Bishop David Konderla's Easter Homily - April 12, 2020

           

            Early in the morning, while it was still dark… I’m a morning person as I’m sure many of you are, and the great thing about the early morning is that it’s quiet; it’s a time for reflection, a time for prayer, a time for thinking.  If you use your mind’s eye with the Gospel, you can see, perhaps, Mary walking along early in the morning, Mary from Magdala. 
            And maybe as she walked along she was remembering in her grief back to that day when she first met Jesus; the day she learned of God’s immense love for her, the day Jesus freed her from seven demons and she became one of his followers.
            It was that love that he showed to her that caused her to stand with his mother at the foot of the cross even though she felt fear.  It was that love that brought her out so early in the morning to anoint his body with perfume and spices.
            To anoint his body…; in later years, she would marvel at the fact that she really did plan to anoint his dead body.  On the morning of the resurrection, she really was planning to anoint his dead body. She really did not expect to find him risen from the dead. 
            The sight of the empty tomb was a shock and so she ran to tell Peter, not that he had risen, but that someone had stolen his dead body. 
            And after Peter and John had come and seen and left, and she was there alone, she was overcome by grief and could not tear herself away from the tomb.  We have all experienced this at the burial of a loved one when the final moment comes that we must leave the grave and we find that we don’t want to do so.
            That is how she learned that the Lord she was looking for was already looking for her.  When he came from behind and said “Mary.”
 
            The synoptic accounts all say that the women who first saw the empty tomb and Jesus risen from the dead were frightened by the sight. 
            Well there should be fear to discover the tomb empty.  For us too, even this far removed from the event there should be a holy fear. 
           
It is the same species of fear that one feels when you see lightning nearby or feel the vibration of thunder or encounter a dark green Oklahoma thunderstorm OR, in these days, when you have to hide in your house from a pandemic or any of a thousand other wonders that are beyond our ability to control or fully comprehend.  We like control and comprehension.  It allows us to live on our own terms or at least to have that impression. 
            From the beginning, we have been searching for God on our own terms, our race, the human family.  Thus there is a whole history of religions and religious thought and ritual.  But in the God of Abraham we discover that God has been searching for us and in His son Jesus He finds us.  But He finds us on His terms.  
            The first period of human history is ended when all tombs remained closed and full.
            The new period in Christ has begun when we live with the fact and the knowledge that his tomb is empty.  Empty because he lives.  Empty because he is searching for us.  
            And today, in the Easter liturgy, we stand with Mary of Magdala and the other eyewitnesses at the entrance of the tomb, with the stone rolled back.
            Should we look in…, or not?
            We need to take stock of our life, we should feel that holy fear, because there is a lot at stake. 
            If we don’t look, if we play it safe, if we continue to live on our own terms, we will nonetheless have to live with the knowledge that maybe it’s all true; that maybe Jesus really is who he claimed to be, the Savior of the world and we kept him six feet away. 
            But if we do look inside, and if the tomb is empty, then it means that our search for God has ended because God has found us. 
            It means that we will have to choose.
            Shall we cling to our autonomy and live merely alongside of God, still enslaved to our passions and desires, still subject to sin and death?
            
            Or shall we make the Easter choice and seek power and freedom over sin and death through the intimate, loving and obedient embrace of Jesus the Christ who has left the tomb to find us, to love us, to save us. 
            Yes. Say yes!
            Your life is hidden now with Christ in God.  When Christ your life appears before you, behind you, within the quiet places of your heart, then you too will appear with him in glory and know even now the freedom and joy of eternal life. 
            Alleluia, he is risen!
            Yes, he is truly risen!