April 20, 2025, Easter Sunday, John 20:1-18 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ April 20, 2025 ♦ Leave a comment

To listen to this sermon, click the link above. The text is below.

My impressions of Easter Sunday go way back to when I was a little girl. Easter morning began the moment I opened my eyes and found my Easter basket on the foot of my bed. Stuffed bunnies and jelly beans, crinkly cellophane and Easter grass – I loved everything about it. And then there was the delight of getting dressed in my very best: frilly dress, white cotton gloves and ankle socks, a straw hat with a ribbon and that elastic that goes under your chin to keep it from blowing away in the spring breeze, a button-up springtime coat in pastel colors, and best of all, black patent-leather shoes so shiny you could see your face in them. It was a pretty worldly take on the celebration of Easter, but it was all jumbled together inextricably in my head and heart with the Resurrection and the empty tomb and alleluias and angels, all in one bundle of sunshine and joy.

The thing is, though – when we read about the first Easter morning, there really isn’t anyone in the story, not one single person, who’s filled with the kind of sunny expectation that most people have associated with Easter. That morning, the disciples, who scattered like sheep when Jesus was arrested, were filled not with joy, but with shame and confusion. Not to mention fear. As the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, late on that first Easter day, said to Jesus, “We had hoped he was the one who would redeem Israel.” The first Easter saw so many hopes dashed for so many people, and on top of that crushing disappointment, what about the authorities – Roman and High-priestly – what were they likely to do to all the people who were known to be Jesus’s companions and supporters and students? Nothing good, that’s for sure.

And above and beyond all of that, the disciples were dealing with the terrible gut-wrenching grief of losing someone who meant everything to them: he was their Teacher; he was their friend; he was their Rabbi – and they all knew he was even more than that. If you’re paying attention, there is really a shocking amount of weeping that goes on in this joyful Easter-morning story.

And for pretty much everyone in the story, there is a sense of profound confusion. What the hell just happened? Why did it happen? How could all our expectations and hopes just collapse like that? How could Jesus have failed us so spectacularly? How could we have failed him so miserably? And how are we ever going to go on living after this?

And maybe some of us here have arrived at this Easter morning in the year 2025 feeling a little bit more like those disciples and a little bit less – or maybe a lot less – like the sunshiny alleluia Christian person you feel like you ought to be. Maybe you are feeling a little – or even a lot – dismayed by everything you see happening in the world around you: the violence, the cruelty, the division, the chaos and confusion. Maybe this morning, for some of us, our hearts are aching with a grief so profound we don’t even know how to process it or share it with anybody. Maybe we are having a really, really hard time understanding what, in the name of all that is Holy, God could possibly be thinking right now.

Well, welcome to Easter morning. You are exactly where you belong to be. This morning we stand, together, with the confused disciples, with the weeping Mary, with the stricken soldiers, with each other, in front of the dark, cold, yawning mouth of the open grave. And we hear the angels speaking – one angel, or two angels, who knows? – and they are telling us, “You’re looking for Jesus. But he’s not here. He is risen.”

Welcome to the great company of the embattled faithful on this Easter morning – today we join Mary, and John, and Peter, and all the people of God throughout all the centuries: weeping for the suffering in the world, cowering in terror at the cruelty of tyrants and the powers of hell, raising our voices and our hearts in hope. We come in all the weakness and uncertainty of our flawed human nature. We come joyful or thankful or hopeful or sad or anxious or just plain old tired out. But we come.

We stand in the garden, before the silent, empty tomb.

And we hear his voice,

calling us each by name.…… (names….)

Alleluia, Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed. Alleluia!