The Tomb was Empty (John Wichman)

The tomb was empty.  

Christ has risen. We sing hallelujah. The disciples ran in fear. And I wonder who’s being real.  

They’d been drawn to Jesus by his words and deeds, and perhaps as much by their own expectations and desire for some kind of redemption or liberation. They’d been drawn with him into dangerous situations enthralled and even relieved that, like the ancient prophets, he did not pander but spoke the truth to the differing factions that competed for influence among a desperate people. Some had left all they had in hopes of seeing their expectations fulfilled.  

What they ended up seeing in Jerusalem was their initial doubts fulfilled. What could a truth telling carpenter’s son from Nazareth accompanied by his fellow Galilean bumpkins accomplish against the might of Rome that well armed Zealot revolutionaries or the sophisticated well financed religious elite couldn’t? Nothing! They’d become the laughing stock of the calloused mobs and masses who’d seen every attempt at liberation brutally crushed. They’d cringed in horror and fear as their leader and teacher was executed in grotesque humiliation for all to see.  
It was over, done. Best to accept his death and lick the wounds of dashed hopes and broken dreams. Perhaps they’d even begun to look at those miraculous moments of triumph in Galilee and on the road to Jerusalem as an acceptable legacy. There had been the feeding of hungering masses, the affirmation and healing of outcasts, the gathering together of otherwise disparaging individuals and groups, moments of incredible clarity and insight in challenging situations. How naïve to think that this could last.  All good things come to an end; time to move on. It was over, done, dead.  

But, no! The tomb was empty. It was not over. They freaked out. 

There is an Avery and Marsh song, “Every Morning is Easter Morning (From Now On)” I can not stand the song. There’s a line, “Every morning is Easter morning. The past is over and gone”. That would be a great song for the Roman executioners celebrating the burying of the legacy of Jesus. In fact, it expresses a pretty significant aspect of the evolution of the institution that claims to be the “body of Christ”. Our earliest confessions, such as the Apostles Creed codifies “the past is over and gone”. We recite that Jesus “was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilot; was crucified, dead and buried…” as if the early church was insistent on putting  Jesus—who proclaimed, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”—back in the tomb by skipping over that prickly life that comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable.  

But the tomb was empty.  

The history of Christianity can almost be illustrated as a struggle among its adherents to either roll that stone away from or back over the tomb, a struggle to rebury the Christ of compassion and justice and redefine him as the founder of a judgmental, triumphalist, imperial religion, or let the compassionate embodiment of God’s justice and redeemer of the oppressed and marginalized out of the tomb.  

But the tomb was empty.  

He cannot be reburied. As hard as folks, even within our own Presbyterian USA denomination, demean Jesus by cutting departments, programs and ministries that emphasize God’s justice; as Glen Beck type talking heads amplify the trend by encouraging folks to “run as fast as they can” from churches that use phrases like “social justice”,  the tomb is empty. 

For 54 years, by the grace of God, Westminster Hills Presbyterian Church has been driven by the experience of the empty tomb. The proclamation, by word and deed, that this is “the year of the Lord’s favour” did not end on Calvary at the hands of the mightiest empire of its day. It has made it known in this gateway community where life in this country begins for immigrants from every place on the globe. It has been faithful in creating welcoming and nurturing space for the downcast and desperate even as “mission dollars” were withheld by well heeled churches in gated communities where the poor are referred to as “the less blessed”. 

For 54 years WHPC has lived on the edge financially daringly stretching itself in the endeavor of embodying Christ’s proclamation of “good news for the poor and release to the captives” be they captive to addiction, prejudice, or fearful exclusion even by those within our own denomination who would keep Jesus of Nazareth in the tomb.  

We are still here because the tomb was and is empty.

And yet have heard ourselves from time to time talking of this legacy as if it will soon end because projected budget short falls, were they to continue as they are, cannot carry this ministry beyond the next three or four years. We have even begun to hear ourselves talking of cutting back on the very kind of program resources that will assure that the next generation of disciples can freak out and proclaim the empty tomb in a community that nurtures the very understanding of the empty tomb’s power.  

It’s an option I suppose. There were those who did not believe the women who witnessed the empty tomb. It would have been hard to believe, especially if nursing disappointment and moving on to diminished life seems reasonable in the face oppressive fear.  It would be as reasonable as giving numbers on a bottom line more power than that empty tomb that asks, “Why do you seek life among the dead?” 
The tomb is empty. It’s not over. We are not done 
Hallelujah! 
 
We invite those who wish to support this expression of the empty tomb with your donations. 
John