gardener myself, but the idea of literally burying our alleluias into the dirt, so that they could remind us of the new life forming and growing over the season of Lent seemed like a great idea. So, I found seed paper with a high germination rate, I watered those baby plants every day as instructed, sometimes I would use a binder as a fan to imitate a wind blowing on them, I had help from others who offered gardening expertise and sun-lamps to give these baby seeds everything they needed to thrive. And at first, they were doing exactly what we hoped they would. They started to sprout even before they were truly planted and continued to have small sprouts stick up those first few weeks. But over time, they became stagnant, halted, stalled. They did not seem to be growing as they should be.
Today is Easter Sunday, and though we may have hoped that our buried alleluias bloomed into beautiful wildflowers, I came in this morning to the same leggy sprouts we have seen for weeks. It would be easy for me to blame myself, to think that I messed up my first Lent and Easter here because I did not properly plan for these wildflower seeds to thrive as they could. I could feel sad that what I had planned is not what happened. But, I cannot help but think that we woke up this morning anyway, and we came to worship together, and our savior Jesus Christ is risen nonetheless. And I wonder if the women in our Gospel story today felt a similar sadness or disappointment when they were the first to tell the story of Jesus’s resurrection and no one believed them.
As they went to his tomb with burial spices and grief, only to discover that what they expected to find was not there, were they disappointed? When the two men appeared beside them in dazzling clothes and told them what had happened, were they confused? And when they ran to share this story with Jesus’s other disciples, and they were dismissed as women telling idle tales, did they feel like they ruined everything? Or were they so intent on living into the joy of Jesus’s resurrection that they brushed off the disciples’ dismissals and celebrated because Jesus was risen, nonetheless.
We live in a world where it can be so easy for us to blame ourselves or one another for things that do not go according to plan. And the higher the importance of the thing that did not go right, the higher the probability that there is some sense of disappointment, confusion, or blame placed on someone involved. But I am here on this glorious Easter morning with a shout of alleluia and a reminder that when it comes to Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, we do no not have the power to mess it up. Because no matter what we do, Christ is risen, nonetheless.
When the flowers don’t grow, when people don’t believe our story, when we feel like we somehow ruined this glorious day, Christ is risen, nonetheless. We have a savior who became human, died, and defeated death once and for all, and so no matter what we could possibly do, Christ will be risen, nonetheless. If Jesus could emerge on the third day from that tomb, destroying the weight of death forever, then there is no way that we could do anything that could ever ruin the truth in this Good News. Christ is risen, nonetheless.
Now, do not get me wrong, just because Christ is risen does not mean that my disappointment about the seed paper disappears. I do not think that the women who were brushed off so easily in our Gospel suddenly felt great about no one believing them. Those hard and sad realities still exist in our lives, but the point is that they do not have the power over whether or not that stone rolls away from the tomb’s entrance. The Good News that we proclaim about Jesus does not promise to take away every real moment of pain or disappointment that we experience here on Earth, instead it proclaims that whether we have the energy, the joy, the heart to proclaim the message, Christ is risen, nonetheless. There is a small relief in knowing that even when we do not feel like we have the strength to tell Jesus’s story, the story will go on anyway.
When I imagine the story told in our Gospel reading today, I imagine that the women who were the first witnesses to Jesus’s resurrection continue to tell the story even when dismissed. Though the first time they told it they were ignored and treated with indifference, they continued to share the news because at some point it had to be shared with everyone. Jesus’s resurrection is a reminder for us all that God works through unexpected ways, unexpected people, and unexpected stories. We get to proclaim that Christ is risen today because of those original women at the tomb. The other disciples may not have been expecting this way of resurrection, these people to share the news, this story to be played out, but Christ is risen, nonetheless.
The women who initially shared this story may not have known in the moment that they did nothing wrong, that the story would be told one day and believed. Here, in this moment, I may keep asking myself for some time what I should have done differently with the seed paper so the flowers would be blooming now. But we know now, and I am sure one day I will look back on this day and remember, that Christ is risen, nonetheless, and thank the Lord for that. Even when the women were dismissed, even when our flowers never grew, even when we don’t feel like shouting alleluia at all, Christ is risen, nonetheless. And THAT, is Good News worth sharing. That is a story worth telling over and over again. Christ is risen, nonetheless. Alleluia! Thanks be to God!