What If the Stone Was Rolled Away?

Luke 24:1-12; Psalm 118:1-2

     On opening her new store, a woman received a bouquet of flowers. She was caught off guard when she read the enclosed card, however, that it expressed 'Deepest Sympathy'. While puzzling over the message, her telephone rang. It was the florist, apologizing for having sent the wrong card.

"Oh, it's alright." said the storekeeper. "I understand how these things can happen."

"Well," added the florist, "I accidentally sent your card with an arrangement to the funeral home."

"un-oh. What did it say?" asked the storekeeper.

"'Congratulations on your new location'," was the reply.

     It is good to laugh! Happy Easter! We have made it through the wilderness of Lent into the bright and promising season of Resurrection. Jesus lives! Alleluia!

     Easter is all alleluias! It is “unclouded joy,”[1] a sweeping victory over death! We make that leap from Good Friday to Easter Sunday by spending Holy Saturday at egg hunts, or shoe shopping, or preparing for Easter lunch, because we know that on Sunday, flowers fill the cross. It is no longer an instrument of torture and death, but a symbol of new life. It is love in the shape of a cross.

     Our experience is very different from the experience of Jesus’ closest friends on that first Easter “weekend.” They have been in hiding for fear of being recognized as his disciples, or swallowed in grief. The women waited for the last hours of shabbat to tick away and then they pulled their spice jars from the rack, to pound away at a fragrant mix that they will take to put on his body at sunrise with oils and ointments. He deserved an honorable burial. They keep at it, even when a tear falls, a breath shudders at the memory of the horror of it all.[2]

     His bruised body had been placed in a tomb - unwashed, hair matted, wrapped in only a linen cloth. The women, Luke noted, who had followed him from Galilee, promised themselves they would return after the sabbath to treat him honorably in death.

     When they arrived at the tomb, they must have wondered if they remembered the location correctly because the stone was rolled away and there was no body. Suddenly two figures stood beside them, gleaming in bright clothing. The women looked away in fear and dismay, but the figures asked them, Why were they looking for the living among the dead? He is not here. Remember how he told you this would happen….? Hearing this, they DID remember.

     So, they left the open tomb. There was no body to honor in death. There was only a bright, shining moment of truth to be witnessed, and now, a testimony to give for Life! Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and several other women went to the eleven other apostles after this, Luke writes, and told them everything they had seen. And what do you know, those boys didn’t believe them. “These words seemed to them an idle tale.” (Luke 24:11)

     Sometimes, stories seem too far out to be taken seriously. The tomb was open. The body was gone. Two men in shimmering suits say that he is…alive? I could throw these men under the bus for not believing the women. It’s a centuries’ old issue. But today, I’m going to choose to believe that their problem wasn’t that these witnesses were so unreliable, but that the disciples’ hearts were so irreparably broken. When your heart is broken, believing/trusting again feels so risky. You might not even have enough heart left to hope. But then it seems…. FOMO (The Fear Of Missing Out) gets the best of Peter. He and John, though he isn’t named here, set off in a sprint to the tomb to see if what they say is true.  Can it be?

It was!!

     It was just as they said. The tomb is open. The stone of death is rolled away. The shroud of despair lies there on the ground.

     Did they fall to their knees, breathless from the sprint, overcome with something like relief, hope, belief? Did tears fill their bloodshot eyes?

     Was the witness of their sisters now, enough to roll the stone of disbelief away?

     They had misread and misunderstood Jesus’ mission. Was an actual empty tomb enough to roll the stone of their regret away?

     They had doubted and denied him. Was the absence of a body enough to roll the stones of guilt and shame away?

     They had covered and camouflaged their identity as his disciples. Was the lonely linen shroud enough to roll the stones of anger and grief away?

