The following sermon was delivered by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on Easter Sunday, 1982. The title is, He is Risen, Hallelujah! And the scripture reference is Mark chapter 16, verses 1 through 8. 

Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to Mark. I'm reading from the 16th chapter, beginning at the first verse. When the Sabbath was passed, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome brought spices so that they might go and anoint the body of Jesus.

And very early on the first day of the week, they went to the tomb when the sun had risen. And they were saying to one another, Who will roll away the stone for us from the door of the tomb? And looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled back.

It was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were amazed. And he said to them, Do not be amazed.

You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen. He is not here.

See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, as he told you.

And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had come upon them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. The Gospel of the Lord. I think it's quite safe to say that there wasn't a single person in all of Jerusalem who really believed that there'd be an epilogue to the story of Jesus.

at least not after that Roman sphere slammed into his side. Perhaps, perhaps up until then, there were some, a few, who were still hoping against hope that somehow at the last possible moment the tragedy would be averted. That somehow this one who had conquered the wind and the waves would summon his supernatural power, tear himself off the cross, come down and confound his enemies and demonstrate himself victor forever.

Or perhaps as he had so often declared was possible, he'd cry out to the Father, who would send a legion of angels to swoop down and rescue him at the last possible moment. But as the hours ticked by, and his life literally dripped out of him, it became apparent that could not happen. that would not happen.

It was going to end in death. In all, Jesus hung on the cross for six hours. We typically celebrate and observe the latter three, the three hours when darkness reigned on the face of the earth.

But in fact, He was there for six hours. That probably seems to us a very long time to die. We're used to things like the hangman's noose or the electric chair or the firing squad.

Seems a long time, but as a matter of fact, for crucifixion that was relatively brief. Some people would hang on crosses for as much as two or three days. I'm sure that in Jesus' case it was speeded up because of what he had previously suffered.

Two days and a night without any sleep, beating, scourging, crown of thorns planted on his head. And of course the spiritual battle that raged inside him as he accepted our guilt. Scripture says, he who knew no sin became sin for us.

I can't really imagine what that means. I don't know if you can. That the one who was and is God from before the foundation of the earth became for us God forsaken.

Martin Luther called him the God forsaken God. And as he entered into that God forsakenness in the midst of all the physical agony, the time was somewhat speeded up. Mind you that it was not the nails that killed him.

the nails were added as an additional mockery to him you know nails driven into the palms of your hand really wouldn't even support your weight they'd tear through the small bones and the soft cartilage undoubtedly jesus was tied probably under the armpits as was any other crucified victim and they added those nails to mock him. Think of it, the hands of a carpenter, the hands of a craftsman who loved to fashion beautiful things of wood, smashed and mutilated. The hands which in fact became the embodiment of the creative power of the God who made the universe and flung the stars into space, ravaged and destroyed. The hands which had so often extended healing and blessing to others nailed to a cross and added mockery.

No, it wasn't the nails that killed Him. It was our guilt. It was our shame.

It was our alienation from God. And physically speaking, what it actually was was a matter of suffocation. They've done studies on this.

Death by crucifixion is actually death by asphyxiation. as you can't raise yourself up as your muscles begin to cramp and you can't raise up high enough to get another breath and your lungs begin to fill up with fluid you literally drown inside your own body and that's what happened he drowned in our sin and he drowned inside his own body the Romans would typically come along to a victim of crucifixion break his legs in order to speed up the process. That seems a harsh, terrible thing, but in fact it was an act of humaneness to break his legs so that he couldn't raise himself up so that he would die a little bit more rapidly.

But when they came to Jesus, one look told them that wasn't necessary. It was very clear he was already dead. Just to make absolutely sure, one of the soldiers took his spear and rammed it into Jesus' side.

And the Scripture says, out of His side came blood and water. Well, with medical science, we understand what that really meant. It wasn't water.

It was the red corpuscles separating from the clear length of His blood, which is medical proof positive that His heart had ruptured. All those silly theories about His having only fainted on the cross and reviving in the tomb are as shattered by the Roman spear as was his heart. Jesus was dead.

There's no doubt about it. Jesus was dead. And nobody expected an epilogue.

I say nobody expected an epilogue. You're aware, of course, you immediately would remind me that Pilate posted a guard. But read the account.

He posted a guard not because he expected a resurrection, But lest his disciples come and tamper with the grave. Lest his disciples come and steal the body to perpetrate a fraud. Which really is fairly absurd when you stop and think about it.

The disciples were not interested in a made-up Messiah. The disciples thought, hoped, believed that Jesus was Lord. And if he's Lord, then that means he will never die.

If one thing was clear to them, it was that Messiah can never die. But if Jesus has died, then He can't be Messiah. And they've got no interest in tampering with His grave and perpetrating fraud.

Jesus is dead. And so they drift off, full of sorrow, full of confusion, one by one. They leave Him.

John remained at the foot of the cross to the bitter end. He's the only one who did. John and the women.

All the others deserted. Judas betrayed him. Peter denied him.

Three times. I don't know the man. I don't even know him.

And you see, he didn't. None of them did. They'd been following a Christ of their own imagination. Not the Christ who was really in their midst.

Mark in an extraordinary self-reference comments about a young man it was himself who in the middle of the night as Jesus was being led off to this trumped up trial a young man one of his disciples not one of the twelve was following and a Roman guard seized him and the young man tore out of his clothes and ran away naked in the middle of the night rather than being identified with Jesus I suspect that would be a good description of me had I been there following at a distance but when they apprehend me I'd rather be ashamed and naked than identify with Jesus the women remained interesting isn't it the women were there out of lovely courageous loyalty to Jesus they remained there they probably were not quite as liable as were the men to being arrested and punished but they took some risk in remaining at the cross identified as his followers but mind you even they were there simply to be ready to receive his dead body to prepare it for burial they had no more understanding and they had no more expectancy of resurrection than did the men and so late Friday afternoon they received his body and they began the preparation Jewish burial was a fairly complicated process they had to wash the body and cleanse it they had to pour oil into the wounds and then they began to anoint it and began to impact it with spices layers upon layers of spices and linen shroud they tell us approximately 100 pounds Hallows and myrrh and other spices wrapped in probably as many yards of linen. Almost like an Egyptian mummy. They barely got started and nightfall came.

With it, the Sabbath, and they couldn't work on the Sabbath, so they left the grave, they left the job unfinished. And now it's Sunday morning. Scripture says three days later, of course that means part of Friday, all of Saturday, part of Sunday.

In fact, it's only about 36 hours that have transpired. And they come at first light. They return to the tomb to complete their labor of love.

What I want you to see with unmistakable clarity this morning is that they returned to the tomb out of loyalty to the dead. Not with the slightest hope of resurrection. They returned to the tomb out of loyalty to the dead.

What they wanted to do was a religious ritual to honor the dead. They had not a hint of hope of resurrection. The only question on their minds was who's going to move the stone for us?

It must have been a huge stone. Three or more women don't feel equal to moving it by themselves. What they're saying is we've got to get there.

We've got to get inside the tomb in order to perform a religious ritual. of honoring the dead. That's what the first Easter was all about.

That's why they went that Easter morning. I'd suggest that an awful lot of other folks have gone to an awful lot of churches on subsequent Easter mornings for roughly the same reason. A religious ritual.

To honor the dead. not really expecting that they're going to encounter life more real than they've ever seen it but you see God had another idea in mind. I wonder if you've noticed how God seems to delight in messing up religion.

He really does. Every time you think you've just got it figured out God comes in and does it completely differently. For instance, if the king of the Jews is going to be born here on earth then it's obviously going to be in a palace in Jerusalem, right?

Wrong. Stable in Bethlehem. Feedbox of a donkey.

The Son of God is going to live among us. The one thing that we can be absolutely certain of is that He's going to honor the Sabbath, right? Wrong.

