A Visit to the Tomb, an Easter Sermon
Original 3/31/24, revised March 3, 2025
Today’s Easter Scripture is from the gospel of Mark 16:1-8.
16 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.
5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.[a]
(These are the words of God for the people of God and all God’s people say “Thanks be to God”.)
Today we end our series on the Journey to Easter with a “Visit to the Tomb” where Jesus was laid after he was crucified.
Tell me….How do we help people out of their tombs? The resurrection calls us forth to roll away the stones that crush people’s lives. In a world filled with rolling stones, there is a desperate need for stone rollers.
Besides becoming a Baptist minister in the 1920s, Howard Thurman wrote twenty books on theology, religion, and philosophy, and was a mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He wrote over 58,000 documents during his 63-year career, and at one point, served as Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University until his retirement. He died in 1981. In his book entitled, Disciplines of the Spirit, he tells of a crisis that took place in his young daughter’s life.
Everybody in the family had made their summer plans. But just before Thurman and his wife were ready to leave for speaking engagements, they received word that a companion who lived with their aged grandmother in another town had died. Someone would have to go and be with grandmother during the summer.
The family met and talked it over. Thurman’s commitments could not be postponed. It was decided the daughters would take their turns and care for the grandmother until the parents returned from their conferences.
When this decision was reached, the youngest daughter rushed from the table and ran up the stairs, weeping. The door slammed. Thurman followed her up the stairs, knocked at the door and found her stretched across the bed, sobbing. He spoke these words to her:
“I didn’t come up here to urge you to stop crying. I came to explain to you why I think you are crying. I don’t think you’re crying because you don’t want to go away for the rest of the summer and miss the fun with your friends. You’re crying because for the first time in your life the family is asking you to carry your end of the stick as a family member. Something inside you knows that when you get on the train tomorrow, one part of your life will be behind you forever. You’ll never again be quite as carefree and unaccountable as you were before.” (Thurman, Disciplines of the Spirit (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 54-55)
We all want to remain children. We all yearn for those days when we were free from responsibility. Does anyone here recall those carefree days? No responsibilities?
Perhaps that is why we don’t like the ending of Mark’s gospel very much. Unlike Luke and Matthew and John, who pad the new responsibilities of the disciples with comforting stories of the resurrected Jesus’ appearance in their midst, Mark’s ending starkly reminds us that while Jesus is risen, things are different now.
The women witnesses, who until now have been a model of obedience as loyal by-standers, are suddenly called to take definitive action and to spread the Good News. Fearful of the angel, the message and the responsibility, these women fail. They run away silent and shaken.
According to other ancient Biblical interpretations, though, there is a different intermediate ending of Mark which claims that the women did tell those around Peter what they had seen and heard.
But in either case, the risen Jesus has given his disciples an order: Meet me in Galilee.
Galilee… was the site of Jesus’ greatest teaching, preaching and healing, the place where the disciples were called together originally. It was the heart of his mission activity — Galilee. And it is all to continue in Galilee — if the disciples will only free themselves from their own fears and come out and meet the risen Christ.
The gospel of Mark describes the faithful Mary Magdelene; Mary, the mother of James; and Salome (Sal-oh-may) as worrying about how they will get into Jesus’ tomb once they reach it. What an inversion when considering the church, instead — worrying about how to get into a tomb — a safe, dark, sealed- away catacomb — rather than worrying about how to get out of such a lifeless, damp and totally dark, and empty existence.
Mark’s gospel demonstrates how foolish and foundless the women’s concerns were — it is God Our Father who raises Jesus from the dead, our God Almighty who rolls away the tombstone.
I am not blaming the women here. Like many disciples, we can hear of the teaching and love of Jesus, but when it actually happens right in front of our face, it surprises and astounds us. Sometimes confuses us to the point where we convince ourselves, “Nawww, that really didn’t just happen.” We dismiss it as a possibility of God. Oh really? Oh, yee of little faith!
Now, resurrecting Jesus is not our job, of course, but meeting him is. The stone that had rolled away so easily to free Jesus seems to crash shut again on the women’s hearts, their courage and commitment, trapping them in a tombstone frame of mind.
How do we, the community of Christ, the church of the risen Lord, get all those folks like the two Marys and Salome, like the disciples huddling in some hidden room in Jerusalem, like Peter — probably wedged under some rock of his own — out of the tomb? How do we roll away their stones?
The angel-messenger inside Jesus’ empty tomb tells us how.
By boldly stepping out into the world and taking up the earthly ministry of Jesus where he left it. By offering the risen and regal Lord to every “Galilee” there is in the world. By becoming a stoneroller ourselves.
Speaking of “stonerollers”, can anyone identify who these people are?
Now here’s a group of stone rollers that came about in 1962, so they have been around a bit. (Does anyone identify?)
According to Business Insider, having performed over 2000 concerts worldwide over the past 62 years, The Rolling Stones’ Hackney Diamonds Tour will take the group across 16 cities in America doing 19 shows from April through July, 2024, to kick off yet another brand new album! Talk about resurrection!
I consider this amazing, especially since Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are the only two members left of the original 5 and are touring and jumping around the stage still, both at age 80!
And, did you hear??? They are now thinking of changing their name from the “Rolling Stones” to the “Strolling Bones”.
But now…back to rolling stones away from tombs in the Bible.
Mark’s resurrection story grates on our sensibilities because it offers a challenge, along with the Good News, to all those who hear. Jesus told the women to tell his disciples he will meet them in Galilee.
Galilee doesn’t mean some special, sanctified space in some holy land somewhere. Jesus’ work and mission were in his own backyard, among his own people, amidst the common, everyday encounters of life. Among common everyday people like you and me.
When we enter our own Galilee with the intent of witnessing to the resurrection of Christ,… to help roll away the tombstone from someone else’s life…. to open their eyes to the Good News of Christ…
indeed, even expecting to meet Christ there at any moment!, …then we are stone-rollers!
Look, as Christians, we know that God our Father raised Jesus from the dead. We know this!
And He will raise you from the dead, too! RAISE>YOU>FROM>THE DEAD…and into the Heavens of unbelievable peace and in all of God’s glory! The best way to love someone on Easter Day and on any day, is to share the love of Christ through action,— words or deeds!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Amen!! Rejoice… for our Christ is risen this Easter Day! He will come to roll the stone away from your tomb at just the right time!
Let’s close in an Easter Prayer written by John Wesley (founder of the Methodist Church).
“O God, you have glorified our victorious Savior with a visible, triumphant resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven, where he sits at your right hand;
Grant, we beg you, that his triumphs and glories may ever shine in our eyes, to make us more clearly see through his sufferings and more courageously endure our own; being assured by his example, that if we endeavor to live and die like him, for the advancement of your love in ourselves and others, you will raise our dead bodies again, and conforming them to his glorious body, call us above the clouds and give us possession of your everlasting kingdom. Amen.”
–John Wesley (1703-1791)
I wish you all much joy, deep peace, and a very blessed Easter in 2025!
Bonnie Zickgraf is a retired pastor, author, columnist for The Times, and an RN in mental health nursing. Send comments and prayer requests to [email protected].