St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
March 31, 2024
Year B: Easter Day
Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
John 20:1-18
Liberated to Be Our True Selves
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
It’s Easter for us and in today’s gospel lesson it is the first Easter morning.
The disciples have been through so much.
They saw palm-waving crowds hail their Lord as a long-awaited and triumphant king. The crowds thought that Jesus would be a mighty ruler who would liberate them from Roman rule.
But the fact that Jesus was riding a donkey should’ve tipped them off that he was not that kind of king.
When the machinery of the state swung into action to get rid of this would-be king, Jesus did not resist.
He submitted to his fate.
The people turned against him.
Most, if not all, of his friends abandoned him.
And Jesus poured out his life on the Cross.
Empty, or so it seemed.
The disciples must have been traumatized by the suffering and death of Jesus.
They were grieving.
Maybe they felt guilty about abandoning their Lord in his time of suffering. And now most of the disciples were hiding in fear, understandably worried that the Romans would be coming for Jesus’ friends next.
But at least one of Jesus’ friends wasn’t hiding.
Early in the morning, so early that it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb.
We’re not told why.
Maybe she was tired of hiding with the others.
Maybe she just wanted to be close to Jesus, as close as she could be.
Maybe she remembered his promise to rise again on the third day.
Mary Magdalene arrives at the tomb and discovers that the stone has been removed and Mary, emptied of all hope, assumes the worst: someone has stolen the body.
Will the horrors never end?
How much suffering and loss must she and the others endure?
She goes to get others – Peter and the other disciple – but, unfortunately, although there’s a lot of running back and forth, these men are really not much help at all.
Finally, finally, Mary is alone in the garden, not knowing what’s happened, not knowing what to do.
Emptiness.
But then, she hears the voice of “the Gardener” call her name.
And, suddenly, Mary knows – she knows the voice of her Shepherd, and now she’s the first to know the best news of all time:
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
What was empty has been replenished.
Death has been turned into new life.
Mary’s grief and despair have been transformed into hope and joy.
And, for as long as it took Mary to reach the others, she was the whole church, bearing the Good News:
Jesus has been liberated from the tomb.
And we – all of us here today on this glorious day - we are liberated for new life, liberated to live the way we were always meant to live, liberated to be our true selves.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
For much of the past year, like a lot of people, including maybe some of you, I was fascinated by the story of Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl.
Flaco had been born in captivity, and spent more than twelve years in an enclosure in the Central Park Zoo in New York City.
There, he was well cared for, given all the food and medical care he needed. But he didn’t really get to live a fully owl life – he didn’t have to hunt and couldn’t really fly very far.
Well, on February 23, 2023, Flaco’s enclosure was vandalized.
Now, before I go any further, I want to make absolutely clear that I do not condone vandalism. I don’t want to get any letters!
But, on that winter night, apparently the long captive Flaco saw his opportunity and he escaped into a new life, turning up looking dazed and frightened on the sidewalk along Fifth Avenue.
There were attempts to capture Flaco but he evaded them each time – he was not going back to his enclosure.
Instead, quicker and more successfully than anyone expected, he figured out how to hunt for his supper and he gained enough confidence to fly high, hooting from tree branches and water towers atop tall buildings.
Flaco drew a lot of attention, people rooted for him – his liberation and his ability to learn and to adapt to life in the big city touched people’s hearts – and people worried about him, too. After all, as Flaco learned and as we know only too well, as we saw just a few days ago when a bridge we might have thought would stand forever came tumbling down in seconds, the world is full of many dangers.
For Mary Magdalene and the disciples, for all of us, Easter is the moment of our liberation – eternal death is defeated.
Yes, the world is still full of many challenges and dangers, but the God who is full of life and love will not let go of us, no matter what.
So, we are now free - free to live as our true selves, to be the people that God always meant for us to be.
With God’s help, we are now free to live out our baptismal promises – the promises that, in just a few minutes, Charlotte will now make, the promises that will be made on Rose’s behalf, the promises that all of us will renew.
With God’s help, we are free to take the risk of loving our neighbor as our self – the risk of seeking and serving Christ in absolutely everyone, even the people who are different, the people we don’t like, even the people we don’t trust at all.
We are free to take the risk of being generous, not just giving from what’s left over after all our needs are fully met.
We are free to take the risk of forgiveness, asking for pardon when we mess up and offering mercy when we’ve been wronged.
And when the end – or what seems to be the end - comes – as it did for Flaco and as it will for all of us, we can be free of fear, trusting that the God who raised Jesus from the dead won’t forget about us, either.
It’s Easter.
It may take some time for us to get our bearings, but what was empty has been replenished.
We may not feel quite ready to fly just yet, but grief and despair have been transformed into hope and joy.
It’s Easter. And we have been liberated!
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Amen.
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