Big Biblical Buts

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.

This Easter Gospel from Luke begins with the word “But” and it’s a REALLY BIG “But”… It might actually be the biggest “BUT” of all time! Because on Good Friday it was finished…But. He was dead…But. The ride is over…But. The miracles have come to an end… But. The teaching is done… BUT! I’m obsessed with that little word! What can I say? I like biblical “BUTS” and I can not lie!

BUT... the “But” that starts today’s story isn’t actually the first Holy Week, biblical “but.” Because we just read before this how all the people who had gathered for the spectacle of Jesus’s death went home… BUT... the women stayed.  They stood at a distance watching everything. They saw Jesus’s body hang until it was dead on the cross. They saw it taken down and wrapped in cloth. They saw it placed in the tomb. They left KNOWING that he was really dead…BUT… when they returned on Sunday to care for Jesus’ body, it wasn’t there! It HAD been there, BUT… They saw it wrapped for burial… BUT… They saw it laid in the tomb… BUT.  

In this version of the story, no one actually sees the resurrected Jesus. All they saw were a couple of very shiny guys who only added to the mystery and to the size of this giant biblical “BUT”! The women raced back to tell the disciples… those women were the first preachers of the resurrection… BUT…when they told the disciples the greatest story ever told, instead of believing them, the “boys” had to man-splain to them how death works. And to THAT, the women said, “BUT!” 

So Peter went to see for himself.  He ran up to the tomb, looked in and was amazed.  He hadn’t believed the women’s crazy story before…BUT.  He didn’t get to see the resurrected Jesus either AND… like the women and Peter, we too don’t get to see him or hear him or touch his side either… BUT… we DO get exactly what they got on that first Easter Sunday… and what they got that day was… a possibility.

In that little word “BUT” we get the possibility that everything we have ever thought was written in stone might actually turn out to be written only in dust. In that little word “BUT” every certainty the world has ever thrown in your face, is thrown right up into the air and is blown away. Limits become limitless. What was final isn’t finished. If death on a cross does not always, always, always lead to being absolutely, positively, permanently and perpetually dead. If death itself can lead to a “BUT”… then what other absolutely, positively, perpetually, permanent things are now open to new life too?

THAT is the promise of Easter.  That there is not one thing, not one situation, not one relationship, not one person, not one town, not one ANYTHING that must remain absolutely, positively, perpetually, permanently buried in a tomb, stuck there forever in darkness where the world put it.  And now, because God, on that first Easter Sunday, has shown us God’s Divine and Holy “BUT", you and I and all of creation have been set free to rise from whatever tomb… whatever darkness we’ve been trapped inside.  Because of this Divine “BUT” we have been set free to rise to new life and really, really, really begin to LIVE… and not just in some sweet by and by either BUT… to live an abundant life starting right now!  

What is your tomb?  What’s the tomb that the powerful, hateful, prejudiced, and broken parts of the world have thrown you into?  What’s the situation that the world tells you, you will never rise above?  What have they told you about yourself that you’ve begun to believe?  What is it that you’ve come to believe you will never escape?  What is that limit the world has rolled in your path like a giant stone that says you will NEVER experience an abundant, meaning, dignity, and joy filled life?

The message of Easter is that whatever it is that has conspired to bind you and bury you, trap you and wrap you, demean you and drain the life out of you… Whatever that is… God proclaims to you today, “YOU are my beloved child, and ALL of that has been rolled away like a stone from a tomb!  So, RISE UP!  COME OUT!  It’s time to LIVE more deeply into the new and abundant life that God created for you to live!!  THAT’S the promise of Easter!  No BUTS about it!  Amen.