Sermon for Easter Day - Matthew 28:1-10

There was a young man who sensed a call from God to become a pastor. He loved Jesus and hoped that he might be useful in the ministry. His small town church could see that call in him, too. So they passed the collection plate and sent sent him off to seminary with a small amount of money and a large amount of prayer for his journey. When he arrived, he was impressed by the sense of history and tradition of a place that had trained so many generations of pastors. And he was a little intimidated by the intellectual rigor there. He worried about being able to keep up with his fellow students, but the truth is that all first year seminarians feel the same way. As he began his courses in biblical studies and ancient Greek, the history of Christianity, and theology, he was on a steep and exciting learning curve.

In the spring of that year, the senior pastor of his home church invited him back for Easter. And to the student’s surprise, he was invited to preach. “I can show them what I’ve been studying,” he thought, “and make them proud of me.” So he worked long and hard on his sermon, trying to express the mystery and meaning of Jesus’ resurrection. He stepped into the pulpit with sweaty palms and a racing heart, and began. His sermon was a long one, and he used quite a bit of his new vocabulary. He talked about reading the Gospel account with a historical critical hermeneutic. He described the implications of the substitutionary atonement of Jesus on the cross. And he finished by explaining the resurrection as realized eschatology. Bless his heart, as they say. People smiled politely and occasionally nodded their heads as he preached.

In the receiving line after the service, everyone was very kind. They were happy to have him home, and they thanked him for his message. The last person to greet him was the matriarch of the congregation. While she herself was not seminary trained, let’s just say she had several decades of wisdom over the young preacher. She hugged him and said, “Son, you are well on your way to becoming a wonderful pastor. We can all see that in you. And preaching your first Easter sermon is a big accomplishment! But I do have one piece of advice for you. Please remember that we are not giraffes. You need to put the spiritual food where we can reach it.”

I thought of that young man as I pondered the Easter story for today. If that guy, armed with over two thousand years of theological reflection and some big words, had a hard time conveying the meaning of resurrection to his church, imagine how much harder it must have been for God on the first Easter. Think of it this way: how does the creator of the universe, the maker of heaven and earth, the Alpha and the Omega, the Lord Almighty, convey the truth of Easter to mere mortals?

In Matthew’s telling, God decided to send an angel to deliver the message. And I have to say, this was a risky maneuver. When angels show up elsewhere in the Bible, they are usually enormous, fiery, terrifying beings who come with booming voices and a lot of smoke and earthquakes. The angel in Matthew’s gospel was no different. As he descended from heaven, there was a great earthquake. His face was like lightening and his clothes dazzling white. He rolled away the stone that had sealed Jesus’ tomb, offering the first glimpse of resurrection. And then, in an unusual move for a heavenly messenger, he sat down on the stone. I imagine this was an attempt to appear more approachable, or at least a little less terrifying. I picture him crossing his legs and folding his fiery hands in his lap, trying to pull off a lower key vibe, reigning in his heavenly splendor just enough to have conversation with the women at the tomb. As an aside, the Roman guards couldn’t handle it and froze like dead men. To be fair, though, I’m sure their night guard contract only covered potential grave robbers and neglected to include any clauses about fending off heavenly messengers. But the women somehow managed to keep it together and listen to the angel. The angel made the first proclamation of Easter with these words: “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised.”

God’s first Easter sermon, delivered via angel, was pretty great. In just two sentences, the angel announced something astonishingly new, that one who was dead is alive again. Some traditions call Easter Sunday the eighth day of creation, marking a new reality which now includes the resurrection of the dead and the triumph of God over death itself. Earthquakes and fiery heavenly messengers seem entirely appropriate to convey that astonishing new reality on Easter morning.

A supernatural, universe-altering divine act, announced by a fiery heavenly messenger, is good news by any measure. But resurrection on that cosmic level can feel a little too abstract and impersonal for us to know what to do with it. God’s first Easter sermon did not put the spiritual food where you and I can reach it, at least not at first. So God, keenly aware that we are not giraffes, kept going on Easter morning. The angel told the women to hurry and go tell the other disciples that the risen Jesus would meet them in Galilee. So they turned and started running. The Gospel tells us that “suddenly Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings!’ And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him.” As they held onto the one they loved and thought they had lost, the universe-altering, cosmic-shifting good news became close, concrete, and personal. They reached out and embraced resurrection. They reached out for their loved one and took hold of him. After the bleakest weekend of crucifixion and loss, Easter morning brought unimaginable and touchable joy.

This concrete joy made its way quickly to the other disciples. And you know who had a really good first Easter sermon? The disciple Peter, as told in the Book of Acts. Like any first year seminarian, it started out a little heady with the words, "I truly understand that God shows no partiality.” What he meant there is that God pours out grace abundantly on all people, including you and me. From there, Peter preached pretty well. “They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day… Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” We quickly start to see why Easter is not only spectacular on a cosmic level, but that it’s also good news for us. Not only has Jesus been raised from the dead, in which God stripped death of its power. Easter comes with a grace bestowed on us all, and the forgiveness of our sins. Easter is God’s sermon that nothing can separate us from God, not any of our sins and not even death. The empty tomb on Easter morning is a sign of a cosmic, universe-altering event. But God’s spiritual food has also been placed where we can reach it. Easter is personal to each of us, a joyful promise that we are forever beloved by a God who refuses to let anything separate us ever again.

A final word about giraffes, lest anyone come away from church today worried that they got left out. I trust that God’s grace extends to them as well, and that God figured out a way to communicate good news in a giraffe friendly way. After all, God has a knack for always putting spiritual food within reach.