The Night Which Changes Everything: Easter Vigil Sermon on Matthew 28:1-10

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Tonight is the night which changes everything.


Shortly before 6am, before the downtown businesses have opened and the night watchmen have finished their shifts, a couple of blue collar women slip out the back door of their rented row house and catch a bus to the cemetery. They each clutch a small package of grocery-store carnations, trying to protect the blooms a little from the cool spring breeze. Blinded by grief, they stare straight ahead as the events of the last few days swirl through their minds. The whole thing feels so surreal.

Jesus had cared for Mary Magdalene and her friend Mary like few people ever had. He didn’t treat them as lesser for being women and uneducated. No, Jesus had believed in those women and in their struggles. He had walked with them through the greatest joys and the greatest sorrows of their lives. Unlike the other religious leaders, he didn’t shy away from suffering. If anything, he embraced it: Jesus had taught them that God could be found in the suffering of men and women just like them.

They’d never heard anyone talk about God like that before. They’d always believed that God was somewhere out there, you know; up with the fancy folks at the church who had education and titles and pretty outfits. If they were really good, God might throw the normal folks a crumb or two, but beyond that God wasn’t much interested in people like them.

But Jesus made them feel like God was right there with them. Like God wanted to be one of them and move in next store.  Jesus had been on his way to making a big difference in the world. He was going to change things. His disciples were helping him build a movement which was going to bring justice to the streets and hold the corrupt politicians and the drug dealers and the slum landlords responsible for the pain caused to their people.

Where were those men, anyway? The women had hardly seen the disciples since they’d all taken off when Jesus was arrested. After all Jesus had gone through with them, they couldn’t even hang around when he was being sentenced to die. They were terrified, obviously, and it was true that they would have been at greater risk than the women were. No one paid any attention to a couple of crying, blue-collar women. They didn’t matter. But they mattered to Jesus.

Mary Magdalene and her friend Mary lived in a world of scarcity, where there was never enough for everyone; where it was every person for him or herself, and where death held power over life. But what they didn’t know on their way to the grave that day was that this was the night which changes everything. This was the death to conquer all death. This is the climax of our story.

Because we too live in a world which claims there is never enough for everyone, where it is every person for him or herself, and where life seems to be at the mercy of death. We spend much of our lives trying to stay just a step or two ahead of illness, of poverty, of loneliness, and ultimately- of death.  But in the last two days, Jesus has descended deep into the heart of death and has bound its power. In rising from the dead, Jesus has declared for all of creation that death no longer has the final say over our lives. In the resurrection of Jesus, we have been given a different story to live by, one which stands in stark contrast to the story of scarcity: it is the story of abundance. “I am the resurrection and the life,” says Jesus, “I am enough.”

To see the difference between the story of scarcity and the story of abundance, we only need to look at our Gospel for today. Here we meet women who are terrified and yet bold enough to stand in the presence of the angel at the tomb, while it is the guards who are so afraid that they become “like dead men.” This is important because in first century Palestine, Jewish women were the very definition of powerlessness. If anyone should be living by the story of scarcity, it is them. These women had very little control over their lives, their finances, their families, or their health. They had every reason to be afraid.

But in first century Palestine, the Roman soldiers were the definition of power. What their position represented was life and health and abundance, because the emperor had made himself lord over all of this. The emperor controlled who lived- and who died. So it’s strange that we find the gate-keepers of life and death paralyzed with fear in the face of the resurrection.

This is our first hint that something has changed. In defeating the power of death, Jesus has exposed the story of scarcity for what it really is: a lie. The resurrection of Jesus has shown that the power of the emperor is really no power at all, and not something to be feared. Jesus makes it possible for the women to live unafraid. He enables them to see that life is the victor- not death- and he invites them to come and join him in the story of abundance.

It is true that the women leave the angel in fear, but this is a different kind of fear than the soldiers had. It is the sort of fear, mixed with overwhelming joy, which comes from realizing that this is the night which changes everything. This is the climax of their story.

But their story does not begin at the resurrection. New Testament scholar Stanley Hauerwas explains that the women are only enabled to see the resurrection because they have walked with Jesus through the crucifixion. That is why the women are the first to see the resurrected Jesus- they were the ones who walked the whole way with him through his suffering, the ones who wiped his face as he struggled toward Golgotha, the ones who stayed by his side as he died.

In my chaplaincy class at the Vic a few years ago, we were told to take this kind of approach with people who are suffering. My teacher explained that most people’s first reaction, when dealing with a person who suffers, is to try and make it better. We want that person to experience the joy of resurrection right away, without having to descend first into the pain of the crucifixion with them. But as anyone who has suffered knows, this just isn’t possible. When someone treats our pain like a thing to be fixed or avoided, they only make the pain deeper.

The job of a chaplain, my teacher explained, is to descend with the hurting one all the way down, being present with them to the very bottom of their pain just as the women were present with Jesus during those long and dark hours of Thursday and Friday. Then, and only then, once they’ve experienced the crucifixion with him, are they enabled to come up out of that darkness to join him in the joy of the resurrection.

The resurrection isn’t good news because it denies our suffering. That would be as much of a lie as the story of scarcity. Until God’s kingdom comes in all its fullness, pain and suffering continue to break in on our lives even though they have lost their final power. The resurrection is good news because it means we have a God who goes deep, down into our suffering and dwells there with us- but that God does not allow our pain and brokenness to have the final say.

Jesus enables us, as he enabled Mary Magdalene, to live unafraid. In a world where suffering appears to be the only truth, we are given new eyes to see life bursting forth everywhere. In a world where there never seems to be enough for everyone, we are given hope that in Christ there is enough. In a world where death appears to have the final say, we are given a narrative which declares that life wins in the end, despite all evidence to the contrary.

In a few minutes, we will be invited to renew again the promises of our baptism, declaring our intention to live by the story of abundance and not by the story of scarcity. Declaring that we too wish to die with Jesus because we know that in his death, death itself has lost its power. Declaring that we too wish to be resurrected with Jesus because we know that in his resurrection, we are given real life.

Living as a people of abundance will make no sense to the world around us, just as it made no sense to the Roman soldiers. As a resurrection people, we are called to live as if the death and destruction and darkness in our world hold no power. Because on this side of the kingdom we continue to be wounded and to die, but that is not the end of the story for us.

Jesus’ resurrection was not the resuscitation of his corpse, like coming back from a coma. No, Jesus’ resurrection was the victory of life over death. Jesus’ resurrection means that he will never die again and in him we can become people of resurrection both in life and in death. When we die with Jesus, the narrative of death no longer reigns over our lives.

Over the coming year we will explore with Mary Magdalene and with the early Church what it actually looks like to die and be raised with Jesus. We will wrestle with the implications of living as a people of abundance in the midst of a culture of scarcity. But for now, only one thing matters: He is Risen!

The women have just met with Jesus in the back alley behind the cemetery and they hurry to catch a bus home to tell his disciples. The sun has risen now, but they aren’t worried about who will see them anymore. Just as they were overwhelmed by grief only an hour or two ago, so now they are so overcome with excitement they can hardly contain themselves. They have a growing sense that nothing is going to be the same after this. Christ is risen. Life has won. Alleluia.