Easter Fools

The difference that makes all the difference.

Matthew 28.1

After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

Years ago a young pastor was asked to do a burial service for an older man from the community who had no friends and no family. The pastor was thus unable to speak with anyone about the man’s life, but he tried his best to write a good funeral homily anyway. And, when the appointed day arrived, the preacher got in his car and headed out for an old country cemetery out in the middle of nowhere.

He drove and he drove and despite his best efforts and intentions, he got lost. He tried searching for the address through his phone’s map app, but he had no service. And even when he stopped at a gas station for directions it wasn’t entirely clear whether the attendant knew what he was talking about. However, he finally crested a hill and saw a backhoe in the middle of a large field and he knew he found the cemetery. But he was over an hour late.

He drove across the field and saw a group of men next to the backhoe resting under the shade of the tree. But there was no hearse to be seen, and when he got out of his car the pastor saw the open hole and how the lid was already placed with fresh dirt on top.

The guilt welled up in the preacher, but he opened up his Bible and began preaching like he had never preached before. He cried out to the heavens with clenched fists, he boldly proclaimed the promise of the resurrection, and he did all of it with a conviction that was rarely found in his Sunday preaching.

After his final “Amen” he returned to his car while wiping the sweat from his brow. He nodded over to the men by the tree and right before he got in his car he heard one of the men say, “I ain’t never seen nothing like that before, and I’ve been putting in septic tanks for twenty years.”

Happy April Fools.

Easter is, of course, a joke - the greatest joke God ever played on the devil. It’s no wonder the Eastern Orthodox Church starts the Easter Liturgy by collectively laughing together. The grave is empty! What could be funnier than that?

And yet, at the same time, resurrection is no joke; it’s no laughing matter. There’s a reason that the women flee from the tomb in fear. The resurrection changes everything. Easter means whatever we think we think about how things are supposed to go are no longer bound by the rules we think are unbreakable. Easter means that death no longer gets the final word. Easter means that God keeps God’s promises.

And so, we can laugh when we gather in church on Sunday and we can also shake a little in our pews. Easter happens specifically for fools just like us. On Easter Jesus returns to the very disciples who abandoned him and denied him with a word of love rather than retribution. Easter is the funniest and the most serious thing to have happened in history - Easter is the difference that makes all the difference.