The Women Went. They Saw. They Told. They Believed. Easter Sunday 2018 St Luke’s Attica

+Alleluia He Is Risen!
Alleluia He is Alive!
Alleluia the strife is o’er!
Alleluia, Easter has come again!
 “So what?” “So What” is the response of most people in 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 for a great portion of the world. Heck, relatively few Episcopalians attend Holy Week services. Most people prefer the new life of resurrection without going through the agony of Maundy Thursday, the despair of Good Friday and the emptiness of Holy Saturday.
 So, so what….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 2018? In Attica NY?  At St. Luke’s Church?
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.
Mary saw.
Mary told.
And 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:
The women 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, Salome and others unnamed, stayed. From the foot of the cross to the mouth of the tomb, they stayed. They watched, they waited, they wondered.
They believed.
These women did what women have been doing for millennia: they did what needed to be done.
They did what needed to be done while the men argued, betrayed and denied.
The women? They took care of business.
Just as we should.
  You see, that’s the meaning for us, here in 2018, in Attica NY, in this church on this Easter morning:  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 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. Go and Believe.
 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 in all things.
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.
And that is our Easter task. It is our Christian task.
Alleluia.
The Lord is Risen , indeed.+