An Easter blog - rolling the stone away

Here’s my Easter sermon for 2024. 

Very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?”

I wonder what you did yesterday. It was a lovely sunny day. I was in Harrogate yesterday morning and the place was full of people shopping, having coffee and relaxing. The world is marking Easter weekend. But yesterday wasn’t Easter. It was a day for those women and frightened men that must have seemed endless. The law required them to rest on the sabbath. They must have spent the day crying, wondering how it had all gone so wrong. They must have gone over many times in their heads those things that had happened in the days just before. They needed rest. They may not have been able to sleep. They waited.

Also on the sabbath, Matthew 27:62-66 tells us that, the chief priests and Pharisees went to see Pontius Pilate. They asked Pilate for a Roman military guard to be placed at Jesus’ tomb. They remembered Jesus saying that He would rise again in three days, and they suspected Jesus’ followers of planning to steal His body from the tomb. They wanted to do everything they could to prevent that. Pontius Pilate appointed Roman guards to keep watch over the tomb, and a great-sized stone was placed to seal the tomb’s entrance.

The women who had loved Christ most had wanted to come to the tomb immediately to anoint Jesus’ body with spices and perfumes. They were delayed by the Sabbath day requirements, so they spent the time instead gathering the things they needed and wanted for the next day.

Those of us who face a death in our own families will likely feel, no doubt, those same feelings that Jesus Christ’s family and His disciples did on that day - feelings of shock, emptiness, and the loss of reality for a while. 

That first Easter morning, when the women made their way to the tomb, they had just one question on their minds: “Who will roll away the stone for us?” For it was a very large stone.

It would have taken about twenty men to roll the stone away, given what we know about tombs at that time. So these three women knew they didn’t stand a chance. 

They wanted to anoint their beloved Saviour’s dead body. It would be their last act of love toward the one who showed them such love. But how? As they headed to the tomb that morning, that was foremost on their minds. 

They were not thinking about whether the guards would let them approach the tomb. They weren’t worried about being arrested, as followers of Jesus. They weren’t wondering why Peter and the others were not joining them. They weren’t concerned with how they would react to seeing Jesus’ dead body, their friend, crucified and laying dead in a tomb. No. All they were really thinking about was, who would roll away the stone for them? For it was a very large stone.

Easter means many things to us as Christians. It is too big a miracle to mean just one thing. Easter clearly means that Christ is risen. It means that Jesus has defeated death. Easter means that eternal life is real, that death does not end our life with God. That all who live and believe will never die.

But that stone being rolled away from the tomb – a detail recorded in all four gospels – tells us something else about Easter that I think is quite significant. The stone being rolled away tells us that Easter is also about the ways in which God removes obstacles in our life, those obstacles that try to keep us from God, and try to stop us from living the life that God has called us to live.

Today, I invite you to think about the large stones in your life. Those obstacles that are keeping you from living the full abundant life with Christ, here and now. Think about those challenges that are trying to keep you in your tombs, so to speak. Those battles that paralyseus with fear, that trap us, that try to stop us from living, really living, our new lives in Christ. And, then, think about what Easter teaches us about how God plans to remove those stones.

Yesterday afternoon as yesterday was my day off this week we went up to Durham. We both love Durham and especially the magnificent cathedral, in my opinion the greatest Christian building in the country. We were at the Easter Vigil service at teatime. This is a service we don’t do but it’s fascinating.

We are told after death Jesus descended into hell and he harrowed it. In the service yesterday we heard how Jesus met Adam after death - I’d never heard this before – bear with me – he meets Adam and overturns the bad stuff Adam did with opposites. 

‘For you, I your God became your son; for you, I the Master took on your form; that of slave; for you, I who am above the heavens came on earth and under the earth; for you, man, I became as a man without help, free among the dead; for you, who left a garden, I was handed over to Jews from a garden and crucified in a garden.

‘Look at the spittle on my face, which I received because of you, in order to restore you to that first divine inbreathing at creation. See the blows on my cheeks, which I accepted in order to refashion your distorted form to my own image.

'See the scourging of my back, which I accepted in order to disperse the load of your sins which was laid upon your back. See my hands nailed to the tree for a good purpose, for you, who stretched out your hand to the tree for an evil one.

`I slept on the cross and a sword pierced my side, for you, who slept in paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side healed the pain of your side; my sleep will release you from your sleep in Hades; my sword has checked the sword which was turned against you.

‘But arise, let us go hence. The enemy brought you out of the land of paradise; I will reinstate you, no longer in paradise, but on the throne of heaven.” 

The stone is rolled away. We can burst out of our tombs. The grace of God forgives us and gives us a new beginning. Jesus has been at work so today we can find new life. Once we understand what’s going on.

What about Peter and the other men who were following Jesus, his first disciples Peter, by the way, is a nickname given to him by Jesus, and it literally means rock or stone. Peter is supposed to be the stone, the rock on which Christ will build his church. But that first Easter morning, the leader of the disciples is locked away with the other disciples, cowering in fear. You might say, in Peter’s case, that the stone Peter needs rolled away, is himself. Sometimes that’s true for us, isn’t it? We get in our own way. We create our own tombs. And the stone covering the tomb is our very own self. 

