CHRIST — RESURRECTION AND LIFE
Acts 10:34-43; Luke 24:1-12
Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025
Pastor Ritva H Williams
There is a beautiful irony in our scripture readings for this Easter Sunday. We don’t actually meet Jesus in either story! Yet the presence of the Risen Christ fills every word and space, every breath and thought.
The Easter gospel begins as “they” come to the tomb. As the story unfolds we discover “they” are Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and some other women. These women disciples journeyed with Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem. They accompanied him through the final days and minutes of his earthly life. After observing where Joseph of Arimathea laid the body of Jesus, they went back to their lodgings and waited from sundown on Friday, all through Saturday..
Now in the early hours of Sunday morning, these women disciples come to the tomb. Their plan is to anoint Jesus’ body with oil and spices, and rewrap it in linen cloths to initiate the year long Jewish process of mourning. But nothing turns out as expected.
The stone is rolled away. The tomb is empty. They are puzzled, confused. Before they can make sense of what is happening, two men in dazzling clothes (maybe — angels) appear and ask,
“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has been raised. Remember what he told you while you were still in Galilee: that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, crucified, and on the third day rise again. ”
The women disciples remember that Jesus spoke about being crucified and raised up, after the feeding of the 5000, and again after his transfiguration. They rush back to the city to report that Jesus has been raised from the dead. The apostles do not believe them, brushing aside their news as an idle tale. Peter does go and investigate, then goes home amazed, but without affirming the women disciples’ report.
This gospel lesson shows us how human vulnerability, weakness and prejudice can be obstacles to sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. It also highlights how God is not bound by human expectations and prejudices. God’s messengers reveal the resurrection to women living in a society that discredits their witness. Christ’s resurrection occurs in the middle of time, not at the end of time as many people expected.
Historically, this is a highly plausible account of what happened historically. Jesus’ family, friends and disciples had come to Jerusalem expecting a joyful celebration of God’s liberation of Israel from slavery in Egypt. Instead they walked into a horrific nightmare. The women disciples were eye-witnesses of Jesus’ crucifixion, traumatized, and grieving. The male disciples were overwhelmed by guilt, shame, and grief for having abandoned and denied Jesus in his hour of need; and terrified that they would be arrested and crucified too. It took time for the disciples to accept that Christ was alive, and even more time to figure out what that meant for them.
In the reading from the book of Acts, we meet Peter a decade or more after that first Easter. He is in Caesarea Maritima, in the house of Cornelius, a Roman centurion from Italy. Peter goes there after a series of visionary experiences in which God reveals that everyone and everything God has created are “clean,” as in holy and good. Therefore, Peter must not label them unclean, impure or anything negative (Acts 10:15). Now in home of this foreigner and unbeliever, Peter proclaims:“God shows no partiality but in every nation anyone who reveres God and does what is right is acceptable to God.” God does not play favorites. Jesus Christ is the Lord of all, anointed with the Holy Spirit to preach peace, do good, and heal the oppressed.
Several decades later, Peter or one of his disciples, writes to Christians in the eastern Roman empire, declaring:“the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does” (1 Peter 4:6). Peter’s community had come to realize that Christ’s resurrection is about giving life, not just to all people everywhere, but to all people through all time. Christ’s resurrection opens up a new future even for people who have been long dead and gone from this world — as well as for all of us alive today.
One ancient preacher imagined Christ throwing down the gates of hell and calling out:
Awake!
I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell.
Rise up, work of my hends, you were created in my image.
Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me, and I am in you.
Together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.
(quoted by Richard Rohr, p. 187 in Immortal Diamond)
The early church came to understand that the resurrection was not a one and done event. The Risen Christ is a figure of the past, present and future. Christ’s resurrection reveals an ongoing pattern embedded in creation itself — life, death, and resurrection into a new life — a life that is changed and transformed. The resurrection of Jesus showed the early disciples that sin, death and the Devil do not get to have the last word on any life, but that God will always have the last word. God’s word is always mercy, grace, love, and life. The Risen Christ shows us that love wins.
As Rob Bell, author of the book Love Wins, reminds us, that this pattern of life, dear, and resurrection to new life is built into the very fabric of creation. Think about it: “For nature to spring to life, it first has to die. Death, then resurrection … A seed has to be buried in the ground before it can rise up from out of the earth as new life. The cells in our bodies are dying at a rate of millions a second, only to be replaced at a similar rate of millions a second. Our skin is constantly flaking off and our body is continually replacing the skin cells with new ones; we have entirely new skin every week or so” (Rob Bell, Love Wins, pp. 130-131). We are continually experiencing resurrection — new life — at a cellular level. And whether we recognize it or not we are also experiencing life, death and resurrection to new life spiritually, emotionally, psychologically as well.
This morning the Risen Christ asks us: Are you still seeking the living among the dead? Do our cultures and traditions, ideas and expectations still prevent us from recognizing the risen Christ, as alive, present and active here and now in our lives and in our world? Do we recognize the Risen Christ as the Lord of all who shows no partiality, plays no favorites, and refuses to bless our prejudices and phobias? Do we see and honor the Risen Christ, as John Reilly does in this painting, as the spiritual energy binding all of reality into one unified whole? Do we honor the Christ present in all people and creatures, filling the waters, the air and the light which give us life? Will we make space within our hearts, minds, and souls for the Risen Christ who longs to bring life, light, and love to all people?
As you follow at the Risen Christ out into the world receive this blessing called “Seen," by Jan Richardson.
You had not imagined
that something so empty could fill you to overflowing,
and now you carry the knowledge like an awful treasure
or like a child that curls itself within your heart:
how the emptiness will bear forth a new world
you cannot fathom but on whose edge you stand.
So why do you linger?
You have seen, and so you are already blessed.
You have been seen, and so you are the blessing.
There is no other word you need.
There is simply to go and tell.
There is simply to begin.
Alleluia! Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!
