Easter Parade!

Women – I just want to say that today YOU ROCK! Today is your religious holy day!

Let's applaud the women of our community – thank them for being the first to bring the message of resurrection!

In all of the Gospel accounts YOU were the first to the burial place of your beloved Jesus.

"On the first day of the week, at the first sign of dawn, the women came to the tomb bringing the spices they had prepared." They found the stone rolled back from the tomb and Jesus body GONE!"

When these women returned from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and the others. The women were Mary of Magdala, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James. The other women with them also told the apostles, BUT THE STORY SEEMED LIKE NONSENSE AND THEY REFUSED TO BELIEVE THEM."

Those stubborn men......those believing women! Faithful and believing Women – today is your day!

As I was preparing this message the other day at Wilde Roast – I found myself thinking about Irving Berlin – I thought I heard Berlin in the background at Roast.

Irving Berlin wrote one of the few popular Easter songs:

"In your Easter bonnet with all the frills upon it...."

(David, can you play a few bars!)

Fred Astaire sang it as he was walking Judy Garland down Fifth Avenue in the movie EASTER PARADE.

This song obviously has nothing to do with the religious meaning of Easter; it is similar in spirit to "The Christmas Song":

"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose...." A pleasant song needing no theological comment or commitment.

BUT the Irving Berlin song reminded me that there was an EASTER PARADE on that first EASTER. It was a meager parade, not a happy or celebrative one, but a steady procession to the tomb.

The women, Peter, the disciple whom Jesus loved, one after the other PARADE to Jesus burial place. One hopeful "FOLLOWER OF THE WAY" after another arrives at the tomb to check it out – to make sure that the body of Jesus has indeed been liberated and isn't on the cold, damp slab of stone. Making sure that someone didn't miss something.

But that EASTER PARADE of the curious, the hopeful, those filled with confusion, those seeking political and spiritual liberation, those filled with terrifying fear, and those filled with wonder and as our reading today says, "FULL OF AMAZEMENT AT WHAT HAD OCCURRED".....THAT same EASTER PARADE continues NOW – with the same recognizable route!

The story of Easter, 2000 plus years ago and today, moves from DARKNESS to LIGHT – from GRIEVING TO BELIEVING – from DOUBT TO FAITH – from BONDAGE to LIBERATION - from QUESTIONING to FIRM CONFIDENCE!

Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James – they are EVERYONE who has ever experienced the darkness of death. The darkness these women experienced is more than the time of day; they went to the tomb early in the morning before the sun had risen. The darkness these women experienced is the darkness of grief, pain, loss, loneliness, shattered hopes and shattered dreams, abandonment; betrayal....it is the darkness of the bondage of death itself!

The women go to the tomb, not only to spread spices on the body of their beloved Jesus, but because there is nowhere else they want to be! They loved him, and they wanted to be near what remained of him.

These women speak to us even today about the darkness that surrounds our lives: the darkness of war, hatred, sickness, broken relationships, the darkness of injustice, the darkness of political oppression, the darkness of pain, loneliness, betrayal, suffering, death.

Was the world of these women as much in love with death as ours seems to be today?

Children told to strap on bombs and blow themselves up for the fanatical beliefs of their parents and leaders; young women sent into restaurants to detonate themselves and everyone else around them; individuals willing to fly planes into buildings to cause death and destruction; our current administrations war against "EVIL".

Americans, by the way, are at the top of the list for terrorists according to ABC News last week.

Then, there is the darkness of civil war, famine, drugs, gang wars, any form of violence that takes the lives of the innocent.

The deep, deep, deep power of death is as real NOW as it was then in the face of the burial place of Jesus.

The Easter story begins in darkness. But then comes something completely unexpected: THE STONE HAD BEEN MOVED! What was meant to SEAL Jesus in and KEEP the women OUT is no longer there.....and in one passage....the women come to the logical conclusion that someone STOLE THE BODY of their beloved Jesus. They knew they were the first of those who loved Jesus there at the tomb – the remaining 12 "male" disciples were still shrouded in darkness, filled with anxiety and fear and the pain of loss and betrayal.

And NOW the EASTER PARADE!

Each of the four gospel accounts give differing accounts of who went when and who went in and who stayed outside the tomb – who went in the tomb – who first believed – and so on....BUT ONE THING IS SURE – this was quite a FIRST EASTER PARADE! They had to see for themselves – the body of their beloved Jesus was not on the hard, cold slab of stone....he had vanished; it appears, into thin air! The body of Jesus had been LIBERATED!

Maybe what the early disciples believed about their beloved Jesus was true – he had come to LIBERATE them from political and spiritual oppression and lead them into the light of freedom!

In all the gospels, the wrappings, the burial clothes are highlighted in some fashion or another. WHY? What of those burial clothes!?

Why all the attention to these cloths?

Some suggest all this refers back to the raising of Lazarus. Remember when Lazarus came out of the tomb, he was tied hand and foot with strips of burial cloth and his face was wrapped in cloth. Lazarus comes out of his burial place bound, with these clothes clinging to him, suffocating him, because he was not really done with them. He will need them when he dies once again.

BUT Jesus is finished with this thing called death! Jesus leaves it and all its trappings behind. And in a sense, we too can leave the trappings of this thing called death behind today on our Easter Parade!

Each one of the Gospels ends with a different response from the disciples Easter Parade to the empty tomb.......fear, amazement, doubt, misunderstanding, confusion, joy, excitement, expectation, either their greatest fears or their greatest hopes have been confirmed.

But the account in John concludes:

"....they did not yet understand the Scripture that HE HAD TO RISE FROM THE DEAD".

Why "HAD TO"? Did Jesus really HAVE TO rise from the dead?

I believe last year's Time Magazine "Easter Issue" had as its cover story an essay entitled "Why Did He Die?"

Today we might well ask, "Why did he HAVE to RISE from the dead?"

He had to rise because the GOD of Jesus will not settle for death! God will not allow death to WIN!

God is not absent, even in the darkest of times.

And God will not allow death to have the last laugh!

We have the next fifty days to ponder this mystery until Pentecost. We have the next fifty days to join in the EASTER PARADE to think about what does it mean that our beloved brother Jesus was not on that cold stone burial slab?

So, in the next fifty days, or for the next 50 years of your life, whenever darkness threatens to surround you, you can turn to the empty cold stone burial slab and see the neatly folded clothes that should have been wrapped around the body of our beloved Jesus.

My sisters, my brothers, you and I individually and as a community of faith are a part of that ONGOING EASTER PARADE of people who know that death is not the final destiny.

We are a part of the ONGOING EASTER PARADE of people who know that we have been LIBERATED from the oppressiveness of death.

Sometimes we are crawling, sometimes we are stumbling, sometimes we are running, but ALWAYS we are moving toward the LIGHT of a NEW DAWN, a NEW DAY, a NEW COMMUNITY, a NEW WORLD!

And on a final note – from the book "A Promise to Remember" – the History of the Holocaust....I found this quote from a survivor....

"Liberation was more than having to cross the barbed wire and leave the camp. Liberation was something that had to happen within me".

Liberation from means more than having to cross the threshold of the empty tomb and leaving the place of Jesus burial. Liberation....resurrection....release is something that has to happen within ME and within YOU!