April 11, 2009 - Easter Vigil, Year B (RCL)
The death had happened at the worst time.
Late afternoon
just before the Sabbath began,
and once the Sabbath began
nothing interfered
with the strict observance
of a day of rest.
If it had been up to the Romans, or even the Jewish leaders
they would have left it hanging there under the sign, “The King of the Jews,”
a rotting reminder to anyone tempted
to question
their authority.
But he died in time, three o’clock,
and though it had been unusually dark
those last three hours,
sunset had not yet come,
and with it the Sabbath
and so Joseph of Arimathea,
a well respected religious figure, and apparently also a secret believer,
went to the governor
and asked for the body.
And perhaps ready to be done with it all - after all, he hadn’t wanted to execute him in the first place, but the people were threatening to riot -
ready to be done with it all,
Pilate said to Joseph,
“Do whatever you want.”
And Joseph
in those last few minutes of daylight
rushed to the market and bought a piece of linen
and then took Jesus’ body
wrapped it in the cloth
and laid it in a tomb,
sealing the entrance
with a large
boulder.
The women hadn’t been able to do their work,
washing the body tenderly,
wrapping it in linen,
with spices tucked
between the layer.
There was no time,
no time for any
of the usual funeral rituals,
just a hurried burial
before the sun set.
And then it was the sabbath.
A time for rest.
A time for quiet.
A time for the numbness
that goes along with any death.
But the the sabbath was over,
and with it the enforced silence.
And they were free again to do
whatever needed
to be done.
And the helplessness of grief
was overpowered to do something, anything,
to make life real again.
And so they turned to the rituals, the rituals of death
that there had been no time
to do.
And before the sun rose,
they gathered together the spices,
myrrh, like the myrrh
that the kings had brought at his birth,
and aloes, a fragrant wood,
and they went to the tomb.
Knowing, of course, that it was hopeless.
The body had been in there
the best part of two days;
no amount of spices
would be able to mask
the decomposition already begun.
And in any case,
they likely wouldn't be able
to get into the tomb.
They’d watched the boulder
rolled in front of it;
even at the best of times
they weren’t strong enough to move it,
and this was not
the best of times,
thirty six hours spent weeping and sleepless.
But they had to do something, awake as they were before dawn, with no hope of falling asleep again,
and this was all
they could think of
to do.
And maybe, just maybe
other people would be there,
ready to tend their own family plots,
or perhaps a gardener,
and they could help
to move the stone.
At the very least
they could wait there, stand vigil
beside his grave.
And so they set off,
heads down,
cloaks wrapped around them against the cold, shoulders aching
with the weight of the spices.
It was dark at first,
only the shadows to keep them company,
and then slowly the pale gray light of dawn,
and by the time they got to the graveyard
the hazy glow of early morning sun
was touching the grass
and putting halos
around trees.
So that when they saw it
they weren’t quite sure
if it was just a trick of the light.
A gaping hole
and the boulder pushed
to the side,
and still wondering they were seeing things
they bent over
and looked in
and there they saw a young man,
dressed in white,
like the white of the linen shroud
Jesus had been wrapped in so hurriedly
just two days before.
But not a body, this one,
no body
was there,
instead this young man sitting,
saying, “Don’t be afraid!”
But of course they were terrified
and ran from the tomb,
barely hearing the words he threw after them.
“It’s okay, Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, who you’re looking for, he’s been raised; he’s not here. Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; you’ll see him there, just like he said.”
And that’s the end of the story, as the gospel of Mark tells it,
at least in the earliest manuscripts.
They don’t get to see Jesus.
They don’t go tell the disciples.
They don’t tell anyone.
They just go home
terrified.
Except that’s not the end of the story. It can’t be.
Because if that’s all that had happened,
the story of the resurrection
would have been buried there
with the women.
And we wouldn’t be here today
celebrating.
The miracle is
that some time, whether it was ten minutes
or ten hours later
they told someone
and they told someone
and they told someone else.
In spite of their fear, in spite of their helplessness,
they told someone
and the story of the resurrection spread,
and other people came forward, “Yes, we saw him too.”
And two thousand years later
we’re still telling
the story.
Of Jesus who died,
and how we were helpless to save him,
but that in the end
it didn’t matter.
Because our job
is not to save,
but to be saved.
Saved by the one
who died for our sake,
and then, miracle of miracles
rose again
from the dead, bursting out of the tomb
in all the glory of the resurrection.
And like the women,
we might struggle to believe it,
especially when
we haven't seen it with our own eyes,
but that doesn’t make it
any the less so.
Jesus’ resurrection
didn’t depend on those women
and it doesn’t depend on us.
Instead
we depend on it,
depend on our risen Savior
for life and hope
that are indestructible.
Thank be to God. Alleluia!
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2009