Have you ever been ready to put something off?  Why do today what can wait until tomorrow.  Our work doesn’t vanish.  We go to sleep thinking about it; we wake and get ready for it.  Some of our work is finished; most is unfinished.  The work of this life isn’t finished until we’re finished with life.  What do you suppose the work of this life is?  Money in the bank?  Food on the table?  Keep boredom away?  Afford toys?  Get as much as you can as often as you can?  Just keep up with the bills? 

          Sometimes, you’re ready to be done with something, some unwelcome task, an unpleasant job.  You put it off as long as you can, but when the time finally comes, you throw yourself into it.  The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll finish.  Baling hay.  Cleaning toilets.  Doing your taxes.  Finishing burial customs, after the body has been dead for a day and more.  That’s not fun work.  That’s sad work, dread work, worry work.

          I don’t know why it is, and I don’t say there aren’t exceptions, but it seems that, between men and women, women are the worriers.  I suppose men disguise it better or just don’t talk about it.  Maybe the man word for worry is stress.  Women more often than men want to speak their worry, share it, share the burden, get support, sympathy.  Those women Mark tells us about that Sunday morning were worried, about everything.  Worry, worry.

          To top off all this sad, hard work that felt nearly impossible—this going into a tomb to finish preparing a corpse—they realized on the way, nearly there, that the cumbersome stone would need to be dealt with.  Worry, worry.  What strength or will did they have, to roll away that mammoth obstacle?  Worry, worry.  All their hard-won resolve to get the job done began to tremble and shake: their resolve was so flimsy.  They were relying upon one another to maintain their determination, keep each other accountable, but this just-remembered barrier was too much!  Just when you think you have everything you need, that you’ve got it all thought out, all planned out.  Worry, worry.

          Still, they were almost there, so close.  Going ahead seemed foolish, turning back seemed useless.  They went ahead, taking the very masculine tack of figuring they’d figure it out once they got there.  Stress, stress.  Score one for the guys.

          They come around the turn, or the tree or the rock, and stop in their tracks.  Something’s wrong.  Something’s not right.  That stone was already rolled away.  The tomb was just open, open for anyone to go in and come out freely.  Worry, worry.  This was strange; they don’t understand and don’t quite know what to do.  This isn’t how it was supposed to be.  They stood there and looked, and wondered, and needed one another to urge them on, but none of them took a step until, by some power, they all sort of lurched ahead together.

          They went in.  They had to know.  They had come this far.  No one else could find out for them; they had to find out for themselves.  And there he was.  In the darkness, a light.  In the light of the newly rising sun one dressed in white, sitting.  Who sits in a tomb?  Who sits in a tomb dressed all in white?  It was as if he had been waiting for them, as if he knew, despite the fear, the doubt, the worry, that they would come in to see, to find out, to find him.

          Sorrow, worry, fear—overwhelming, undermining emotions.  Nothing sucks the life out of us so fast or so well.  There’s a Greek word Mark uses here to describes their state.  Alarmed, our NIV says; amazed, startled.  Yes, and no.  Eks-e-tham-bay-thay-san—they were sore afraid, utterly astounded, upended, clobbered, practically paralyzed.  Frozen with fear.  Immobilized.

          The unexpected messenger speaks: “Don’t be alarmed,” he said (16:6).  Right!  Too late.  Yet someone else had also, often, said those very words, those calming, assuring, revealing, loving words; divine words, centering words.  “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified.  He has risen!  He is not here” (16:6).  Well, they could see that, all of them, for themselves.  There was no doubt of the truth that Jesus was not there.  However, this messenger had said something more, even stranger, more astounding: He has risen.  Not he was raised, passive, maybe like saying he was taken—the official version of the event at the tomb of Jesus.  No.  Risen—active, empowered, willed, accomplished.  He has risen: like he just took up his life again at will.  As though he could.

          “See the place where they laid him” (16:6).  Be absolutely certain.  Take a good, long look.  Know without any doubt or uncertainty.  See the truth, so that you can know and so that, knowing, you can let others know.  To see is to be commissioned.  The messenger is mobilizing messengers.  The one who was dead is alive.  The one who was in the tomb has risen.  “But go, tell” (16:7).  Follow where Jesus leads, and you will see him.  He has told you where you will see him.  He has told you how you will see him.  Go tell others.

          Worry, worry.  Fear.  Practically paralyzed with fear.  We know.  We come here today of all Sundays, perhaps this Sunday only, to hear again this Word of power, this Word of assurance, this Word of life, then we go . . . and we don’t tell.  We say nothing to anyone, just like those first witnesses, who saw for themselves that Jesus was not there, told by a messenger from God that Jesus was no longer dead but alive.  But what does it mean, and what to do about it?

          The women go, alright, “Trembling and bewildered.”  They “fled from the tomb” (16:8), scared out of their wits.  The fear wasn’t just because of all they had seen—Lord knows that was overwhelming.  Such fear is natural, no surprise.  Their fear was concentrated in this command, this invitation to go and tell others what they had seen, what they knew to be true.  Tell who?  How?  Who would believe them?  Who would believe that?

          Mark paints a picture of this day of glory as saturated with fear.  What a downer!  Isn’t that how we treat the Day of Resurrection, though?  We don’t even call it Resurrection Day; we call it Easter.  What do bunnies with baskets and peeps have to do with resurrection?  Not that all that candy isn’t sweet, but the sweetness of the day is lost upon us because we go alright, but we don’t tell.  And why?  Because we don’t have to?  Because everybody already knows anyway?  Because we wouldn’t be saying anything new?  Or because we don’t want to be the cause of trouble, hurt feelings, or strained relationships?  The last thing some people, people in your own families, among your own friends, the last thing they want is to talk about Jesus, especially today.  You just know it.  What we know keeps us silent.  Keep silent isn’t the message of this day, though.

          We believe, but who will believe us?  We’re not asking anyone to believe what we say but what God says.  If anyone believes, it isn’t because of us but because of the Holy Spirit, the same one who caused us to believe.  The women saw but did not understand.  The angel, with a message from God, told them the meaning of what they saw.  They could barely believe!  And they just knew as they heard what the angel told them that he was asking the impossible.  Why bother?  Such things did not happen, not in this world.  They would be laughed at, yelled at, insulted.  Worry, worry.  They didn’t want that.  Nobody wants that.  Jesus didn’t want that.  The apostles didn’t want that.  Yet they endured it all and went on telling in the power of the Holy Spirit by the grace of God whose love endures forever.  Here we are, because of them.  Who might yet come here, because of us?

          Fear paralyzes.  Love moves.  If Jesus shows us anything here; if this day of glory tells us anything, it is that love is stronger than fear.  Help someone to know that, maybe even today.

          To the God of all grace, who calls you to share God’s eternal glory in union with Christ, be the power forever!