Resurrection is Coming

This year, Easter Sunday falls during the COVID-19 pandemic. A time when we are secluded in our homes and told to wrap our faces in cloth if we dare to go out for groceries or supplies. Walk into the grocery store, and you’ll see people wandering quietly through the aisles with gloved hands and masked faces. Get too close, and you’ll register a wide-eyed look of alarm on the face of that passerby. We’re in hiding from an invisible beast.

“The Beast” is what some folks are calling the virus. With no cure in sight, the only thing we can do is hide away, covering our noses and faces with cloth, hoping to keep the aggressive beast away from our lungs.

This brutal virus makes us feel that we are locked up in a dark tomb for an impossibly long duration, as though the darkness of “Good Friday” might go on forever with little hope in sight. And yet all around us, we see signs of spring, signs of awakening, signs of hope, signs of resurrection. We know life as we know it may be dampened down for now, covered in what feels like “funeral clothing.” And yet, spring blooms eternal. All around us, birds sing, the sun shines, trees bud, flowers unfurl, and God unwraps an entirely new landscape of color and life. But for now, we wait.

I wonder what it must have felt like for Jesus those “three days” in the tomb, knowing resurrection was imminent, yet waiting for dawn to come on that magnificent morning when the stone was rolled away, and the sun streamed through, when an “angel of the Lord” removed the funerary cloth from Jesus’ face, when the Holy Spirit breathed again the holy breath of life into His stricken body and made it rise like Ezekiel’s bones from the valley of the shadow of death. Three days of darkness. Then, new and restored life. Not the same life. But a restored, resurrected life.

In today’s Gospel from John, we read that Mary Magdalene approached the tomb while it was still dark. Mary came with expectation after the third day, while it was still dark, while all were still without hope, while the pall of death still shrouded the land and her heart. And in the darkness, just before dawn, she found the stone rolled away, and the grave opened.

From there, Mary ran to two other disciples and bade them to look, Peter, and “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” The first thing that the disciples do is enter and find the linen cloths lying there, the ones that had covered Jesus’ broken body. They noticed that the face cloth wasn’t with the other linen cloths but was folded up in its own place. Although the two disciples still didn’t really understand the idea of resurrection from the scriptures, they saw and trusted what their eyes had perceived. All of this, from looking at the cloths.

The disciples realized that when the stone was rolled away, and the darkness opened to the light, the cloth from Jesus’ face had first to be removed, so that the breath of God could breathe life into his body and raise him up. The gentle and loving folding of that face cloth feels both intimate and beautiful in this resurrection story, as though God gazed down on His tortured Son, removed and folded that cloth from Jesus’ nostrils and mouth, and declared death defeated.

Let me say it again: God declared death defeated. The breath of the Holy Spirit must have come powerfully into Him, must have filled that cave with heavenly light, must have lifted Him up and stood Him on His feet, must have refreshed and restored His body, as that breath of God flowed through it, creating once again from the pall of death, a new human being. At that, the rest of the cloths must have fallen from His limbs and torso to the cave floor, as He exited the tomb.

After the two disciples had left the tomb, Mary remained. When she looked into the tomb, she saw bathed in holy light two “angels of God” at both head and foot of where Jesus had been, like an afterglow of God’s breath. When she turned around, there she saw Jesus, His body fresh with life. And yet, not as before. In that moment she knew that everything would change. All her hopes, affirmed. All her fears, relieved.

Today, as we celebrate Easter, resurrection means so much more to us than it did before. For we have been living in darkness, confined to a kind of tomblike existence. Life as we have known it has stopped. We don’t go out to work. We don’t go out to play. We hide our faces; we guard our lungs. We walk zombie-like through our homes and streets, frightened, and covered in our own kind of “funerary” cloths, so that the cold breath of death might pass us by, that invisible breath-stealing beast that threatens us and keeps us locked away, for a time.

But only for a time.

Life in waiting is merely that, a time of waiting. And yet also a time of expectation. For we know that no matter what, that beast has no power over us. God’s resurrection breath will raise us up. A new day will dawn, soon. Very soon.

Mary’s faith kept her expectant and waiting, watching for something new to change, something miraculous to happen. She may not have known when or exactly how, but on that third day, she came nevertheless, in the darkness, hoping that God would come through, that light would somehow break through.

Mary initially thought that the authorities had taken Christ’s body and disposed of it. It took Jesus appearing before them several times to shake them into knowing and understanding the resurrection. So it didn’t come all at once. That’s where we find ourselves. Wary. Uncertain. Do I go out wrapped in garments or do I take the grave clothes off? Do I risk my presence among the people again?

When Mary and the disciples realized what had happened; that Life had been restored, that God’s promise had been fulfilled, that resurrection was here, they found the courage to open the doors and walk out into the light. And yet, life had changed. Never again would Jesus walk the earth as He did before. Never again would they sit on the hillsides drawing crowds of people. That time had passed. That was before. A new life and a new time had dawned, and with it, a new kind of spirit, and a new kind of people.

You, too, are resurrection people, watch and wait people of God. Be expectant. Dawn is coming. And when it comes, your face cloths will be removed, and you will breathe again. The spring you see around you will manifest itself in all kinds of ways, and life will start again. You’ll feel the bustle of people and cars, know the joy of relationships and friends. You’ll again eat together, sing together, worship together, and love together. In a word: Resurrection.

It will all be new. Never again will life be quite the same. For our experiences of death and darkness change us. We emerge not the same but renewed and restored. We become wiser and more understanding about the world and God’s amazing miracles. We become more joyful about life, and more appreciative of everything in it. We become Resurrection People.

A six-year-old boy named David was taking a walk one day with his grandmother. They decided to detour through the local graveyard. Stopping to read the tombstones, Grandma explained that the first date on the tombstones was the day the person was born and the second date was the day the person died.

“Why do some tombstones only have one date?” little David asked.

“Because those people haven’t died yet,” his grandmother explained.

David was obviously stunned by his grandmother’s explanation because, that night, he couldn’t stop talking about the excursion. “Mom,” he said with wide eyes, “Some of the people buried there in the cemetery aren’t even dead yet!”

Leave it to a six-year-old to put a different twist on things. But Easter puts the grandest twist to the story of all. Easter says that the people who are buried there who are in Christ are not dead at all. They are alive in Christ right now and will one day receive their new bodies, just as Jesus received his new body at Easter.

Yes, resurrection is coming. The signs are all around you. Watch. Wait. Listen for the breath. Long for the change. And celebrate the Lord who gives life and restores life, now and always.

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  The Lord is risen indeed!