Easter Sunrise

Matthew 28:1-10
After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

The earth is fearfully and wonderfully made, at least we as people of faith believe that it is. We believe that these surroundings—dirt, grass, trees, flowers, bees, birds, sky, even pollen! —is made for us by God. And the movement and seasons of this earth are beyond our control, just as God is. So it makes sense to us that this ground on which we stand belongs not to us but to the God who made us, and it! At least, we proclaim that when we gather for worship. God is in control. God is all-powerful. God’s creation is our home, and God created it for us. Jesus came to be part of that creation so that we could intimately know God. The Holy Spirit of God continues to reside in, around, under, above, and through this creation we call home. And we are thankful for it.

But we may not have been so thankful just one week ago.

As I drove to church last Sunday, I came through from my home in Avondale Estates by way of Glenwood Avenue. I drove slowly so I could look at one house and then another, noticing which yards had trees down, near misses of trees lying inches away from cars and roofs. I had heard a local weather reporter say the night before something about the tornado that came through Atlanta and the subsequent tornadoes and storms that passed through Georgia all day last Saturday being some kind of “act of God”—a favorite phrase of insurance writers and storm reporters. Many people at the time were praising God’s providence over the fact that no lives were lost in the city of Atlanta until a body was discovered in rubble over the weekend. Many of our friends and neighbors’ lives have been changed dramatically because of the severe weather from last weekend. In some parts of the state, lives were lost who could not escape the tornadoes. What kind of act of God was this disruptive, destructive, terrifying blackness of wind and rain that led us into the early morning with questions like, “Was anyone hurt?” “Are my loved ones ok?” “Will I be able to survive the damage done to my home, business, cars, security?” Why today are we gathering in this setting, albeit beautiful in its own right, instead of in Oakland where trees and monuments have been uprooted and permanently damaged?

Last night, I ran an errand to the grocery store at about 9 pm. As I drove home on College Avenue from Decatur through Avondale Estates, I rounded a curve just as I came to the elementary school and caught my first glimpse of last night’s moon. Did you see it? It was one of those nights when your first glimpse of the moon from a moving vehicle is breathtakingly beautiful. The moon seemed to inhabit the entire sky. It was full, large, golden, looming heavily over the ground I covered on my way home. I could hardly take my eyes from it to watch the road I was driving.

But as I watched it, it became smaller and smaller. It was as if it were shrinking behind the trees on the horizon the closer I came to it. What once had looked as if it were the heaviest stone one could ever imagine got smaller and smaller until it was like a pebble. What had moments before loomed largely over the horizon as if to consume it completely now became nothing more than a disappearing dot falling underneath the tree line in the far distance away from where I was. What had been almost terrifying upon its initial entry into my line of vision was now just an ordinary moon in the early night sky.
Things can change in an instant. What once was safe and secure can become terrifying and intrusive. What once looms large on the horizon can become small and out of sight while you blink. Is not the power of God able to turn the world upside down in an instant, a moment, an incredible experience that comes and goes in a flash?

The angel who rolled the stone away at the tomb, who appeared as lightening and dressed in white clothes must have frightened the Marys as they came to the tomb expecting to find a dead body beginning to decompose. The probably expected a very large, looming stone to sit heavy on the ground in front of the tomb. Perhaps they had planned to ask a gardener for help removing it so they could enter the tomb. Maybe they just needed to be there, on the other side of the huge rock between them and Jesus. Imagine their surprise as they approached and the rock suddenly seemed to become light as a feather, not the looming, heavy presence they had expected. Imagine their eyes widening as the big ole stone sank away into the horizon, not even a player in the drama anymore as the angel invited them to come in where the body had been laid, only to find nothing decomposing, nothing rotting, nothing smelling foul, everything changed in an instant.

That’s what I call an act of God. That is the kind of life-changing moment that gives us hope in the midst of all the other disasters, destruction, and disarray life gets us into. That kind of change tells us that death is not the end. That kind of change tells us that God has the power to reverse the most horrible thing we can think of. That kind of change means that all the bad stuff we go through, the things which loom in our darkest nights like a big, fire-y moon that feels so heavy we could never roll it away into morning, are not the final word. For while we hide from the night, God overcomes it.

Last Saturday, we hid for a while in our basement as Dekalb County sat under a tornado warning for a couple of hours. This Saturday, people were out in broad daylight, picking up debris, beginning the reversal process on the fear and despair people felt last Saturday in Cabbagetown and East Atlanta as they came out from under the weight of the previous night’s storm. And life has begun again, with neighbor helping neighbor, hands joining together in a effort to bring new life to these damaged communities.

The refrain says, “Jesus Christ is the Light of the world; a light no darkness can extinguish.” No storm, no stone, no moon, no fear, no threat, no terror, no disbelief. Jesus lives. He reigns with God and the Holy Spirit. The heaviness is lifted forever if we will realize and accept it. Come and see, and then go and tell the world. Christ is risen; he is risen indeed.

Amen.