“Mosaic: God Redeems our Brokenness” Mark 16: 1-8

We have arrived. We have arrived at the most celebrated day in the Christian life - Easter Sunday. But in order to cerebrate we need to take time to reflect on the journey that brought us here. 

For the last several weeks together, we have been talking about brokenness - both our own personal brokenness, but also the brokenness of our world. While there are many people talking about how fractured our world is right now, and how things are not as they should be, as the Church we took the conversation a different direction - proclaiming that we worship a God who can redeem our brokenness, who can make beauty from the ashes and create something new out of the jagged edges of our lives. 

And that brothers and sisters is truly what today is all about - on this Easter Resurrection Sunday, we celebrate that we have a God who redeems our brokenness. Let us turn to the Gospel of Mark. 

It has been a difficult week for the disciples. The person who called them by name to follow him in the last week shared a final meal with them, was arrested, tried, falsely convicted, hung on a cross, and died. The disciples lives are shattered. They have scattered for safety.

Sunday morning, at the breaking of dawn, three of the women who had followed Jesus approached the tomb with more spices. They intended to give their Lord the proper burial he deserved. No one else had dared to visit the tomb over the Sabbath - Pilate had went as far as to post a guard in front of it at the prompting of the Jewish leaders to make sure that Jesus’ followers did not try to come and steal his body in order to claim that he had risen. The eleven were in hiding, fearing their own arrest and sorely disappointed themselves for abandoning Jesus in his time of need, just as he had predicted.

But the women were brave as they went to honor Jesus memory that morning in the best way that they knew how - by burying him properly. So Mary the mother of James, Mary Magedline, and Salome took their spices and went to the grave. As they approached they started to wonder who would roll away the heavy stone for them. But a surprise awaited them at the tomb that morning as the sun rose in the sky - the stone had already been rolled away. A stone too heavy for one or two grown men to roll on their own was aside and a young man, in a white robe, a messenger from God, was there and told them that Jesus has been raised and that he had been raised! Just as Jesus predicted! 

They were commanded to go and tell the disciples, telling them that Jesus would meet them in Galilee. They would have to leave their place of hiding in Jerusalem and follow Jesus, once again. But instead the women did not tell anyone, because they were afraid. 

Each of the four gospels tells the story slightly differently, but they share one central tenant in common - the idea that Jesus had been raised from the dead was unbelievable to those who heard it. Even to those who experienced the empty tomb with their own eyes and heard the messenger from God. Jesus had told them time and time again that this would be the case - that the grave would not even be able to hold him three days, but they still did not believe it. 

There are times that our brokenness, those jagged edges in our lives, make it so difficult to receive and believe the Easter story. Times when we struggle with the idea of the empty tomb. Time that we have doubts. 

But that is part of our faith story as well, isn’t it? Even in the midst of unbelief we are beckoned to believe the unbelievable, because we worship a God who does not simply do what we expect or what we want or even what we are able and willing to believe. We worship a God who is bigger then our expectations! We worship a God who is found in the midst of the absurd and through that absurdity transforms people! Praise God! We only need to look as far as the disciples to see this transformation in the face of doubt - even though the disciples initially wrestled in their own way with their guilt and then their disbelief that Jesus was alive, they went on to leave their place of hiding in the upper room and proclaim Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection so boldly that they were willing to die for it - and most of them did. They were compelled to tell the story! And that leads me to ask, on this celebration day, if we, too, are compelled to go and tell the story! The story of who Jesus is in our lives and what the cross and empty tomb means in our lives.Are we willing to stand up and boldly proclaim our story with Jesus, even if we don’t have it all figured out, even if we do not believe every little detail. Are we willing to share our story, Easter people!

I can remember the first time the idea that Jesus conquered the grave truly excited me. One of the first concerts I ever remember going to as a whole family was to see Carman. Now I’m not sure if Carman even still performs any more, but he was a Christian pop singer in the early 90s. My dad used to play his cassette, yes cassette, tapes for us in the car when we traveled. Carman performed at the Bryce Jordan Center when we were little and sang a song that I had heard time and time agin. I don’t remember the title, or even all of the words, but the song captured Jesus’ agony on the cross and final breath, followed by Satan’s celebration that Jesus had died. The arena went almost completely dark as the voice of Satan rejoiced. But then slowly, and softly at first, before gaining momentum and volume the Rocky music started to play signifying Jesus rising from the grave. The lights came back on and you could hear Satan howl in the pain of defeat as Jesus conquered death and the grave. For himself. For you. And for me. It caused my spine to tingle. Jesus conquered it all for you and for me! The arena started to cheer and praise God! And in that moment I understood that Jesus meant so much more then just the cross, for Jesus showed his love for us on the cross, and showed his power and our ability to have eternal life with the empty tomb.

Brothers and sisters, we are a Resurrection people! We gather in community week after week to remind each other that the worst things in life, those broken jagged edges we have, will not last and we have a hope that sometimes doesn’t seem to make sense and sometimes seems absurd, but we believe it in anyway. In fact, our faith stands on it. We gather together to live out our faith, and transform lives with our service and message. I can think of nothing else so exciting. I can think of nothing else that has transformed the world in such a powerful way. My hope and prayer, today, is that it excites you to be part of that story as well. Amen.