The Stone is Rolled Away!

A Sermon for Resurrection Sunday (the Holy Pascha) 4-24-2011

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:              Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:1-2,14-42; Colossians 3:1-4; Matthew 28:1-10

Title:               The Stone is Rolled Away!

Welcome, my dear friends! Welcome, all of you, to this happy morning! Welcome to this season of rejoicing and feasting and splendor and happiness! For Christ has been raised from the dead, never to die again, and we too have been raised with him.

Now our Lenten fasting is over; now is the time only for joy and celebration. Let nothing and no one steal away or interrupt your joy now in the resurrection of our Lord!

They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day!  When Mary and the other Mary went to the tomb at the break of day, they met there the angel who had rolled the stone away from the entrance to the tomb. And they received the angel’s message with “fear and great joy”, as the gospel says.

But let’s back up just a moment and focus upon this rolling away of the stone by the angel. Why was the stone rolled away? What was the point of this?

If the risen Lord was able to walk through walls and by-pass the normal limitations of space and time, did he need this stone rolled away? Was it rolled away for Christ? This is what the great archbishop Peter Chrysologus preached about this many years ago back in the early 5^th century:

“[The angel] did not roll back the stone to provide a way of escape for the Lord but to show the world that the Lord has already risen. He rolled back the stone to help his fellow servants believe, not to help the Lord rise from the dead. He rolled back the stone for the sake of faith, because it had been rolled over the tomb for the sake of unbelief.”

“Pray, brothers [and sisters], that the angel would descend now and roll away all the hardness of our hearts and open up our closed senses and declare to our minds that Christ has risen, for just as the heart in which Christ lives and reigns is heaven, so also the heart in which Christ remains dead is a grave.”

There’s something very powerful for me in the imagery of this giant stone rolled in front of the Lord’s tomb in order to seal it closed, then rolled away by the angel at the break of dawn.

Rich Mullins was one of the great Christian musicians of recent decades. He sang these words about that stone and about the longing of our hearts (from his song named Jesus (Demo Version) ):

“Jesus,

They drove the cold nails through Your tired hands

And rolled a stone to seal Your grave

Feels like the Devil's rolled a stone onto my heart

Can You roll that stone away?”

Can you roll that stone away? That’s what I want to know! Can you do it, Jesus? Can you roll the stone away from my heart?

Now, let’s be honest, OK?  There are many days when I am not asking this kind of prayer. Those days, I am feeling confident and competent, like I can conquer the world and can tackle any challenge.

But there are other days when all of my bluster and bravado fade, and other days, when I feel tired and worn down, and days when I can’t seem to make any sense at all out of this life and it feels like things are spinning out of control, and days when I feel as cold as a block of ice, with no compassion, no love, no joy – at those times, I remember and I know that I need help!

And then I ask: Jesus, can You roll that stone away, off of my heart? Can you do it?

Well, today, on this glorious day, let there be no doubt at all that God can indeed roll it away; that God can set our hearts free and can fill them with joy! If we open ourselves to it!

Remember what Peter Chrysologus said: the heart in which Christ remains dead is a grave, but the heart in which Christ lives and reigns is heaven!

And in this matter, it is up to each one of us to make our choice. Will we choose to keep Christ sealed away in the grave, not interfering with the way we want to live our lives? Or will we allow Christ, the risen Lord, to take charge, to live and reign in our hearts, and so will we open ourselves to the joy of his resurrection? 

There have been many different charges made against Christians, and indeed most of us have heard of horrible things done by Christians over the centuries, often in the name of Christ.

Unfortunately, we continue to hear of detestable things done by some Christians today. All of these reports are indictments against the Church, but, to be honest, none of these things surprise me.

To be a Christian does not mean that we become automatically better than anyone else. To be baptized into Christ does not mean that we become automatically better than others. We continue to stumble and fail. We continue to sin. The fact that this happens is unfortunate, but it ought not to surprise anyone. After all , we are sinners saved by grace alone.

So perhaps the worst charge leveled against Christians is the one expressed by Friedrich Nietzsche, the great anti-Christian philosopher of the 19^th century. In Nietzsche’s experience, Christians were the people who were completely devoid of joy. He said that he saw more joy in the bars than in the churches of his hometown! Speaking to a group of Christians, Nietzsche once said: “if your belief makes you blessed then [at least] appear to be blessed! Your faces have always been more injurious to your belief than our [scientific] objections have!”   

Although Nietzsche was clearly an arrogant fool (IMHO), his critique still has merit!

That is, if Christ truly is raised from the dead as the scriptures proclaim and as the church has always confessed, then surely this fact ought to be reflected in the joy clearly evident on our faces for all to see!

Who are we if we are not people of incredible and indescribable joy? Our Lord Jesus, the one we love, the one who offered himself freely on our behalf, the innocent Lamb of God who would stop at nothing to set us free, the Son of God who has redeemed us from our own foolishness and sin and blindness – the Lord Jesus Christ is risen from the dead!

He is alive and well and active in the world. Alive and well and active in his church! Alive and well and active in our lives!

What can we do but rejoice?! Rejoice when we see him here in the gathered body of Christ! Rejoice when we see him in the faces of those in need out in the world! Rejoice when we see him in the beauty of God’s creation! (Rejoice when we see him in Matthew as he is baptized here today!)

For Christ is alive, and we are alive in him. Joy is the key to this life in Christ.

Let it show on our faces today. And by God’s grace may it abide in our hearts for ever. Amen.