Luke 24:1-12
April 20, 2025
Rev. Amy P. McCullough, PhD
A group of women rise before daybreak to go to a garden filled with graves. Only one grave concerns them; the spot where their beloved now lies. As they start out, the sun has not yet burst on the horizon. Yet neither is the sky inky-black. It is deep dawn, Luke’s gospel tells us, that suspended time between night and day, when darkness and light intermingle. The pain of the last few days meets the possibility of tomorrow. Deep dawn. The worst has happened. Everything has happened. They know not what comes next.
The group gathers spices, washcloths, linen wrappings and each other to make the trek from village to gravesite. Perhaps they walk through Jerusalem’s streets, ducking behind doorways to not be seen by those who cried “crucify him” or those who carried out the execution. Maybe they come from the sleepy suburb of Bethany, where the streets were a little friendlier, having endured the sabbath stillness within the company of Jesus-followers, each grasping the other for support.
Death confronts you when you walk into a graveyard. Have you ever wandered among the tombstones? Noticed the birth and death dates, thought about times long ago and all the things you and those now gone once did together? These women had been with Jesus since his early days. They remembered the compassion in his eyes when he said, “I choose to make you well,” the power in his voice when he commanded the storm to stop, the way he laughed, a full belly laugh, when children climbed upon his lap, the sorrow in his eyes as persons walked away from his outstretched hand. Life had left his body when the sky turned dark on Friday, and the earth shook its terrible tremor. Now they had one last labor of love to offer, for all he had given them. Tenderly they would anoint his body. It is their testimony against the violence he had endured.
But the tomb safely sealed on Friday evening is different Sunday dawn. The stone is rolled aside. The grave is empty save the discarded grave clothes. Jesus’s body is not to be found. Before they can take it in, heavenly figures speak the glorious surprise: He is not here. He has been raised. The women had come, courageously, to confront his death, to risk caring for the body of a condemned criminal, expecting to grieve. They receive God’s answer to every deathly force: He is not here. He has been raised.
But when these first witnesses to the Resurrection rush back to tell the rest of the disciples, the Easter message is met with a resounding No. “They did not believe them,” Luke tells us, “for it seemed to be an idle tale. An idle tale. A lie. A story so impossible it can’t be true.
Each gospel’s account of Jesus’s Resurrection contends with doubt; how those who discovered the empty tomb were overcome, in the beginning, with confusion, terror, and disbelief. In Mark, the first graveside visitors are so afraid they run away. In John, Mary Magdalene is convinced a thief has stolen Jesus’s body. In Luke’s telling the reaction is particularly emphatic. Jesus has been raised? An idle tale. Utter nonsense. The Greek word implies, such is the rantings of a lunatic.
God has raised Jesus from the dead. An idle tale! This is the response of the defeated, the rejection of good news because there has been so much bad news. On Friday afternoon Jesus appeared defeated. His life of loving compassion, courageous truth-telling had been crushed by the powerful who walked the temple halls and the governor’s palace and by a crowd thirsty for blood. When you witness the tide turning against Jesus, when you see cheers turn into sneers, when Judas betrays, Pilate absconds, Peter denies, and followers flee, then the idea that God can bring anything good, anything life-giving, from such a triumph of horror is ludicrous.
God raised Jesus from the dead. An idle tale! This is the response of the broken-hearted. The company of believers had been with Jesus. He had called them to his side, taught them how to see God’s love sparked throughout the days. They had placed their hopes in upon him. When you’ve walked the countryside together, when you’ve heard every parable, when you’ve prayed, and you’ve trusted, when you have believed God is at work, right here, and then watched that loving goodness be mocked, scourged, bound, arrested and finally killed, then your heart is shattered, your trust is decimated, and your capacity to see God at work is wiped out as well. Don’t tell us such nonsense. Don’t tempt our hearts to hope again.
God has raised Jesus from the dead. I submit to you that too often we sing our glorious Alleluias, we bask in the beauty of lilies, light and brass, we say to one another ‘Christ is Risen,’ and yet, deep in our hearts, we fear, this is just another idle tale. A nice-sounding story with no real imprint on life right here. After all what do we have? An empty tomb, an angelic announcement, a set of bewildered disciples. What do we have? An anxious world, a warming planet, our own list of unhealed hurts. What do we have? As Matt Fitzgerald says, “this badgering suspicion that everything is ending.” Can Resurrection dawn for us, too?
Perhaps it helps to return to that first Easter garden, to see the love that brought the women there, and then to hear the angel’s re-direction, don’t look for the living among the dead. Like the women, we can be guilty of fruitless searches to places emptied of life. We can, as the scholar says, get busy “tending the corpses of long-dead ideas.” Where will we find Christ, but alive among the vulnerable, lingering in pain shared, the truth spoken, the healing hoped for, and holy friendships formed? Where will we see the Risen Christ, but leading us from the graveyard of our lives into deeper service and along the way, teaching us to believe anew.
It is deep dawn. As the day breaks, our sight deepens, our hearts expand and truth – not idle tales – but sturdy, life-changing truth emerges. At some point through the night, in a way we cannot truly fathom, God wrestled with death, demons, despair and desolation and God won. The crucified Jesus was raised. He discarded his grave clothes. He left the tomb, moving into glorious life. The Risen Jesus calls out to us, mourners, inviting us walk into his grace. We came expecting to fully close the tomb upon God’s dreams. Instead, a force great enough to roll all the obstacles away greets us. He is not here. He is out there, amongst us, calling us into deeper life and into greater love for the hurts, risks, pain and hopes of the world. Christ is Risen. May you walk from the deepness of dawn into the brightness of Resurrection Day. May you find in Christ’s rising your risen life also. Grace upon Grace. Alleluia. Amen.