These women, headed to the tomb at early dawn: what are they thinking? What are they feeling? 

They know where they’re going because they watched Jesus die. They watched his body taken down from the cross, and hastily wrapped in a linen cloth, because it was almost the Sabbath, when work had to cease. They followed those carrying the body to a tomb carved from the rock, and saw him laid there. Then they hurried home, and prepared spices and ointments to tend his body once the Sabbath was over. 

They are grieving, deeply. These women have been with Jesus on the whole journey, traveling with him just like the twelve disciples – or perhaps I should say the twelve men disciples? We know some of their names – Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, Joanna, Susanna, Salome – but there were others whose names the Gospel writers did not bother to record. 

These women have lost a beloved friend and leader. Someone who helped them imagine that God’s dream of a world ordered by justice and mercy might someday, somehow, come to pass. But also: someone who saw them. Who knew their names. Who made them feel like they mattered. Jesus’ friendships with women are notable, not to be taken for granted. They have lost someone who made them feel real. 

But it’s not just personal grief. Jesus didn’t die of old age or cancer. He was crushed by the state, because some of his own people turned against him, named him as a criminal, handed him over to the imperial government; and the imperial government said, Sure. We’ll get rid of him for you. 

These women are feeling grief layered with rage and fear and helplessness and despair. Their friend is dead and the bad guys won. Power won. Control won. Hatred won. 

Every good or hopeful possibility – gone. 

Things are forked at a systemic, societal level. 

There’s no point to anything, and nothing left to do – except this: Care for his body. Wash it. Anoint it with oil. Wrap it more carefully. Lay him to rest with dignity. With love. 

All of this is speculation; Magdala and Joanna and Susanna aren’t here to tell us what they were feeling. But we can see hints of their emotions in their fierce commitment to caring for Jesus’ body, the only way left to them to show their love. As soon as sabbath is over, at early dawn, they go to the tomb. John’s Gospel says they set out “while it was still dark.” I looked it up: Sunrise in Jerusalem at this time of year is around 6AM, with darkness starting to ease around 5:15.  A few of you are natural early risers, but for the rest of us, if we’re up and out by 5AM, there’s a reason. A plane to catch. A loved one’s illness. Something necessary that needs dealing with before the normal work of the day begins. Something you couldn’t do the night before, but that you are driven to do as soon as humanly possible today. 

That drivenness is what we see, here, as these women hurry through quiet streets and out of the city in the murky gray light before sunrise. 

To find… a shock, and a puzzle. The stone that sealed the tomb has been rolled away, and Jesus’ body is gone. Before they’ve even had time to move on from perplexity to fear or anger – who took him, and why? – two strangers are there, dressed in dazzling white, saying: Why look for the living in the place of the dead? He’s not here. He has been raised. 

Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, way back before any of this, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.

Remember. 

The Gospels record Jesus telling his friends again and again to expect his death, and to know – when it happens – that that’s not the end of the story.

But grief and shock and anger and fear and confusion and overwhelm have a way of shaking us out of ourselves, don’t they? Of scattering or shattering our sense of self, our sense of direction. We forget, or just lose track of, things that make us who we are and tell us what to do next. 

We feel unmoored, adrift, cut loose from what anchored us. 

Maybe you have felt – are feeling – something like what these women are feeling. Maybe you know all too well what it feels like when the people or institutions or values we thought we could trust in and build our lives around – things we thought were stable and reliable – are suddenly in danger, or gone, overnight. Maybe you’ve been grieving and raging too.

The strangers at the tomb – Matthew uses the word angel – tell the women: Remember. It’s an ordinary word but also an evocative, important word. Your friend might tell you: Remember to bring fruit for the potluck! Your therapist might ask you to remember formative experiences. Your spiritual director might urge you to remember the truths that ground and orient you. 

In my own – still new! – contemplative practice, remembering has an important role. I have to gather my scattered self before I can come to center and open my heart to God. My personal Rule of Life includes the sentence, “Remember snow falling on the prairie.” But in fact my whole Rule is a practice of remembering. I read a chunk of it every day, to remind myself of what God and my own deep self have taught me about how best to be in the world and do what’s mine to do. 

Remember. What do these women – Mary and the other Mary, Salome, and the rest – need to remember? 

