Easter Vigil, Yr B (2024) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Easter Vigil, Year B (2024) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Mark 16:1-8 St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
In the name of the one, holy, and living God:
who was, and is, and is to come. AMEN.
We gather together this evening just as three women gathered two thousand years ago.
Just two days before,
Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome
had watched Jesus being crucified.
They had stood at a distance and watched as this man –
a son,
a friend,
a teacher,
a prophet,
their Messiah –
was nailed to a cross.
Their hope for their lives,
for their children,
for their world,
for their God,
was extinguished.
At three o’clock they had listened to Jesus cry out in a loud voice,
“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Along with Jesus they felt forsaken.
Surely this man was God’s Son.
Surely this man was the long-awaited Messiah.
Why did he have to die?
And why such a shameful death – a death reserved for thieves?
Jesus had come not to take but to give.
The day of the crucifixion was a Friday,
the day of Preparation for the Sabbath,
and they could not allow their Lord to remain on the cross on the Sabbath.
So Joseph,
one of the respected members of the council,
went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body.
He wrapped it in a linen cloth and laid it in a tomb.
But now the Sabbath is over.
Dawn has arrived.
And Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome
return to the tomb where they saw Joseph lay Jesus’ body.
They have come to give Jesus a proper burial – to anoint him.
On their way they realize something that they forgot to prepare for.
The stone that blocked the entrance to the tomb was large –
too large for the three of them to move.
How would they be able to open the tomb?
But when they arrived,
they saw that the stone had already been rolled away.
Upon entering the tomb,
they were frightened as they saw a young man,
dressed in a white robe,
sitting on the right.
Who was this man?
And where had Jesus’ body gone?
The man speaks quickly to calm their fears,
“Do not be alarmed;
you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.
He has been raised;
he is not here.
Look, there is the place they laid him.”
The young man continues to tell these women
to go and tell Jesus’ disciples and Peter
that Jesus is going ahead of them to Galilee,
where they will see him,
just as he had said.
And then we have a surprise ending to the story,
a surprise ending for Easter day.
Instead of these women running out of the tomb and down the road
in utter excitement and joy,
telling the good news to everyone they see…
we are told that they “fled from the tomb,
for terror and amazement had seized them;
and they said nothing to anyone,
for they were afraid.”
These women left the tomb shaking in fear and beside themselves;
they left in silence.
What had just happened?
They had come bringing spices in order to anoint Jesus properly for burial,
but he was not there.
What could this mean?
Is it just possible that all those things Jesus had been saying all along were true?
“The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands,
and they will kill him,
and three days after being killed,
he will rise again.”
“Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,
and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.
For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve,
and to give his life a ransom for many.”
“If any want to become my followers,
let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
For those who want to save their life will lose it,
and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel,
will save it.”
Perhaps it is all true!
The tomb is empty.
Jesus is risen.
Our Lord reigns indeed!
This young man sitting in the tomb,
dressed in white,
extends an invitation to these women.
He invites them to no longer keep silent,
but to go and reconvene the community who deserted Jesus –
the disciples and Peter.
He invites the women to go and tell them the Good News
that Jesus goes ahead of them to Galilee, just as he had said.
These women are to extend the invitation to discipleship once again.
But we are left hanging.
Our gospel ends with fear and silence.
And yet, Jesus’ resurrection has been proclaimed.
As we hear this gospel this evening, what will be our response?
Will we, too, flee in silence and fear?
If we take the Gospel seriously –
if we take Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection seriously –
it is a frightening prospect.
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer paraphrases Mark:
“When Christ calls a person, He bids them to come and die.”
Jesus goes before us, summoning us to follow the way of the cross.
The young man in the tomb sent the message with the women to the disciples
that Jesus would go ahead of them to Galilee.
There, in Galilee, they would see him.
Galilee is an ancient province in what is now Northern Israel.
And as we are well aware,
it is a place very much like many parts of our world today:
religiously and culturally polarized, unstable, diverse, and rapidly changing.
This is the place where we are called to meet Jesus,
not in a place of security.
It is to this diverse, unstable, and broken world that we are called
to be instruments of Christ’s reconciling work,
to heal the sick and broken-hearted,
to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, visit the prisoner,
to proclaim by word and deed that death has indeed been vanquished.
The reality of Easter resurrection is one of amazement and fear,
but we already have what is needed:
-a God to commend
-a loving and liberating Healer to follow
-a Gospel that is good news to proclaim.
Let us then head for the road as our companion awaits us . . .
with renewed hope for ourselves and for all humanity
as we share in the life of our risen Lord.
And for this may we say:
Alleluia! Alleluia! The Lord is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia! Alleluia!
AMEN.
