But very early on the first day of the week they came to the tomb bringing the spices they had prepared. They found that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb, but when they went inside, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they stood utterly at a loss, suddenly two men in dazzling garments were at their side. They were terrified, and stood with eyes cast down but the men said, 'Why search among the dead for one who is alive? Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be given into the power of sinful men and be crucified, and must rise again on the third day.'
It isn't yet 4:30 in the morning here, and the sun isn't even close to rising in my little corner of the world. The Reverend is putting the finishing touches upon her Easter sermon, preparing for Sunrise Service, getting ready for a long day of work and family time. It is all routine, in a way, another Easter, another full day of singing "Christ the Lord is Risen Today", "He Arose", and preaching a sermon on a topic both familiar and strange. It is the most important single day on the Christian calendar, but familiar for all that.
Are we so jaded by over-exposure that we no longer recognize the utter shock of this event? Are we, like the ladies who went to the tomb to prepare Jesus' body for the long sleep of death, just going about our business, unprepared for the astounding truth that confronts us on this day? Are we, like them, looking for what we do not even understand to be the living among the dead, accustomed as we are to the grim reality of death?
There are moments in our lives that, in retrospect, we grant singular importance - for an older generation it was the moment they heard JFK was shot; for me, it was when I heard Ronald Reagan was shot, then then Pope, the Challenger explosion, the Fall of the Berlin Wall, September 11, 2001; more personal moments such as my first kiss, the first time I lay with a woman, meeting my wife, the birth of my daughters. Of course, they become important because of the emotional impact the events had upon us at the time. Yet all of these, both public and private, share a common trait: all of them involve elements of life with which we are familiar. For all their import, they are not strange or new or without precedent. Even events of historical importance - the Berlin Wall's collapse, Tom Brockaw standing in front of crowds dancing upon it; the Towers burning then collapsing, thousands of people trapped inside dying in those moments caught forever on film and videotape - are not qualitatively different from other moments in history that mark a sudden change. When Chou En Lai told Henry Kissinger that the French Revolution was still an event to be wrestled with, to be understood, he was only indicating that events of historical import have meanings that change over time, and we can never fathom them completely, as long as allow them to live.
"Allow them to live". In truth, it is we who keep these events alive; they do not live in and of and for themselves. My parents get disgruntled by a later generations' insouciance towards Pearl Harbor Day, because they remember the impact it had upon them; for us, it is no longer alive, no longer a "day which shall live in infamy".
Jesus' resurrection, however, is in no need of such assistance. This is an event that carries the weight of its meaning with it through vast distance of time and space and language and culture and confronts us with the strange and awesome and wonderful event that Jesus is alive, never to die again. From this moment forward, nothing will be the same. Life will not be the same. Death will not be the same. Relationships, community, speech, love, politics, human agency - everything from this moment forward is touched by this event. Not just the fact of physical death, but the process of death, the whole emotional, psychological, sociological interweaving of emotions and rituals surrounding this personal and interpersonal event no longer has the last word on us, our endeavors, our hopes, or our fears. We are now confronted with a new reality, a new creation, ruled not by the cycle of life, which is also the cycle of death (Nietzsche was fascinated with it and made it the cornerstone of his own thinking about the world). That circle is now broken, and we are no longer terrorized by the abyss over which we tread, because we are buoyed up by the hope granted us through the resurrection.
Nothing will ever be the same again now. The whole world, and everything that was, is, and ever will be in it has been made again.
