Mark 16: 1-8         

Easter Sunrise         

March 31, 2024

Rev. Dr. Galen E. Russell III

“When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.”

Prayer: Thank you, Lord for your spiritual life-force that is always giving us new life. Amen.

Some of you may recall, back in 2019 right after Christmas, I had a heart attack. One of my descending arteries was 100% plugged up. They call it “The Widow-maker.” An ominous title. Thankfully, doctors put in a stent that opened up the artery and blood got to flowing again.

One of the amazing things I discovered was that the heart, when there’s a obstacle like that, starts to grow smaller ancillary arteries around the blockage. Nature’s way of survival. That was already happening in my heart, and it blew me away! The power of the life-force, the relentless ability of the human body to move toward health and wholeness is astonishing to me!

And it made me realize that any doctor worth their salt will practice medicine with a deeper sense of humility because they know that they don’t have the power to heal.  What they have the power to do is to create conditions that are conducive for healing to occur. They have the power to remove the obstacles that are blocking the life-force from working.

I thought of that because it seems to me that the women heading to Jesus’ tomb early on Easter morning were aware that they had a problem. There was an obstacle in their way. That big ol’ stone weighed a ton. Who was going to roll that thing out of the way? They needed it out of the way so that they could get at Jesus’ corpse and finish anointing it with spices preparing it for decomposition. This perspective is the world as they knew it. It was what they expected.

When they arrived at the tomb, what they saw blew them away! The large stone was already rolled back! The obstacle was removed, the job already done, before they knew it.

And I’m thinking what a marvelous metaphor for us to consider on this Easter Sunday morning. Because with that stone out of the way, only then can the true power of resurrection be made known. If the stone is still there, no one will know anything about God’s resurrection power. With the stone out of the way, God’s grace and power of new life can flow. With the stone still in place, no one ever understands God’s power over death, and Jesus is just a footnote in history. But with the stone rolled away, death loses its victory. Death loses its sting. And Jesus becomes the Christ. Our savior! For the world.

All that’s good, but the wonderful thing that is that the stone, the obstacle to resurrection power was rolled away before we knew it. Before we did anything to make it happen. We did nothing to coerce God. We did nothing to convince God that we deserve the stone to be removed. It was already removed. Before we knew it, God did it. And God’s saving grace, forgiveness, and love can flow freely.

The trouble is, in certain ways, we’re still stuck in our worldly way of seeing things. We often put stones in the way that are of our own making.

Like I know people who live by society’s rulebook when it comes to who’s acceptable and who isn’t. Social media often is terrible about this. You have to look a certain way, be the right body build, wear the correct clothes, have the acceptable political ideas in order to fit in. If you happen not to look a certain way, or be a certain way, or think a certain way, the bullying that goes on in social media can be terrible.

Well guess what? The stone in front of the new life has already been rolled away. But it takes putting an end to worldly wisdom’s exclusivity, and intolerance, and bigotry, and relying on spiritual wisdom that arcs toward inclusivity, tolerance, acceptance, and diversity.

I know several people who believe strongly in the “Look, when you die, you’re dead.” mentality. “Dead is dead. There’s nothing more” they say. That’s a worldly perspective and wisdom.

But, the spiritual perspective, the faith perspective says that God’s new life, God’s new world, God’s new grace broke forth. Jesus was alive, in whatever way people perceive his aliveness. Which means that the stone covering the entrance to the place where new life is born out of death has already been rolled away. It was done ahead of time. And life comes forth from it, life that is everlasting. Life that is for everyone. Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

Our job is not only to perceive that, but to believe it. Not only to believe it, but to trust it. Not only to trust it, but to live it. Live it, not as if it were true, but because it is true. May God bless you because the stone is rolled away! Amen.