First, I think they need to remember how they got into all this in the first place. What made them up and follow Jesus, walking away from lives and roles and responsibilities – a big deal, especially for women in this time and place. What stirred their hearts about Jesus’ words and actions; the hope and sense of possibility he gave them, the feeling that they belonged and they mattered and they could offer their skills and resources and hearts to something good and important. 

They need to remember why they are here: in Jerusalem, far from home, in this cold stone tomb in the gray dawn, jars of scented oil in their hands. What mattered so much that it brought them here? And where will it lead them next? 

I find that it’s easy to be lost in my own head, my own fears or overwhelm. Good news, hints of hope or possibility, really can feel like an idle tale soemetimes. 

When you feel shattered, shaken, adrift: What do you need to remember? What shaped you; what grounds you? What experiences and relationships and have made you the person who is feeling these feelings? What loves and values and commitments are at the heart of your anger, your fear, your frustration and grief? What mattered so much that it brought you here? And where does it lead you next? 

The second thing these women need to remember is that they’re part of something bigger. They’re not alone – even in grief, overwhelm and despair.  In the other three Gospels, the messengers at the tomb tell the women: Go tell the others! And even though they don’t say that in Luke’s account, that’s what the women do: rush back into the city to tell the other disciples what they have seen and heard. 

Go tell the others! Get the band back together! Spread the word. Expand the movement. Start building what comes next, because the story is not over. Not at all. 

We, too, are part of something bigger, even when we feel overwhelmed or helpless. We’re not alone – whether with personal griefs or struggles, or with feeling the weight of large scale turmoil, danger and loss.

In this season at St. Dunstan’s I see us doing some important and fruitful work exploring how to show up for each other and look out for each other. I hope we’ll keep leaning into that. And showing up for, looking out for, our neighbors is just a half-step further. Let’s keep seeking opportunities to connect, to build community, to ask for help and offer help, to practice mutual care and mutual aid. To build what comes next, because the story is still unfolding.

The third thing the strangers challenge these women to remember is that God is still at work in all this. Remember how he told you, way back in Galilee, that these things were going to happen. Even when everything seems hopeless, all is held in love. God is working in ways we can’t perceive or even imagine. More can be mended than we know.  

Maybe this was easy for these women to believe, because the evidence of God’s power was right in front of them: Jesus had been raised from the dead! But actually, there were many more plausible explanations for the absence of his body than miraculous resurrection. They had to take a big leap of faith, to accept that God had reached in and tweaked the rules of the universe in this way. Like Paul says in today’s Epistle: It better be true; we’ve staked everything on it.  

The worst had happened, yet – the strangers remind them – it has not derailed God’s deep redemptive work of justice and love. It’s all part of the plan. Remember? 

I don’t believe that the things that weigh on our hearts and spirits today are God’s plan for us and for the world. Nevertheless: I do believe that God’s redemptive love is still at work – not least through all of us, in the holy work of caring for ourselves and each other and our human and non-human communities. 

Mary and Mary and Susanna and Salome and Joanna and the others had to stretch their minds and hearts and imaginations to accept that God and goodness and love were not defeated – that this man and this message to which they’d given their hearts had not simply been snuffed out. 

But they do it. They dare to believe. They dare to hope. 

Easter is a complicated happy ending.  Yes, death is defeated. Yes, love wins. But, but, but. 

Things don’t suddenly become some rosy, hunky-dory new reality. And they don’t just go back to the way it was before, either. Jesus isn’t dead anymore, but he’s not back, either. The community, the movement, of Jesus’ friends and followers is sadder and wiser, now. 

But they’re also bolder and braver – as we see in the sequel to Luke’s Gospel, the Acts of the Apostles. 

What do we need to remember, beloveds? 

Remember what made you who you are, your foundation stones. What mattered so much that it brought you here? And where does it lead you next? 

Remember that you’re not alone. We’re in this together – for many definitions of “this.” 

Remember that God is still up to something, and always invites us to be collaborators, co-conspirators, in the holy work of justice and love. 

Remember that the story isn’t over. Not at all. 

Take care of each other. Tend your communities. Keep telling people who are weighed down by rage and grief and despair that it’s worth keeping on. There will be an After. Hold onto each other and keep doing what matters. Spread the good news that fearful, repressive power does not have the last word.

Christ is risen. Then and now and always. Remember.  Alleluia, alleluia. Amen.