I suppose, after the Christmas story, what we just heard is some of the most familiar Scripture.  Writing under arrest in Rome, Paul tells the faithful in Philippi that “[i]t is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you” (Phil 3:1).  The believers, it seems, have asked Paul to tell them again what he has already told them.  Sing them over again to me, wonderful words of life.  I suppose it might be possible to grow tired of hearing the one you love say “I love you.”  Most of the time, we never grow tired of hearing those sacred words.  I suspect, parents and grandparents, that you’ve had the experience of reading a book to your little one, only for the little one to ask you right afterward to read the same book again.  Some things are worth repeating.  We may remember the old hymn, “I Love to Tell the Story”; by all means, especially in this season of the year, let’s each be telling the story to others.  Shouldn’t there also be a hymn that sings, “I Love to Hear the Story Again”?  Wonderful words of life.  Get them by heart.

Now, there were those who had just recently come to Jesus, had only started walking with him, when all the events in Jerusalem unfolded.  I suppose a few of the new companions, seeing what was happening, kind of drifted away, maybe never to return.  That makes me sad.  I also have to believe, though, because I know the Spirit just as you know the Spirit—I say I have to believe that, among those newest companions, there were also those who didn’t waver in their commitment to Jesus, even at the cross, even at the tomb.  When I say commitment to Jesus, I don’t mean allegiance to the moral lessons Jesus taught.  I mean devotion no matter what to faith in God and God’s promise of new life, salvation life: devotion to God even when that led to death on a cross.  There are many things worth living for.  There is also that worth dying for.

There were the newcomers.  God bless the newcomers.  There were also those who had been with Jesus through it all.  We know about the apostles.  Luke also wants to remind us about the women who had come with Jesus from Galilee.  We don’t often hear about them.  They weren’t there to call attention to themselves.  It isn’t the apostles who go to the tomb so early in the morning that it’s barely light out.  It was the women: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James.  Love looks like something.  The apostles are more than a little concerned, afraid, that they might be next, but the women aren’t afraid.  I mean, they are afraid—it’s not much fun going in to the presence of a dead body, especially when it’s the body of your dearest friend, your beloved friend.  It’s not exactly a morale-builder to go to the grave in the dark.  But love overcomes fear, just as Jesus was always assuring them.  So, they were trying to be brave, remembering, together, their love for Jesus.

“They found the stone rolled away from the tomb” (24:2).  That didn’t do much to help their bravery, though it was a good thing that the stone was rolled away, because how were they going to get in, otherwise?  Have you ever tried to lift a headstone, a gravestone?  How many men do you think it would take?  Now, increase the size and weight of the stone by about a factor of ten: that’s what those women had to contend with.  They hadn’t thought about that.

They were afraid, and they knew they had to be brave.  Maybe, at that point, it wasn’t so much love as it was curiosity pushing them on, pulling them in.  Something has happened.  What has happened?  There are those who have the impression religion means you can’t ask any questions or entertain any doubts—accept everything without question; that’s called belief!  I think that’s mistaken.  Faith doesn’t forbid questions.  Faith invites questions.  Faith is not afraid of questions.  Faith also understands not all questions can be answered just now, not to the full satisfaction of the one asking.  The truths of faith take time to develop, to unfold.  A seed is planted.  It doesn’t look like much, doesn’t look so very promising, grab our interest or hold our attention.  Have you ever planted a seed, given it light, good soil, and watered it—in other words, had some concern for the seed, invested your time, effort, and labor in the seed?  Something happens.  You didn’t make it happen.  Maybe you had a hand in helping it happen?  The seed opens.  What was closed, hard, opens, and changes.  The seed sprouts.  The sprout also needs light, air, good soil, and water.  What had seemed so unpromising, so unlikely, begins to fulfill its promise, fulfill its purpose.

Well, the tomb was already open.  They didn’t know how or who.  The women entered the tomb.  Would you?  Could you have done it?  They came to go in.  That was the plan, but just because a plan is made doesn’t mean the plan is carried out.  What was it John Lennon said, Life is what happens while we’re making plans?  It’s helpful to go with someone, go as a group.  We’re braver when we have others with us.  In this, I think God is telling us and teaching us about the blessedness and value of the congregation.  We’re here for one another, here for whoever comes.  Let’s take that mentality out with us, too.

The women enter, and they’re shocked, shaken: “they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus” (24:3).  So, that’s a problem.  Something has happened.  Don’t overlook or underestimate the doubt the Gospel accounts are addressing, just here.  There are people who think all these stories about Jesus are just lies, laughable fictions for weak-minded fools, for women and children.  The women went to the tomb.  It had been sealed with a large, heavy stone.  The stone was rolled away.  Who rolled it away?  Why roll away the stone sealing the tomb?  Have you ever smelled a body that’s been dead for several days?  Think you want to grab hold of the corpse and manhandle it out?  The body was gone: they saw that, knew that.  They also jump to what seems to be the most logical conclusion: someone took it.

But who?  Why?  Where?  Who would benefit?  How had it profited the apostles to follow Jesus for those three years?  It hadn’t made them rich; quite the opposite.  It hadn’t made them powerful or prestigious.  Notorious, perhaps.  Had it gotten them wine, women, and song?  Is that what they joined Jesus to get?  Did any of them actually think that stealing the body (and stashing it where?) would now bring the long-overdue payoff?  It doesn’t make any sense.  It’s really reaching to explain away what, otherwise, can only be a work of God.

