“Who Will Roll Away the Stone?”
An Easter Sermon
Preached by the
Rev. Jean Niven Lenk
Easter Sunday, April 8,
2012
First Congregational
Church of Stoughton
United Church of Christ
Text: Mark 16:1-8
On
the first Easter morning, as the sun comes up marking an end to the Sabbath, three
women set out to anoint the body of Jesus.
Through
their friend and teacher, they had found a
hope they’d never imagined, a joy they’d never experienced, a life they’d never known.
But days earlier, he had been unjustly tried, cruelly beaten, mercilessly
ridiculed, and ruthlessly executed.
When
Jesus was crucified that first Good Friday, more than just a person died. The hopes and hearts of hundreds of people
were broken by his death, for they had thought he was the long-awaited Messiah.
From the first day he had appeared in
Galilee preaching the Good News of the Kingdom of God, he had dared them to
imagine a different world in which the last would be first, the hungry fed, the
lowly uplifted, the stranger welcomed, and injustice fought.
And so, on that first Easter morning, these women head out on
a final mission of mercy, to perform one last act of devotion. They make their way toward the garden tomb
where the body of their beloved teacher lies sealed behind a huge, immoveable
stone. But on their journey, they
realize that, in their Good Friday grief, they have neglected one not-so-minor practical
detail: “Who will roll away the stone
for us from the entrance of the tomb?” they ask one another.
These
days, we would hardly call it a “stone.”
Think instead gigantic rock. Think enormous boulder. Think seven feet tall, two feet thick, a
thousand pounds. Think the kind of “stone”
that keeps thieves out and bodies in.
Impenetrable. Impervious. Indestructible.
For the women on that first Easter morning, it presents an immense
problem, and they ask each other, “Who will roll away the stone for us?”
And it’s a question we too ask, in our own way, because on
this Easter morning, many of us feel as if we are living in a Good Friday
world. A world where peace remains
elusive, where gunmen rampage on campuses, where tornadoes devastate
communities and lives, where partisan politics trumps civil discourse, and
where racial tensions set a country on edge.
A
Good Friday world where our own lives know the heartache of loss, the agony of
failure, the misery of broken spirits, and the shame of our own worst
capacities. Maybe we have lost jobs or
loved ones; maybe we have hurt others or been hurt ourselves; or maybe we have
grown joyless in the present, or cynical about the future.
And we too ask who will roll the stone away for us – the
stone of sorrow from the tomb of our losses… the stone of
bitterness from the tomb of our failures... the stone of grief from the tomb of
our broken hearts? Who?
Sometimes
we can get so stuck in our own tombs, so entrenched in our own Good Friday
worlds, that we fail to see the Easter dawning.
The Gospel of Mark suggests that the three women are so downcast as they
approach Jesus’ tomb that they do not even notice the Easter miracle until they
stand directly before it.
It
is only then they see that God has already done the work of rolling back the
stone. God has already made a way where
there was no way. Easter happens at
precisely the moment when God does something for
us that we could not possibly do for ourselves.
We’ve all got dead places in our lives where
we’ve sealed off hope and love and life. We’ve all buried grief and pain, hurt and
disappointment somewhere deep in our souls. But Easter assures us that we’re not trapped
by our circumstances or our conditions, and we don’t have to live as though we
were, because with Easter, our future is open.
And so, what is standing, heavy, unshakeable, immoveable,
between you and healing, between you and love, between you and life, between
you and God?
There
is a way out of our personal tombs of pain and suffering, of cynicism and
despair, and we need only open our eyes to see how the stone has been rolled
away by a power greater than our own.
When the women dare look
past the rolled-back stone into the tomb, they see a young man dressed in white who shares
a life-transforming, world-shattering message: “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus
of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has
been raised. He is not here. And he is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him.”
Galilee
is their home; it is where they have families and occupations and lives. And the message these women receive is that
in the midst of their ordinary, everyday living is where the Risen Christ will
meet them. Because Good Friday is in the
past. Now it’s Easter, a new beginning. And God's work is not done.
And
this is the message for us, too. The
same Jesus who could not be held back by suffering, by death, by the stone in
front of his tomb, is the Jesus who is alive today and here today and available
today to live in us, to rescue us and heal us and empower us; he will roll away
the stone and set us free from whatever tomb it is that has us imprisoned and confined.
Have
you buried your faith in a tomb of doubt, shame, guilt and disappointment? God can liberate it and make it live again. Have you got dead relationships sealed in
tombs of pride, anger, regret and misunderstanding? God can release them that healing can take
place. Is your heart closed by bitterness,
despair, denial, and fear? God can open
it up and let in new joy. God can
roll away whatever locks us up and blocks us from wholeness and healing and new
life; whatever keeps us from reconciliation, peace, forgiveness; whatever threatens
life’s joy and possibility, whatever tears us apart and separates us from one
another. Easter is the loving and gracious act of a God who defies
inevitability and redefines possibility.
Easter shows us a God who refuses to accept what is and who continues to
make all things new.
And so let us celebrate this Easter day, because God
has rolled away the stone! The tomb is
empty! The Risen Christ is unbound and
going ahead of us, showing us the way and leading us into lives full of divine grace and holy
possibility. Let us follow with
joy and gratitude! Alleluia and Amen!
