Did it really happen – this Easter Story – or is it Pure Nonsense like bunny rabbits and colored eggs? What do you think down deep in your heart of hearts? What brought you here this morning?

On that very first Easter, the women came to the tomb to do the right thing, to take care of the body of Jesus. Forbidden to do so sooner by the Sabbath commandment, they waited until Sunday morning to come with spices and ointment, as was the tradition. The women would have expected his body to be deteriorating. The smell of the crusted blood from the many wounds and the bodily changes from the process of death would have been strongly offensive, very different from the sweet smell of lilies that we experience this Easter morn. The bloody linen cloths wrapping the body would have been difficult to pull away. The women, however, were with Jesus from Galilee. They were his followers, his friends, his disciples – one was his mother. Of course they would come to care for his body. It was an act of love and devotion. They had been there with him all along the way, watching his crucifixion and his slow suffocating death, likely feeling relieved when he finally died. They were at the tomb and watched the burial as the stone was rolled across to seal the opening.

As they arrived in the dim light of that very early morning surely they were shocked to see the tomb wide open. They entered hesitantly and looked around. There was no strong smell. There was no body lying there - only two dazzling figures standing next to them reminding them of what Jesus had said weeks and months before. He had told them what would happen to him but it made little sense at the time, that he would be handed over, crucified, and raised up again on the third day. Then, in the tomb, the women had an "Aha!" moment when the words Jesus had said several times to his disciples including these women suddenly began to make sense. As when for us two plus two begins to make four rather than three or five, when something we couldn’t figure out starts to come together for us and we want to share the suddenly revealed meaning with someone who would understand, the women ran to tell the others. The apostles had also heard those confusing words from Jesus but the message from the women still did not connect the dots for them. They hadn’t been to the tomb that morning. They hadn’t heard the words from the two strange figures. The story from the women sounded like Pure Nonsense to the apostles. Only Peter was curious enough to respond to the women by checking it out for himself. He turned and ran off to the tomb finding only the soft cloths lying there and nothing more. Something occurred for Peter there. He didn’t run to tell the apostles or the women but he "went back home, amazed..."

Did it really happen this way – that first Easter morning? Honestly, we don’t truly know for sure but we know that something transpired. The Bible is not a history book or a science book but a record of the way people long ago conveyed their experience of faith, the experience that they had of Jesus, the way he touched their lives and how they understood God through him. Each Gospel writer tells of the first Easter slightly differently. Scholars believe that the Gospels were written at least one generation after the death of Jesus – maybe longer. The stories had circulated and been repeated in the culture of the followers for many years. As they began to form the early church, it became important to record the story in ways that would communicate what they believed about Jesus even if the precise details were not exactly how it happened. At this point in the story, the followers hadn’t seen Jesus since his death. All they actually knew was that the tomb was empty and some of them didn’t even believe that. The mysterious figures in the tomb had asked the women, "Why look among the dead for someone who is alive?" They hadn’t seen him but the reminder of his earlier promise opened the women to the possibility that he was alive. So for the early church community and maybe also for you and me coming so much later, the Gospel writer relayed some incidents when Jesus’ doubting followers experienced his presence after his death. First, on the road to Emmaus he had a lengthy conversation with two of his followers but it wasn’t until later when he broke bread and prayed with them that they recognized him. He then suddenly disappeared from their sight. Then, as those two told their experience to others, he was suddenly among them. They thought he was a ghost. Since they were frightened and skeptical, Jesus showed him his wounds, let them touch him and ate a piece of grilled fish right before their eyes so that they would see he was human. He reminded them that he was God’s Word as was written in the Law and the Prophets. Then he blessed them and promised that God’s power and Spirit would be with them. They recognized him not so much by how he looked but by his words, in his actions, and by his wounds. His followers experienced his presence in familiar, everyday places: walking along the road, over supper, sitting around chatting in Jerusalem, not in temples or sanctuaries or on mountaintops. It was then that they stopped saying, "Pure Nonsense!" and began to believe that the essence of Jesus, God’s Word, was not dead but was still alive and would continue to live.

So…if the early disciples found this hard to believe, even thought at first that it was Pure Nonsense, how can we be expected to believe it today? How often have you been jogging along the Tiburon Bike Path with a friend and had Jesus come up alongside of you and start talking? Or when have you been sitting at the dinner table with guests and suddenly had him appear, offer a blessing and pass the bread to you? Not often, I’d guess. "Pure Nonsense?" But remember the stories he told about a loving father who welcomed home both the run-around spendthrift younger son and also the responsible judgmental older son? Remember what he said about the outcast Samaritan who noticed and took care of the victim by the side of the road when neither the priest nor the lawyer would stop for him? Remember when Jesus personally approached a rejected woman at the well, talked with her and asked to share her drinking cup? Remember how he wept when he was told that his good friend Lazarus had died? We know the details of those stories and many more because we read them, teach them to our children, talk about them with each other, but until we experience them, they don’t really touch our hearts and lives. It is when we have had what might be the final argument with our spouse and we are jogging on the same bike path trying to figure out if we are going to live or die when a caring friend unexpectedly jogs up alongside willing to listen. It is then that we know Jesus alive in human form. Or it is when we are waiting alone outside the Intensive Care Unit wondering how we will cope when a close friend or a church member or a complete stranger appears offering a tender word and a quiet presence. It is then that we know Jesus lives with real hands and feet and ears. Or the time when we ache for our child who is rejected in school, excluded from parties and ignored by favored classmates – a situation we can’t fix. Then one, just one child, responds to his call, invites him to play, accepts him. It is then that we know Jesus lives in sneakers and a backpack. It is when we personally know we have squandered the love that has been given to us, but still a loved one forgives one more time and welcomes us back. It is when we personally know God’s love that is embodied in Jesus, especially when we are least expecting it, it is then that we know that the truth of the resurrection.

So…is the Easter story true, is it real or Pure Nonsense? The dazzling messenger in the tomb told the women to look for Jesus among the living. Today is the day to celebrate the resurrection among the living by letting God’s love be embodied in each of us and for us to recognize it in others. Help somebody who is hurting. Open eyes of love for someone who is blind to love. Free a captive. Heal a wound. Feed someone who is hungry. Give your gift of love—you have been given many to share. Rejoice and love someone. And when you are on the receiving end of these life-giving gifts, remember and recognize God’s love fully alive. Today is the day to stop being afraid to die but instead to remember that love is stronger than death. Today is the day Christ burst out of his three-day prison. Pure Nonsense? The tomb is empty. Jesus is free and so are we. Christ is Risen. He is Risen Indeed!