The Stone Was Rolled Away

The Stone Was Rolled Away
Christ the Lord is Risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Alleluia! What a journey this Lent has been as we have made this journey with Jesus to the resurrection. Our Lenten journey for these past 6 weeks—40 days has been from hurt to healing as we have acknowledged the places in our lives where we have been hurt and where we have hurt others. This journey has taken us through a variety of emotions and themes as we work ultimately towards healing. I have no grandiose notions that we all fully experience healing and have become healed of the wounds that have been a part of us for so very long. But I do hope that this series has been a beginning to feel the healing that God has for each and every one of us. I also hope that through this series you have been able to see where Jesus experienced each of the emotions and themes that we have explored during Lent.
Shame—the emotion that those who are sinned against feel when they have been wronged and it has been against their control…Jesus felt this as he was slapped across the face and beaten before his trial. Jesus’ crucifixion itself was a shameful act as Jesus was the victim of the unjust systems that put him to death…And as each of his disciples abandoned him and left him alone at the cross…Jesus felt shame.
Guilt—what those who are sinners feel when they realize that they have done something wrong and feel bad about it. This one is a little tricky because Jesus himself was not a sinner, but Jesus took guilt upon himself…He who knew no sin put on sin…
Anger—Anger in and of itself is not a problem, but how we react to our anger or let our anger fester is the problem. What we are angry about is also key…Are we angry about injustice or are we angry that our pride has been hurt…Jesus’ anger was always righteous anger…He was angry and tossed the tables in the temple because of the injustice of the money changers…He yelled at Peter because Peter questioned everything about what God was doing…Jesus got angry, but he got angry about injustice…
Resistance—how we claim ourselves as individuals of sacred worth and refuse to allow others to treat us as less than individuals of sacred worth…Jesus taught to turn the other cheek which doesn’t mean to be a doormat, but rather to stand up for yourself with non-violent actions. When Jesus was slapped in the temple courts during his trial, he said to the guard, “If I have done something wrong, accuse me of it…but if you have no accusation, stop.”
Repentance—when we treat others as less than individuals of sacred worth and we feel bad about it, we repent or turn completely around and go the opposite direction. Because Jesus did not sin, he really had no reason to repent…he was already following what God wanted, but Jesus taught and showed what repentance looked like through his parables and the way he lived his life.
Forgiving-ness—When we are willing to offer forgiveness to those who have hurt us when they seek it. To not necessarily forget what has been done, but no longer hold onto it with feelings of vengeance or revenge…Jesus offered forgiveness…He offered it to the woman caught in adultery, he offered it to Zaccheus, he offered it to Peter, he offered it to the thief on the cross…And he offers it to you and to me today…
Forgiven-ness—When we seek forgiveness from those that we have wronged…When we apologize, repent, and make amends for what we have done…Jesus did not need to seek forgiveness, but modeled his life to show others what forgiveness looked like.
Justice--“God’s justice is God’s grace and fairness that restore human dignity, human rights, and civil rights.” Over and over again, Jesus sought to bring justice to those who had none and he was accused of terrible things…He ate with sinners, he touched those who were unclean, he broke the Sabbath laws…He challenged the systems of injustice so that all people might be seen as individuals of sacred worth.
Justification—is what Jesus did through his life, death, and resurrection and offered to us salvation, something that we couldn’t and can’t earn on our own.
All of those lead us to this morning as we approach the tomb…When the Sabbath was over, the women came to the tomb where their teacher was laid…They had watched him being laid in the tomb after his crucifixion which caused his death…They watched all this happen and then it was Sabbath, a time when we are to spend time in communion with God…And they grieved their loss…And when the Sabbath was over, they came to the tomb to prepare Jesus’ body with spices and oils for burial…And as they approached the tomb, the saw that the stone was rolled away…
The stone was rolled away…This stone was not some small pebble or some small boulder. This stone would have closed the entrance to the tomb, which was like a cave…It would have been large enough to cover the entrance and thick enough not to let any stench out of the tomb…This was a big stone and the women were trying to figure out who was going to roll the stone away when they got there and when they arrived at the tomb, the stone was rolled away…
This was a big deal because it meant that someone must have been there before them! And what happened to Jesus’ body? He was such a radical and threat to every authority that it wasn’t unfair to assume that someone had stolen Jesus’ body…So; they saw for themselves the empty tomb… The Gospels according to Mark & John record what happened at the tomb differently…According to Mark, the women left and were didn’t tell anyone what they saw…According to John, the women told the disciples and the story spread…It’s the same choice that we have when we come to the tomb…
When we come to the tomb…when we are in the tomb…Because sometimes our hurts can be so crippling that we are in our own tomb…and we don’t want to come out…We want the stone to be sealed and to be locked in our tomb forever with our hurts and our pain…Or the tomb is our guilt over what we have done to someone else and we want to be sealed in the tomb forever, punished for what we have done…Oh that tomb is a comfortable place because it’s the place that we know oh so well…we’ve been there for so long…the grave clothes fit nicely…the tomb has become our home…And suddenly…The stone is rolled away and we are blinded by light…No more in darkness do we sit and dwell, but we have seen the light…The light that has come into the world and is so bright that the darkness cannot hold it…And the light beckons to us…Jesus calls us out of our tombs into life…into healing…into hope…And where are we? Do we stay in the tomb because it’s comfortable and it’s become home or do we go out because the stone has been rolled away? It’s unknown what’s outside and it’s scary…Hope is scary because it promises things that we can’t even begin to imagine and it threatens to change everything about who we are…That’s exactly what Jesus did…He changed the fabric of creation! He changed everything about everything! Nothing can possibly be the same because of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection…The stone has been rolled away! Jesus calls our name on the outside of the tomb to join Him and work on building the kingdom of God. To shed those layers of grave clothes…To shed our shame…To shed our guilt…to shed our anger…To shed our hurts…to shed our pain…to shed what we have done to others…And join with Jesus…The stone has been rolled away! The light shines brightly on the Easter morning as the whole of creation has been changed forever! Jesus has risen from the dead! What was once dead is now alive and is forevermore different and changed…What has been abused and left for dead has been raised and brings forth new life. The stone has been rolled away!
