Easter Day 2014

+Alleluia He Is Risen!
Alleluia Jesus is Alive!
Alleluia the strife is o’er!
Alleluia, Easter has come again!
This is really big news for us, but for a lot of people across the world, the mystery of the incarnation, the miracles of Jesus’ ministry, the laments of Lent, the emotional journey through Holy Week holds little or no meaning. As a matter of fact the walk to the empty tomb was pretty lonely for those of you who attended our Holy Week offerings--- most of us skip Holy Week all together! Most of us prefer the new life of resurrection over the inevitable death that leads to this glorious day.

 So, what is the big deal? What do these shouts of Alleluia REALLY mean? What does this account of events over 2000 years ago in a land half way across the globe mean for us, here, in 2014? In Buffalo NY?  At the Church of the Good Shepherd and the Church of the Ascension?
Alleluia. What DOES it all mean?
 Well, to understand—I mean to really wrestle with this question, we need to look back. Back to that breaking dawn 2000 years ago, on a hill just outside of town, when Mary Magdalene—so long misunderstood and misrepresented---screwed up her courage and went to finish the anointing she began three days before..for the very least she could do for this man she loved, this God she revered, this leader she followed, was to give him a proper burial.
 And so through the lightening sky of the First Easter morn, she walks out of town and up Calvary’s hill to The Tomb.
 It was a foolish mission—after all, the tomb had been sealed—she’d watched Joseph of Arimathea roll the stone himself. But, Mary soldiered on, not because this made sense, but because she was compelled, driven, drawn to that tomb—against all common sense, against all reasonableness, against all propriety, Mary went. She saw. And She told.
Mary believed.
Mary wondered.
Mary went.
Mary saw.
Mary told.
Yes, Mary believed.
 THIS is what it all means. This is what we’re called to do. It’s in this—the emulating of Mary of Magdala—where we find the meaning of these alleluias, the meaning of this Easter Sunday come again:
Mary believed. All the Mary’s did—you see in all of the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion and resurrection one thing is clear: the men—Peter, James, John and countless others fled.
They left. They ran. They denied. They hid.
They even betrayed.
But the women—Mary, the mother, Mary of Magdala, Mary Clopas, sister of Mother Mary, Salome and others unnamed,  stayed. From the foot of the cross to the mouth of the tomb, they stayed. They watched, they witnessed, they waited, they wondered.
They believed.
Against all sense and against all reason they believed. The men thought theirs was a fool's errand. And , truth be told, so did the women themselves, yet, they had to do it…they couldn’t help themselves!...and so they went, to do what women have been doing for millennia: they did what needed to be done while the men hid and denied and argued, the women got to work.
They took care of business.
 And right there is the answer to the skeptic's question of “what’s the big deal about this He is Risen stuff? Who cares?
The meaning of Easter right  here and now, in 2014, in Bflo NY, in this church on this Easter morning is this:  we need to take care of business; the business of the empty tomb.
We need to follow the mandate Jesus gave us around the dinner table on that very first Holy Thursday—we are to do unto others as Jesus did unto us: we are to Love as we have been Loved.
 You see, the empty tomb isn’t just about a miraculous resurrection.
The empty tomb is about going and telling, going and doing, going and being.
Jesus tells Mary—“don’t hold onto me: go and tell my brothers”—
Go and Tell. Go and Show.
 So, my friends, I have news for you: Easter isn’t the end, it’s the beginning.
By virtue of Jesus’ death and resurrection, by virtue of our Lord’s mandate to love others as we’ve been loved, we must follow Mary’s example.
We must go and see.
We must believe and tell.
We must do what needs to be done:
Clothe the naked, feed the hungry, comfort the afflicted.
We must challenge the status quo, we must ask the tough questions, we must pursue righteousness.
We must, above all else, demand dignity for every single human being , no exceptions.
Because when we do that, we’re loving as we’ve been—as we are---loved.
Because when we do that we’re going and seeing, we’re believing and telling—
 we are doing what must be done.
Alleluia.
The Lord is Risen , indeed.+
[rerun from 2012]