     These are questions for modern-day disciples as well. There is no proof of resurrection. There is no scientific testing of the DNA on the shroud. There are no soil samples; no fingerprints on the stone to prove who moved it. There is no security cam video at the cemetery to survey. There is no proof. There is only faith. Faith that what Jesus said would happen did. And that is enough “to empower” them to carry on as witnesses to the miracle of resurrection, the promise that new life will come. Jerusha Matsen Neal writes,

In grace’s dark dawn, Easter resurrection breaks open histories and mistakes frozen in time and asks those whose hearts have grown accustomed to stony resignation: What if the stone was rolled away? What if hope was risked again? What if forgiveness was real? What would it mean to live – not shut inside tombs of all we cannot change, but alive in a world that can?[3]

I love the way Walter Brueggemann turns the word Easter into a verb as he prays:

You, defeater of death, whose power could not hold you,

            Come in your Easter,
            Come in your sweeping victory,

             Come in your glorious new life.

            Easter us! Salve our wounds, break the bonds of injustice, bring peace, compel us to neighbor one another.[4]

     Those who found the empty tomb that morning were Eastered in joy and strength.  They went on to profess their witness of these miracles and because of them, we celebrate today.

     What miracles of new life, of hope after tragedy have you witnessed? Because it is up to us to profess the testimony that began that first Easter still rings true today.

     One man who has spent the second half of his life doing this is Joe Avila. Through his work with Prison Fellowship, Joe has ministered to the incarcerated and their families for decades with a message of forgiveness and reconciliation. Joe begins his story by saying: “Not too far from where I live there’s a sign that says, Please do not drink and drive. And underneath it is another sign that reads, In honor of Amy Wall.  Joe pauses before saying in a firm voice: “Amy Wall was a young lady that I killed in 1992 while driving drunk on the freeway.” He explains how that tragic night brought an end to his life of alcoholism and addiction, yet it took the life of a teenage girl.            

     While awaiting his murder trial, Joe entered a six-month sobriety program where he says God put some people in his life who helped him understand what reconciliation was and what forgiveness was. It was just before Easter in 1993 that he walked into the courthouse and changed his plea to guilty. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Choosing to make the most of his life while imprisoned, Joe served incarcerated hospice patients. He also served in the chapel and shared his story and his faith with other prisoners. But the real miracle of Joe’s story is that not long after his release, Joe learned that Amy Wall’s brother wanted to meet with him. For years, Joe had prayed that God would open a door for Joe to reconcile with Amy’s family. The meeting lasted for several hours in which Derek explained that he had thought Joe was a monster who should pay the ultimate price for what he had done. But then Derek explained that his family had followed Joe’s progress and they knew he was trying to make a better life, be a better person. Joe was able to tell Derek how sorry he was for what he had done and ask Derek for forgiveness.  This led to more interactions with members of Amy’s family and eventually to Joe and Amy’s father participating together in a Restorative Justice Council event in front of hundreds of people.

     “I killed his daughter,” Joe says, his voice thick with emotion, “and he was able to give me a hug and say, ‘I love you.’ And that is a true [testimony] to the miracle of reconciliation and why Christ did die on the cross.”

     If the stones of guilt, regret, and shame can be rolled away in the life of someone like Joe Avila so that he can go on to be such a powerful witness of the transforming power of Christ, then it can happen for us.

     If the stones of rage, hurt and anguish, grief and loss can be rolled away in the lives of Derek Wall and his family because of the power of forgiveness and reconciliation through the cross, then the same can be true for us.

     May the stony resignation of our hearts be rolled away today so that we can live, as Christ lives! Set free from the tombs that imprison us.

     By your everlasting love, O Lord, and in your power over come death with life, Easter us in joy and strength! Alleluia and Amen!

[1] Neal, Jerusha Matsen Commentary on Luke 24:1-12 Working Preacher

[2] Gladding, Sean Christian Century Resurrection of the Lord April 2025

[3] Neal, Jerusha Matsen Commentary on Luke 24:1-12 Working Preacher

[4] Brueggemann, Walter  Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth “Easter Us”