Outside of the tomb…the women who are there are left with choices…to share what they have seen and heard or keep it quiet…The Gospel according to Mark says that they kept quiet…John says they went and told the disciples and word spread…Oh the choice that we have in that…To be terrified by what we have seen and leave the tomb in fear and in silence…or to leave the tomb to tell others what we have seen and heard.
There’s a desire to keep Jesus safe if we don’t say anything…A desire to protect Jesus…Protect him from what? From everything…We lost him once, we don’t want to lose him again! We watched him being tortured and beaten and crucified and we don’t want to see it happen again…We need to protect him! We need to keep him safe! We need to put him back in that tomb! Roll that stone in front again…
My brother always has interesting insights into faith and his witty comments help me to understand my faith more…Knowing that it was Holy Week, he sent me a message on Thursday saying, “Tell Jesus to watch his back.” And I thought…Yes! Why didn’t anyone tell Jesus to watch his back! Why didn’t anyone tell Jesus to be careful? If I had been there, I sure would have told him to watch his back…Heck, I would have watched it for him! And I thought about all the times that I have watched his back for him now…When I have made sure that no one is going to touch My Jesus…No one is going to threaten my Jesus…And when I have said…Jesus, get back in that tomb because what you’re doing is making people uncomfortable…What you’re doing is making people angry…What you’re doing is threatening people…Get back in that tomb! I need to keep you safe! And instead of proclaiming Jesus message and allowing to change me…I have tried to protect Jesus and change his message to what I want it to be and not what it really is…I was reminded on Thursday morning…Jesus doesn’t need my protection…Jesus needs me to proclaim…Jesus doesn’t need our protection…Jesus needs us to proclaim Jesus…Jesus doesn’t need to be shoved back in the tomb…Jesus needs to be outside of the tomb. Jesus can take care of himself really well…Much better than I can take care of him! He was raised from the dead after all!
I worked with a man named Pete once…Pete and I never really got along…He was an intimidating person just based on his size—he was at least a foot taller than me and quite a large man. I think he knew his size was intimidating and he seemed to use it to his advantage quite often by trying to get what he wanted…If it was a project done or a project done the way he wanted it done. He was offensive in his language and occasionally spoke down to me…To put it quite honestly, I really didn’t like him at all…Pete and I would have conversations about faith and God and we really didn’t agree on a whole lot…Well, we agreed on the principles, but our debates would often cloud those agreements that we had. When I was starting to accept my calling into ministry, before I had said anything to him, he shared that he thought women shouldn’t be pastors and he knew that I had a woman pastor, so he wanted to make sure I knew what the Bible really said. I got so angry, both because I thought I was being called into ministry and because I thought he didn’t know what he was talking about! Time passed and I found that I could no longer work at the place where Pete & I worked together. I was in my last week of working with him, and in a conversation with him and others, I shared that I was feeling called into youth ministry, but I sure wasn’t going to be a pastor. We all laughed and then went about our business…A few minutes later Pete came around the corner and looked me in the eyes and said, “Who are you to tell God what you will and will not do? If you are called into ministry, you answer.” I was completely taken aback by what he said and shocked at what he said…and I would be lying if I said that it didn’t help me to accept my calling in full….
When we push Jesus back into that tomb, we don’t allow him to provide the healing that we so desperately need and crave…when we roll that stone in front, we limit what Jesus can do for us because we tell him to stay out…When the Sabbath was over, the women went to the tomb and the stone was rolled away…The grace and healing God provides through Jesus Christ can’t be hidden away or put into a tomb…No matter how hard we try…The stone will be rolled away…Christ the Lord is risen…He is risen indeed..Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen!