This has been a confusing week.  I mean last week, Holy Week, was a confusing week.  The lengthy winding story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is a confounding complicated narrative.  It all began seven days ago with the joyful chaos of Palm Sunday.  Jesus rode into town on a colt.  Everyone waved their hands and palm branches in the air, and they spread their coats on the ground carpeting his path with love and shouts of praise.  All the people reached out to touch Jesus.  He was right there; right in front of them; he was accessible; he was present.

          It was like an old time revival what with all the healing and shouting, and crying and carrying on.  The crowd was thick with the real presence of the Savior. 

          Then, he was taken away. 

          Jesus was arrested and then tried in the flimsiest fixed-up trial in history.

          On Good Friday he became untouchable.  Christ, who came to free the world, was held a prisoner bound to a cross of wood and killed on a high place.  The death was brutal and the burial scene was stark.

          A rich man from Arimathea named Joseph, took care of the body.  Joseph did his work quietly and carefully.  The soldiers unpinned the body of Jesus from the cross and they handed it down to gentle Joseph, who carried Jesus to a safe place, and he wrapped his limp body in a clean linen cloth.  Then, Joseph gave Jesus a proper burial.

          The festival crowds, of course, had gone away.  There were no Easter hymns at the funeral.  It was just Mary Magdalene and the other Mary there weeping quietly over the lifeless Christ as Joseph laid his body in his own tomb, which was a hole hewn in a hillside of rock.

          Joseph emerged from the grave stooped and sobbing and with all of the strength in his grief bent body, he pushed a great stone over the opening to the burial place and that sealed it…

          Jesus was dead and buried.  Where there once was such hope and promise; where once the air was thick with palm branches and the presence of God; all the light and laughter was now shut out by the great stone.

          It’s a terrifically sad scene, but this is not the confusing part.  Hopes and promise crashed by tragedy are an all too familiar part of life.

          My own personal Holy Week journey has mirrored the biblical Holy Week narrative in an unsettling parallel.

          Many of you met Matthew last week on Palm Sunday.  Matthew is four weeks old, and he lived with us for five nights.  We hoped that we would adopt him and raise him as our own newborn son.

          He did not ride in here on a colt – the parallel is not that close!  Kristin carried him in her arms into the festival atmosphere of this place seven days ago.  And you shouted and waved your hands and palms in the air, and you reached out and touched him and held him. 

          We were thick with the presence of God and baby Matthew.

          But adoption is a fragile thing, and ours fell apart.  Matthew was taken away, and where once we held a light and sleeping baby a great stone, too heavy to hold, took his place.

The miracle scene of Easter morning is every bit as dramatic as the burial of Jesus. 

          Early in the morning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary snuck back to the tomb of Jesus in the dark and quiet of dawn.

          Sometimes people go back to the scene of an accident, like a fire or a car wreck, just to look and see if they can mine some reason or meaning out of the mess.

          I think that’s what the two Marys were doing.  They were driven by their grief back to the burial place just to look and weep and try to mine some meaning out of the mess.  While they were there, the world shook and shuttered with a great earthquake as an angel of God came thick into the burial garden.

          This angel was the very fiery presence of God, and he was white like lightning and snow.

He was the perfect combination of all the elements of existence and life, and he filled the women with fear and great joy.

          The angel just pushed on the great heavy stone, and opened up the burial cave and the whole grave yard, hole and all, filled up with light.  And the angel, who represents the real presence of God, sat on the stone which was once a heavy death door, the lid of the casket if you will.

          You almost miss that detail don’t you?  God sat down on the stone.

          When the world was cloaked in death and darkness; the casket was closed and sealed; the women gathered watching and weeping; God came down from heaven, opened up the grave of Jesus in a flash of light, and then he sat down in the middle of the world on a great big stone, which became something like a resurrection throne.  The graveyard became a festival place, and the world was thick with the presence of God.

          That good friends, is the biblical story of resurrection.  God is alive in Jesus Christ!

The stone has been rolled away!  The tomb is empty!  Jesus Christ is risen today!

          However, that good news is easier to deliver, read about, or hear told of than it is to feel.  I mean, does resurrection spread from the pages of the bible story, or is it just a good story?  Will this Risen Christ come roll the stone out of our tired arms?  Will we feel thick with the presence of God?

          I know I am not the only one here with a sad story.  We all have heartbreak in our lives. We all need resurrection light to flood into the dark spaces.  So the Easter question is, “Will God come roll the rocks out of the way and sit down in the middle of our broken lives?” 

          I confess that early in the week I did not know if Easter would come our way.  Matthew was ripped away on Holy Tuesday and Wednesday came crashing on us like a landslide of boulders –rocks and all.  And we were buried. 

          And then, words and notes started to trickle in like whispers of hope.

          One friend wrote saying, “Dear Hendree and Kristin, I am so sorry, but I am so thankful to have met the little boy, Matthew.  Thank you for taking me on the journey with you.  I love you both.”  And that friend pushed on the stone and sat down on it.

          Another friend wrote, “Ah, you are so dear, you two, I love you and I am sorry, but I feel so blessed to have known Matthew, and I’m richer for being with you on this journey.”  And that friend pushed on the stone and sat down it.

          Another friend was very direct and said simply, “I am with you.”  And with all the snowy elegance of an angel of God that friend pushed mightily on the stone and sat down.

          One friend didn’t speak he just looked at us with a fiercely loving look and wrapped us in his embrace.  And with the lighting might of an angel of God he broke the stone in two, and he sat down on the pieces.  

          Before too long at all, there was a great crowd of our friends sitting on stones in the middle of our lives.  And a dour scene began to lighten, and we grew thick with God in the power of the resurrection, made perfectly manifest in the love of our neighbors.             

          Good friends, you know what I am doing don’t you?!  I am witnessing to you right here on Easter day!  See, I know that Jesus Christ is Alive!  I know that the tomb of Jesus is an empty lonely place because Christ is alive in your love!

          There is another little one who needs our resurrection love. 

          We will baptize Eliana this morning.  We will make her life thick with the presence of God by the power of our love laid wastefully on her precious little life.  We will mark her as God’s own child and as our own child, and we will sit down in the middle of her life and say to Eliana, Jennifer, Mark, and Naomi, “We are richer for journeying with you.”

          Resurrection is not a miracle fix to all that ails us; rather, Resurrection is God’s undeniable, overpowering, everlasting presence.

          Good friends, on this Easter Sunday, may we all make festival shouts of love to one another saying, Jesus Christ is Risen today!  Jesus Christ is here today!  Jesus Christ is Alive today!

          May we feel the resurrection presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the love we pass back and forth, one to another, forever and ever, Alleluia, Alleluia, Amen!