Luke 24: 1-12

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body.  While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.  The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.  Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee,  that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”  Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.  Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles.  But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.  But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

The women come to the tomb ready to carry out their burial responsibilities.  They know what happens when people die.  They know what women do when people die.  They have no idea what to do with an empty tomb.  What are they supposed to do now?  What’s the next step?  If the object of their sorrow isn’t still closed up in the tomb, does it make sense for the focus of their attention to stay there – for their lives to stay closed up, tomblike?

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  That’s the whole story, isn’t it?  Don’t you trust yet that God’s enduring mercy and steadfast love will live through anything?  Don’t you know that love is stronger than death?

Easter morning is the ultimate grounds of our hope.  There is nothing bigger or stronger than God.  There is nothing that can separate us from God.  There is nothing that will stop God’s self-sacrificial love for us.  The only thing to do now is turn our backs on the tomb and go in the direction of Life.

God of life, bring me out of the tombs I haunt.  Show me where life pushes up through the dead places, like new shoots of grass growing up through broken concrete.  Surprise me with life!  Surprise me with hope!  Praise be to you for this and every astonishing day – for bringing us back to life again and again.  Amen.