Impossibly Heavy Things - A Sermon for Easter Day (Mark 16:1-8)

Since we haven’t been together in person for over year, we have a lot of catching up to do. My goodness, so much has happened, and we’ve all been through so much! Where do we start, on this lovely Easter morning? I think it’s obvious what we need to talk about first, something that we’ve been through together. Clearly, it’s that container ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal. As far as Easter sermons go, it’s just too good to pass up. It was the perfect drama, riveting people’s attention all over the world. All those ships stuck in an escalating traffic jam. Billions of dollars on the line each day. Children sending in suggestions to the adults trying to free the boat. Like the one from a 15-year-old who wrote, “You know how in Rogue One they had the hammerhead spaceship fly into the Star Destroyer and move it with that little ship’s force? That’s what they have to do, with a bunch of small sailboats.” Or my favorite suggestion from a more pragmatic 12-year-old, “Just turn the wheel to the left.” In the end, the winning strategy took six days, a lot of digging equipment, and a fleet of tugboats. Watching the story of the stuck boat was surely a collective experience. And I would wager that, at one point or another, all of the adults seeing it had the exact same thought: “Thank God it wasn’t me who was steering that boat.” 

Did you see the photo of the little crane on the bank pushing rather hopelessly against the ridiculously large vessel? If that’s not a perfect metaphor for what this past year has been like, I don’t know what is. Perhaps we should call it the Year of Impossibly Heavy Things, in all caps of course. Fear, anxiety, loss - we could each name what has been the heaviest. Thank goodness it feels like some of that weight is starting to lift. Springtime, vaccines, putting on real shoes and non-stretchy pants again - all glimmers of hope that our lives are beginning to open up again.

Objectively speaking, we have been carrying a lot this year. And to be honest, we were all carrying around a few heavy things before the pandemic hit, too, simply by virtue of being human. The reason I think we all breathed a sigh of relief about not being at the helm of that container ship is that we know exactly what it feels like to steer into disasters of our own making. No one is immune to getting stuck in the heavy sand from time to time from mistakes, misjudgments, and failures. And no one is immune to the weight of shame that settles in afterward. We are no strangers to carrying around heavy things. 

Have you ever noticed that when you’ve been through something, scripture has a funny way of sounding like it was written just for you, just for this moment? Depending on what’s going on, certain details seem to jump right off the page. So I guess it’s not surprising at all that, given our Year of Impossibly Heavy Things, what grabbed my attention in Mark’s Easter story this time around is that heavy stone. As the women approach the tomb in the morning, they wonder how on earth they are going to move the thing. It’s lodged in place with the same finality as death, and their mission to care for the body of Jesus seems hopeless. Not unlike that one tiny crane on the bank of the canal. 

It’s precisely here that the story begins to turn. “When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.” For the ancient Greek nerds among us, the original sentence is in the perfect tense and passive voice. Which, scholars say, is the grammar of divine action. The stone had already been moved, the work of God. And suddenly, the Impossibly Heavy Thing is no longer in the way. The weight on the women’s hearts is beginning to lift. A new possibility they wouldn’t have dared to hope for begins to open up, the first sign of resurrection.

There are two other Impossibly Heavy Things at the beginning of this story, too, though they are a less obvious than the giant stone. We’re told that the women encounter a young man in a white robe inside the empty tomb. He is not called an angel, but that is a possibility. Mark doesn’t waste any details, however, and it’s interesting that he mentions a young man a few verses earlier. When Jesus was arrested, the disciples all deserted him, including a young man, who was wearing nothing but a linen cloth. The guards caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked (14:51). If you’ve never noticed the naked guy running around in the gospel of Mark before, just ask any 12-year-old Baptist kid. They know where all that good stuff is in the Bible.

Is this just a coincidence, two different young men? I’m inclined to see a connection. The young man who deserted Jesus and fled must have been carrying an impossibly heavy burden of shame as he ran off. But here the story begins to turn. Now he is sitting in a place of honor, clothed in the white robe of a disciple, restored. Mark points us to him and says, look, here is that divine action again - removing Impossibly Heavy Things like the young man’s shame.  

There is one more Impossibly Heavy Thing in the story - this one belongs to Peter. Bless his heart, as they say. He really screwed up a few verses back. He was absolutely devoted to Jesus, no question, and he swore up and down that he would stand by him no matter what. But sure enough, just as Jesus predicted, Peter denied knowing him three times before that cock crowed the night Jesus was arrested. Try carrying that Impossibly Heavy Thing in your heart for five minutes, and you know Peter must have been in a very bad way after that. Yet here again, the story begins to turn. 

The young man gave instructions to the women at the tomb: “Go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” The message is for all of the disciples, but it’s especially for Peter by name. He has already been forgiven by the risen Christ. Before he has even had a chance to say he’s sorry for the betrayal, he is forgiven, restored. His Impossibly Heavy Thing has also been rendered weightless in the miracle of Easter. 

If that was all there is to Mark’s Easter story, we would have plenty to celebrate. Jesus has been raised and is going ahead to Galilee. A young man has been healed of his shame and entrusted with a holy message. Peter has been forgiven for his denial and now has new life in the resurrection. This would be more than enough good news to gather us here today. But there's more.

Scholars agree that in its oldest form, Mark’s gospel ends with the empty tomb and the women running away. It’s a strange ending, with no resurrection appearance and just a promise that the disciples will see Jesus in Galilee. And weirdly, the manuscript actually ends in the middle of a sentence, unfinished. As one scholar put it, “When is an ending not an end? When a dead man rises from the tomb, and when a Gospel ends in the middle of the sentence” (L. Williamson). Mark knew what he was doing. There is no ending because we the readers are invited into the story. Jesus is going ahead of us to Galilee. The story doesn’t have an ending because we are now in the Easter story. 

Which means, my friends, that if you carry around Impossibly Heavy Things, Easter is for you. Maybe you’ve steered your ship off course by mistake and it’s stuck pretty hard in the sand. Or maybe you’ve been carrying around shame, and it’s super heavy. Or maybe, by virtue of being human, you’ve just make mistakes and need forgiveness. Easter is when our stories begin to turn. No sin is too big for God to forgive. No stone is too heavy for God to move in the resurrection.

If, by chance, the weight you carry is one of grief and loss, Easter is most especially for you. God rolled away the stone, which in God’s holy grammar, is a promise that death is not the end. In the resurrection, we are all connected, in heaven and on earth. What feels like the Impossible Heaviness of death is weightless to the God who triumphed over death. 

So bring out the Alleluias, the tulips, and the chocolate bunnies. Let’s enjoy them after this Year of Impossibly Heavy Things. The heaviest stone has been rolled back, and our stories are turning, too. Jesus is going ahead of us, already lifting our heavy things on his way.