Luke tells us the women were wondering.  Ya think?  That doesn’t mean they were swept up in adoration, as if they knew a miracle when they saw one.  No—they’re stumped, worried, afraid, stunned and don’t know what to do.  They’re stuck.  Things have just gone from terribly bad to incomprehensibly worse.  “While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them” (24:4).  Luke doesn’t call them angels.  He doesn’t have to.  The clothes bright as lightning tell us, because this is just how Jesus appeared with Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration: the revelation of the heavenly, the divine splendor of Christ.  And that is wonderful, indeed, but it doesn’t exactly help to calm the women or soothe their fear.  It’s not joy or relief that the women are feeling.

Even if it’s holy terror, it’s still terror.  Even if it’s Good News, it’s more than they can process in the moment.  God’s Word is being fulfilled; whatever was left of the foundation the women had been standing on is being demolished.  What was that foundation?  Dead is dead.  Jesus is dead.  Jesus is in the tomb: let’s love one another and be nice and kind and gentle and patient with one another.  Because you see, of course, how that follows.  Beloved, even we who know—who ought to know—that Christ is alive, raised, and getting all things ready for his return—even we, despite all this knowledge, can have a hard time being nice and kind and gentle and patient with one another, let alone with all the also irritating people out there.

In Christ, risen, God is providing us all with a new foundation, a sure foundation, a true foundation for life here and hereafter.

“In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground” (24:5).  What can they do but drop down as the dead and wait?  What can they do but lie prostrate, submitted to power beyond them, and wait for what’s next?  “[T]he men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead?’” (24:5).  Um, you know you’re in the wrong place, right?  If you’re looking for the dead, oh, you’ll find them, alright.  The dead aren’t so hard to find.  But the tomb isn’t the place to see the one who lives.  To see him, we’ve got to leave the tomb behind.

In the ancient world, the grave was it.  Oh, there were a few heroes, the great and mighty ones, the noble and best, who had a reward in a happy afterlife by their valor, their courage, their prowess and power.  As for the rest, it was just an unending living death among the shades and shadows of the underworld.  Nothing to hope for.  Nothing to do.  No one to love.  Forever.  Even much of what we read in the Old Testament seems to have had a difficult time accepting any real alternative.  Yet, for those who read God’s Word with great care, attention, hope, faith, and love, there was also always already there another message: life, and one who would bring life, bring others to life.  God is a God of salvation.

The bright messengers in the dark tomb tell the women, “He is not here; he has risen!” (24:6).  Get out of the dark tomb.  We have a knack for circling back to the tomb.  The tomb is like the end of the line, where the trail trails off.  No way beyond it, nothing worth talking about after.  The messengers from God are saying such thinking is quite wrong, entirely mistaken, simply not an accurate, truthful account of reality.  The women were still holding onto the tattered remains of a lie.  Time to let go.  Rise and go.

We let go when we remember.  “Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’  Then they remembered his words” (24:6-8).  Oh, they had witnessed the being delivered over and the crucifixion.  Now, they were being asked to become witnesses to something more, something beautiful, holy, and true: Christ is risen.  They knew, they saw that his body wasn’t there.  That in itself does not require anyone to conclude that Christ arose.  Even what the angels say does not strictly by itself require anyone to conclude Christ is risen.  But the angels aren’t asking the women to believe on account of what they say.  Believe because this is what Jesus long before already told you would happen.  Pain, grief, and loss weren’t the end, the sum of the story.  The tomb is not where everything comes to a stop forever.  Remember.  He told you.  He promised.

And those terrified, wondering women did remember.  Yes, he had said that.  We had forgotten; we had been so overwhelmed, stretched so thin by the stress and sorrow, so worn out by hurt that we had forgotten, we let ourselves forget what Jesus told us to remember.  Though the fear wasn’t completely gone, it was changing.  Now, there was also a dawning sense of excitement, hope, belief, an urgent, rising conviction that they needed to let others know.  They tell the apostles and those gathered, locked away in their gloom and confusion (24:9-10).  And, if you remember the story well enough, or even if you don’t remember it too clearly, you can pretty well guess what response the women got: the apostles “did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense” (24:11).  So many, too many, still think so.  Nice story.  Nice try.  But seriously.

Even though he didn’t believe—yet—Peter “got up and ran to the tomb.  Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves” (24:12).   So, the body was not there, but the cloths used to wrap the dead body were.  Someone went to the lengthy, nauseating trouble of unwinding the strips of linen from the dead body, in order to carry away the torn, bloody, heavy, decaying corpse in the depths of the night.  Crazy.  Who?  Why?  Well, if we’ll believe what we’re being told right here, it wasn’t Peter or any of the apostles.  And if it wasn’t them, whose interests were being served by spiriting away the body?  As for Peter, “he went away, wondering to himself what had happened” (24:12).

Jesus told them what would happen.  Peter knew Jesus was trustworthy.  The women said it had happened.  Peter knew the women had always been trustworthy.  Jesus showed Peter and the rest in Scripture where God said it would happen and how it would happen.  It’s a lot to take in, wrestle with.  This world, this life, seems composed of so many hard, sharp facts, and so much saccharine, gelatinous wishing.  Thank God for those who believe what Scripture tells us, the Spirit dwells with them.  Thank God also for those who wonder: the Spirit is knocking on the door of their hearts.  Pray for them, and with them.  Witness, testify, invite, bless.