Who will roll away that stone? Well, after Jesus was raised from the dead, he did as he promised. He showed himself to the disciples. Jesus entered the upper room, he rolled away their stone, he freed them of their fear, and he helped them to proclaim the good news to the world. That is part of the Easter miracle for us, too.

Our risen Lord enters our lives, and even our tombs, and rolls away the stones that are keeping us from being all that God wants us to be. He frees us from fear and helps us proclaim his message to the world.

The women, of course, didn’t need Jesus to come to the upper room. They had the courage to go to the tomb themselves. Even though they didn’t know what they would do when they got there. And that, too, teaches us something, doesn’t it? That sometimes we need to leave our tombs; we need to step out in faith; and we need to trust that God will be there for us, and help us in our need. The women knew they couldn’t roll that stone away, but it did not stop them from going to the tomb. If Easter means anything, it certainly means that God will be with us, always, and especially when we need God to be.

Let’s see how this account in Mark of that first Easter morning ends. Maybe not how we expect. When the women arrived at the tomb, the stone was already rolled away from the tomb. They needn’t have worried about that at all. But then they were told to go and tell Peter and the other disciples that Jesus is going ahead of them to Galilee; there they would see him, just as he promised. So, what did the women do? They fled from the tomb, and said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. And that is how Mark’s Easter story ends.

Even after we step out in faith, we can still find ourselves stumbling. There are lots of stones in our paths, it turns out, and it is easy to stumble. The women said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. So, what were the women afraid of? Perhaps of being laughed at. How could Jesus go to Galilee if he was dead? Perhaps of what they had just witnessed. A rolled-away stone, a missing Messiah, and a mysterious message from a young man dressed in a white robe. They would make anyone afraid, wouldn’t it? Or perhaps they were afraid of what the disciples would say. Would they think the women were crazy, or seeing things? Would they even believe them? 

But maybe fear and awe is the first response to Easter. Not many preachers will choose Mark 16 as the Gospel from the choices today. Scholars agree that in its oldest form, Mark’s gospel ends with the empty tomb and the women running away. It’s a strange ending, with no resurrection appearance and just a promise that the disciples will see Jesus in Galilee. And weirdly, the manuscript actually ends in the middle of a sentence, unfinished. As one scholar put it, “When is an ending not an end? When a dead man rises from the tomb, and when a Gospel ends in the middle of the sentence” Mark knew what he was doing. There is no ending because we the readers are invited into the story. Jesus is going ahead of us to Galilee.

The story doesn’t have an ending because we are now in the Easter story. And the first reaction to it has to be amazement because it is huge! 

Easter is when our story begins a new chapter. No sin is too big for God to forgive. No tragedy too horrific to heal. No stone too heavy for God to move. The first part of Easter is God at work. Constantly. It’s radical and unexpected and beyond comprehension but it’s real and it’s here and it’s for us whatever we face. The stone is rolled away, the tomb empty. Jesus is ahead of us. There’s a message for a church trying to stay the same. We must keep watching what Jesus is up to. What’s he saying? Where’s he calling us to be? The Circuit is beginning to look at the future over the next few months and we will be invited to ask where we will be in the next five years. The last time I asked that sort of question in a service, someone said out loud “shut!” I hope that isn’t what you think now. God is working mightily. He’s said to us go, Jesus is ahead of you. Be confident. Have faith. Be my church. Tell the story. 

And here’s a postscript… How did the disciples, men and women go from cowering in fear in a locked room or running away from an empty tomb, to boldly sharing the story of Jesus with all the world? Who rolled away the stone for them? What else could it be? It was Jesus himself who rolled away all the stones that were stopping them from doing his work. And after he did, they fearlessly proclaimed the good news of the resurrection of our Lord. No stone could trap them anymore. That, too, is the miracle of Easter. For them and for us.

Walter Bruggemann has this prayer in one of his books:

Christ is risen!

We give thanks for the gift of Easter
that runs beyond our expectations,
beyond our categories of reason,
even more, beyond the sinking sense of our own lives.

We know about the powers of death,
powers that persist among us,
powers that drive us from you, and
from our neighbour, and
from our best selves.

We know about the powers of fear and greed and anxiety,
and brutality and certitude.
powers before which we are helpless.

And then you – you at dawn, unquenched,
you in the darkness,
you on Saturday,
you who breaks the world to joy.

Yours is the kingdom…not the kingdom of death,
Yours is the power…not the power of death,
Yours is the glory…not the glory of death.
Yours…You…and we give thanks
for the newness beyond our achieving.

Amen.

So, on this Easter Sunday do not be afraid. Trust in God. Believe in God’s Son. Rejoice in God’s love for you. And do not worry about who will roll away the stone for you, whatever that stone may be. For Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!