SERMON FOR EASTER SUNDAY, APRIL 17, 2022       TEXT: LUKE:24:1-12
     There it was among the presents under the Christmas tree, the Bible I had asked for. I carefully inscribed the presentation page in my out-sized second grader’s printing. This Holy Bible is presented to Jane Strohl by Santa Claus— there were extra lines so I added my address, 235 Westwood Road — on Christmas Eve, 1959. It was the King James Version, and the language was way beyond my reading skills at the time. But there were pictures to help me find my way into the stories. First the Bible passage, then the illustration, then an explanation in contemporary English. Here, for example: They Have Carried Away Our Lord, two men looking agitated, and this commentary: “Why are these men running? Why do they look so frightened? They are Peter and John, disciples of Jesus who have just been told that Jesus’ body has disappeared from the tomb where it was laid after his death on the cross. Jesus had told them, and His other disciples, too, that on the third day He would rise from the dead, and live again. To them this hardly seemed possible. They thought instead that His body had been stolen by His enemies. They were very excited and uncertain, and ran toward the tomb with all their might. Had they paid better attention to Jesus’ teachings . . . to the Word of God . . . they would have known that they were seeing the most wonderful thing man had ever seen, or ever will see. They were seeing victory over death and the grave in the marvelous miracle of Christ being raised from the dead. In this victory lies all our hope of being saved from the death of sin. Had they fully searched the scriptures, and known their meaning, as we are told to do, they would have been very happy, instead of so upset and afraid. From what happened to them, we must learn to live by the Word of God . . . by our Bible . . . rather than by our own ideas and feelings.” Oh that subjunctive mood: “had they paid better attention . . . they would have known”; “had they fully searched the scriptures,” they wouldn’t have freaked out when they heard the tomb was empty. Seriously?! Leave it to some moralizing priss to make Jesus’ resurrection an occasion to rag on his disciples, past and present, for their biblical illiteracy. My second-grade reading skills served me well. I didn’t pick up on the reprimand; I focused on the picture of the disciples’ faces instead.
     Twenty years later I was serving my first parish as an ordained pastor. I had started a youth group and quickly realized that when we raced around playing games outside, I couldn’t run worth diddly. So I bought my first pair of Nikes and started jogging daily, for a month and then another month and then another until I lost count. I never flew like greased lightning, but eventually I could sure go the distance. My body wasn’t always thrilled with the discipline, but my spirit regularly rejoiced by the time I’d made the first mile. Then in February the president of our youth group died suddenly. The day of the memorial service I ran long and hard. The next day was Ash Wednesday, and I woke up feeling ill. Understandably, I suppose, but it dragged on. I was so tired and weak that I could barely run past the end of the driveway. Turned out I had mononucleosis, and now there was to be no more running at all. That’s what I gave up for Lent that year, for forty days plus Sundays, by necessity, not choice. Finally Easter Sunday came, full of sun and spring. I celebrated the service and came home from church, ostensibly to rest, but I grabbed my Nikes and donned my running gear, my Easter finery of choice, did my stretches and started off. Catching my breath, finding my pace, I remembered that picture from my childhood King James Bible, the disciples running with their wide, searching eyes and their open mouths, grieving and astounded. 
     Or as we just heard in Luke’s version of the story, “But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.” The celebration of Easter is much the same from year to year; it is we who change. Our sorrows become more numerous and our hopes more urgent. The uncertainty mounts as events in the world spiral out of control, despite our best intentions, not to mention our sinful worst ones. The story of Jesus’ resurrection may well seem an idle tale. But God challenges you to turn not away in disbelief but to run with Peter to the empty tomb, to claim as your own that cheerless place where God brings life out of death, to experience once again the power of Jesus’ amazing love.  Amen.
Alleluia. Christ is risen.
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!