SPEAKER_00: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be holy and pleasing in your sight, O Lord, O Rock and Redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: On a typical year during Holy Week, you will find crowds gathered at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
SPEAKER_00: The church is located in Jerusalem, in the Old City, an area enclosed by ancient walls, no more than a square kilometer, and yet nonetheless home to some of the most important holy sites of at least three major world religions.
SPEAKER_00: This city is perpetually at war with itself.
SPEAKER_00: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
SPEAKER_00: Cross the old city's walls through any one of several gates, wind your way through its labyrinth and paths to the northwest border, maneuver past military checkpoints and market stalls, selling anything and everything a pilgrim could possibly want.
SPEAKER_00: Once you arrive at the church's doors, you will notice that the Christians are just as territorial as everyone else.
SPEAKER_00: Because of the various denominations that would like to lay claim to this holy site for themselves, because of the contentious nature of this holy Christian cohabitation between Roman Catholic, Coptic, Greek, Armenian, and Ethiopian Orthodox religious orders, a Muslim family, an impartial Palestinian third party, has held the keys to the church for centuries.
SPEAKER_00: As soon as you cross the threshold, you will need no signs to find the main attraction.
SPEAKER_00: At the heart of the building, you will see another ornate building, a church within the church.
SPEAKER_00: This is called the Edique.
SPEAKER_00: You will have to wait in line.
SPEAKER_00: A line that stretches the meaning of the term, for it is more a mob than a line, packed like sardines with hundreds of your newest, closest friends.
SPEAKER_00: After what could be hours of waiting, you will finally arrive at the place where tradition holds Jesus was buried.
SPEAKER_00: The bouncer, a gruff, disinterested monk, will usher you into a crammed room thick with incense and smoke.
SPEAKER_00: Once there, you will kneel before an empty stone, a marble slab that covers the original surface upon which Jesus' body is believed to have been laid.
SPEAKER_00: Polished over the centuries by the touch of pilgrims whose stories and life circumstances are every bit as intricate and irreducibly complex as yours.
SPEAKER_00: You will have a minute or two at most.
SPEAKER_00: Best plan your prayers in advance.
SPEAKER_00: The monks will not hesitate when they push you out the side door.
SPEAKER_00: That is all there is to it, folks.
SPEAKER_00: An empty stone, a vacant tomb.
SPEAKER_00: Today's gospel passage from John gives us our first glimpse into this holy site.
SPEAKER_00: Now, they say that seeing is believing, but who can blame the disciples when the evidence at first is what is not there, what is absent?
SPEAKER_00: Just a pile of linens where their Lord, teacher, and friend should be.
SPEAKER_00: Like arriving at the scene of the crime in a television procedural, the chalk outline marking the place where the body should be.
SPEAKER_00: John tells us that Mary Magdalene is the first on the scene.
SPEAKER_00: She is the only woman named in every one of the four Gospels.
SPEAKER_00: The Magi arrived with gifts at the birth of the Savior in Bethlehem, gold, frankincense, and mire, if you remember the story, to his tomb in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Mary Magdalene brings nothing but her grief.
SPEAKER_00: That deep well of dashed hope and unfulfilled longing.
SPEAKER_00: Where Peter and the beloved disciple compete for their place in the pecking order, Mary simply weeps.
SPEAKER_00: Where they move with haste, she stands uncertainly.
SPEAKER_00: Where they jump to conclusions, Mary sits with her doubts and her grief and her questions.
SPEAKER_00: They say that seeing is believing, sure, but sometimes the truth is not self-evident.
SPEAKER_00: And when it comes to good news for dead despairing, news that what is dead in this world can be reanimated, news that what is broken in our relationships can be mended, news that our world slide toward chaos and disorder can be suspended.
SPEAKER_00: Who can blame any of us for doubting?
SPEAKER_00: We are a city, a church, a people, a nation constantly at war with ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We know better than to get our hopes up.
SPEAKER_00: We have come across messiahs before, and we have found them lacking.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, and yet, over 2,000 years later, we keep telling his story.
SPEAKER_00: A story about a man who came to proclaim good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, a teacher who taught his followers to turn the other cheek, a rabbi who washed his disciples' feet, a messiah who rejected the false promises of strongmen and would-be kings, those who assume that might makes right, those whose moral compass is guided solely by the whims of their uncontrolled greed and lust for power.
SPEAKER_00: I do not have any easy assurances for you today, my friends.
SPEAKER_00: No signs or miracles to offer, no cure alls for the fragile state of our union.
SPEAKER_00: But I do believe in the power of that empty tomb.
SPEAKER_00: I believe because a woman named Mary Magdalene left that place transformed.
SPEAKER_00: I believe it because a man named Peter, the one who betrayed his Lord not once, not twice, but three times, walked away from that tomb with the joy, humility, and courage necessary to lead well.
SPEAKER_00: I believe it because a man named Saul, a murderer and persecutor of the church, met the risen Lord on the road to Damascus and went on to become Christ's foremost missionary and church planter.
SPEAKER_00: I believe in the empty tomb because I have seen far too many resurrections.
SPEAKER_00: Renewal, transformation, and amendment of life are possible, my friends.
SPEAKER_00: And it begins not with a new chosen one, a leader who fits the mold and looks depart, but with each and every one of us.
SPEAKER_00: Today we meet the risen Lord, the good shepherd of the sheep, the one who calls us each by name.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't care about your credentials, the titles, wealth, and power you have amassed for yourself in the eyes of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Neither does he care about your mistakes, the petty grievances and daily betrayals that hold you back from your true potential.
SPEAKER_00: All he cares about is what you will do next.
SPEAKER_00: How you will love your neighbor and your enemy today.
SPEAKER_00: How you will speak a word of hope to the despairing today.
SPEAKER_00: How you will do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly today.
SPEAKER_00: Happy Easter, my friends.
SPEAKER_00: He is risen.
SPEAKER_00: Let us go forth today and proclaim the good news.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.