He thinks it's a dandy time to heal people. Do work that pleases God. surely if the Holy One of Israel is going to invade our history he's going to move in the best social circles right?

tax collectors wine bibbers gluttons harlots riffraff if they come to arrest him for crimes that he's never committed you can bet that the Messiah is going to zap him with some kind of a divine laser beam right? wrong Put away your sword, Peter. There's going to be no fight.

And so they reel from one confusion to another. What in the world is going on? And finally they say, well, if he meant what he said, he said it and he said it and he said it and we never believed it.

He said you came to die. And if he meant what he said, and if he's dead, I guess that's the end of his story. right it's just the beginning it's just the beginning the women come in ready for religion ready for ritual and the angel says he's not here he's alive can you imagine I don't know how you picture that I was watching the greatest story ever told on television the other evening and they came to that scene and here the angel was with his hair streaming out behind him And this absolutely horrible look on his face, if anybody ever needed an Alka-Seltzer, it was that angel.

And he says, He is not here. He is risen. I said to Karen, invariably they get it wrong.

Someday I'm going to have to direct a biblical epic. If I were staging that scene, I'd have the angel seated on a rock. That's what it says.

Seated on a rock with the biggest grin on his face that you ever saw. Because this is good news. This is joy.

You know, it's almost a joke. Not a cruel joke. Not a hoax.

But it's God's humor. It's as if God is speaking through His angelic messenger and saying, I know why you've come. You've come for religion.

But I'm going to give you reality. You ready for it? He's not here.

The guy that you've come to honor is up and he's on the move already. You're not going to find him in a tomb. He's alive again.

I don't know what you've come for this morning, friends. But if you've come for religion, you might not find it here. You're not going to find Jesus on a cross of culture.

You're not going to find Him trapped in a tomb of tradition. And you're not going to find Him locked in an ancient liturgy. You're going to find Him if you've got eyes to see and ears to hear.

You're going to find Him in the midst of His people. I can guarantee you that. You're going to find Him in the midst of His people.

And you'll find Him for yourself if you ask Him to come into your heart as Lord. It's interesting, isn't it? It says here that when they saw the angel, when they heard those words, the women ran out.

They were terrified. The angel said, go and tell everybody. But it says here, they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

they didn't yet believe it do you know what that says to me? it says to me that the empty tomb isn't enough and the angel even the angel isn't enough I believe that the longer you contemplate the empty tomb the more convincing it's going to be the more you think about the question how in the world did that tomb get empty the more you will come to the conclusion that the only possible answer is the one the Scripture gives. They've tried for 20 centuries to dream up some explanation for who moved the stone and who took the body.

And the more you look at those explanations, the sillier they get. A great lawyer went out to disprove the resurrection. And he ended up writing one of the most powerful books that has ever been written called, Who Moved the Stone?

And he was driven to the conclusion that all of the explanations just collapse in the face of the evidence. Who moved the stone? God moved the stone.

Who took the body? God took it and brought it back to life. And I think that if you consider the evidence, you'll be driven to the conclusion that the Gospel is true.

That's not enough. The empty tomb isn't enough. Even an angel from heaven isn't enough.

It wasn't for them and it won't be for you. What convinced those women, what convinced Peter and James and John and Thomas and all the others was meeting the living Lord. And when you come to the point of saying, Lord Jesus Christ, I want to know you.

I want to meet you. I want you to come into my heart and be my Lord. then you're going to experience Easter.

Perhaps for the first time. Perhaps more deeply than you ever have. I'm going to invite you in a few minutes to come to the Lord's table.

I want you to be clear that this is the Lord's table. It's not the table of the Episcopal Church. If you know and love the Lord Jesus, and if you'd be welcome at His table in your own church, wherever that might be, then you're welcome here.

Some of you, I suspect, haven't come for years. And I would invite you to let your coming to this table be an expression of coming to Jesus Christ and saying to Him, Lord, come into my life. Some of you may have come repeatedly, frequently, and yet it was kind of a religious ritual.

Put away religion this morning and encounter reality. And if you've never before invited Jesus to be your Lord, do it right now. that's what Easter's for I said it at the beginning I want to say it again it was so much fun Hallelujah He is risen He is risen indeed Hallelujah