Resurrestion Tenderness - Rev Dr Kelly Sprinkle 4-20-25

Reading: Luke 24:1-12 by Rev Judith Medieros

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the first day of the week, the women took
the spices they had prepared. Then they went to the tomb.
They found the stone rolled away from it. When they
entered the tomb, they did not find the body of
the Lord Jesus, and they were wondering about this. Suddenly

(00:21):
two men in close as bright as lightnings, stood beside them.
The women were terrified. They bowed down with their faces
to the ground. They said to them, why do you
look for the living among the dead. Jesus is not here.
He has risen. Remember how he told you he would rise.

(00:46):
It was while he was still with you in Galilee
he said, the son of Man must be handed over
to the sinful people. He must be nailed to a cross.
On the third day he will rise from the dead.
Then the women remembered Jesus' words. They came back from

(01:09):
the tomb. They told all of these things to the
eleven apostles, and to all the others with them. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary,
the mother of James, and the others were with them
when the ones who told the apostles. But the apostles
did not believe the women. Their words didn't make any

(01:31):
sense to them. But Peter got up and ran to
the tomb. He bent over, and he saw the strips
of Lenen lying by themselves. Then he went away, wondering
what had happened.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Easter begins in silence. One verse before chapter twenty four begins.
We find the women standing at the place of the
skull Golgotha, seeing Jesus taken from the cross and placed

(02:26):
in a tomb. I imagine since Jesus was buried quickly
because of night coming and the Sabbath beginning, the women
retreated to where they were staying and began to prepare
those spices. And early in the morning on that Sunday

(02:55):
they gathered those spices, went barely as the sun was
rising to the tomb. I imagine they had made their
preparations and the most gentle of fashion, just as perhaps
Mary the Mother had cradled the baby Jesus, that they

(03:18):
would take the limp dead body of Jesus and tenderly
caress it. As they spread the perfume and ointments the
tools for embalming. It was a tender touch. It was
ever so softly and tenderly that perhaps that first Easter began.

(03:46):
But when they arrived the huge stone had been rolled
away from where they had seen Jesus placed. He was
not there, and then two angels appear. When the Greek

(04:09):
is best translated, I understand it is as if those
clothes whereas if they were flashing light from the Latin
astra of the galaxies. But I imagine if we were so
grief struck in seeing so much light and confusion, that

(04:33):
we too would have looked away, for our hearts were
still breaking that the one we had loved and had
died was not present the angels, and Luke's gospel tells
them that Jesus had already remind them all that would happen,

(04:57):
Except if you read Luke's gospel closely enough, Jesus never
really says any of those things in this gospel. But
the community memory as it comes together in the looking
back upon Easter, I imagine they realize that their stories,

(05:20):
when they were put together, reminded them of the time
they had spent with Jesus. Now the gospels all fours
are given a different rendition of the Easter story. In
Mark's gospel, the women come to the tomb and they
are told that Jesus has risen and to go tell

(05:42):
the disciples, and they run back and tell no one
the end. In Matthew's Gospel, an angel and earthquake and
Jesus appeared years. In John's Gospel, Mary Magdalen arrives as

(06:08):
a tomb and she discovers Jesus as the gardener, and
she grabs hold. In Luke's gospel, Easter morning has no Jesus.
Jesus arrives in the evening on the journey to Embaeus.

(06:33):
I imagine that sometimes in our lives grief does not
play out as we imagine that grief. Sometimes it appears
that is an extended time. That is not until later
that we discovered that life is there. It has been

(06:57):
said that grief is liminal, terminal. Yet for the women
and the disciples and all those it has this if
Easter is babbling nonsense, as some translations would say that

(07:17):
the women it appears are telling an idle tell their
story makes no sense. Yet in the midst of this,
the women are there, and as Amy jo Lvigne and
Ben Wentworth would say that the new revis standard version

(07:40):
of media translations sort of downplay when the women are
there and they say they tell the disciples, they say
A better translation is the women kept telling them it
has if the non belief needs to be reminded that

(08:02):
even in the hardest of times, that Easter can be kindled,
even when we do not see it coming. It is
as if we are working and toiling in our gardens
of faith and the tenderness we place in the work
that we do. Easter is here, and Easter is always

(08:29):
on the horizon, that even in our deepest grief, and
in this place many of us have experienced grief, Easter
sometimes is that glimpse of beauty. Easter sometimes is that

(08:50):
flash of loveliness. Sometimes it is that memory that makes
a smile become tearful at once. Sometimes it appears that

(09:11):
all of life is a bit foolish. In the midst
of this world we live. It has been said that
we are Easter people who live in a good Friday world,
and how true that is. In the times that we live,
it seems as if we have more good Fridays than Easter.

(09:35):
But here in this place and with Christians around the
world today we take a pause and say, good Friday
does not last. Even though our grief may last a lifetime,
we do not have to sit with it daily. Our

(09:58):
grief needs our attention because mourning is a bitter, sweet
momento of love. Perhaps it's the women's grieving when they
come to the tomb. Is that soft and tender love
which they come with. We don't need to rank what
our griefs are, which is worse and which is least worse,

(10:24):
Even when it comes to the pettiest and tiniest of things.
Grieving is necessary if we're ever going to make room
for something better. Our grief cannot become everything. With memory
and testimony and time, we can indeed recognize that grief

(10:47):
is liminal and not terminal. Grief does not need to
crowd out the truth that we have been loved and
that we are loved. We are reminded that we are
not alone. There is still hope in the land of
the living. The late Episcopal Bishop John shall be Spawn

(11:12):
once said that the Easter moment is a call to life,
to love, and to the courage to be all that
God has created us to be. It is a call
to life and the courage to be that All created
us to be. For you see, my friends, Easter is

(11:35):
in our dna. Easter is what reminds us that grief
is real, that memory is real, and that our love
is intermingled with both grief and Easter. And when we

(11:55):
hold one another close, perhaps after being told time and
time again, as the women tell the disciples, perhaps we
can be like Peter and finally get the nerve to
go look in the tomb and realize it's empty, and

(12:15):
perhaps be kindled with enough love and enough hope to
imagine that Jesus is alive, even though we don't realize
it at that time. Easter holds memory for a God

(12:38):
who came back to life still bearing scars. We'll remind
you that we don't have to leave behind our grief
to participate in the joy of liberation. Our scars will
remain my friends, but we don't need to dismiss our
grief to participate in the joy of life and liberation

(13:00):
and love that has helped us from the beginning of
our lives and will hold us forever and ever.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
Amen.