Luke suggests something I have not noticed much until this year. Unlike those of the other Gospel writers, his account is peppered with the word but. But on the first day of the week at early dawn, Luke says, they came to the tomb with the spices that they had prepared. For Luke—in only 12 verses— that defiant conjunction but shows up six times. It’s as if Luke is grabbing us by the lapels, stopping us in our tracks and forcing us to understand that no matter what we’ve heard, we haven’t heard the whole story yet. So he begins that story in a curious way, with a tenacious conjunction. “But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb . . .”3
For Luke the word but is huge.
So much so that the always winsome and wonderful Dr. Scott Black Johnston who brings no small measure of joy to his pulpit at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York, brought my attention to this word when he announced that he considered titling his sermon last year, “Easter’s Big But”, until his much wiser wife talked him out of it causing him to complain “it is too bad that adolescent humour is wasted on the young.”4
I would never even think of doing such a thing. Nor would I even think of mentioning it.
The word “but” makes us ask ourselves what happened before and after that little word appeared in a sentence.
We know what happened before.
Their friend Jesus had been killed in the worse possible way imaginable by a paranoid government that would not tolerate any dissent. My guess is that his friends spent the next day in an absolute stupor of grief and despair. The one they had loved and put their trust in was lost to them and their world had to have been completely shattered.
The 23rd chapter of Luke ends with Joseph of Arimathea wrapping Jesus’ dead body and placing it in a tomb. {Then} Early on Easter morning, some women from Galilee went to the tomb where they had left Jesus. They came because they had been up all night, as people in grief often are, and because it is somehow easier to grieve at the grave site. “But,” begins chapter 24, “on the first day of the week, at dawn, the women came to the tomb and found it empty.” But. However. Nevertheless. These are words that signal a sacred intrusion.5
That Greek word is leiros. Leiros is not used anywhere else in the New Testament, but the most accurate translation of it is not “idle.” Leiros is more like the stuff organic farmers use to fertilize their fields. Preaching professor Dr. Anna Carter-Florence says that leiros is “a locker room word, a wet towel whipping through a chorus of jeers” kind of word.8
To some the story may be just that. A little tale as old as time that we tell ourselves every year that makes us feel good for a day or two but peters out. It may stick with us no longer to takes the last notes of the organ and brass to die out or, if we are lucky, the lilies to look a little tired. But this story can also be one that changes our lives.
It did for Peter but not right away.
Luke tells us with absolute honesty that all Peter did after he got out of bed and ran to the tomb was look in and go back home. That’s it! He didn’t do anything more than, the Good Book tells us, than walk “away puzzled, shaking his head.”9 He went home “Wondering what had happened.”10
“It is somewhat reassuring to realize that the first Christian sermon ever preached did not register high on the Richter scale either.”11 Rather, the Easter story starts—not with everybody jumping to their feet to sing the “Hallelujah Chorus.”12 but (Ahh! There is that word again!) something had to have happened to them because their lives changed.
As New Testament professor Dr. Amy Jill Levine memorably said: “Look, I’ve seen Elvis twice on West End Avenue pumping gas, but it didn’t change my life. The people who saw Jesus [the resurrected Christ] it changed their lives.”13
“Only the resurrection could turn ordinary women and men into saints and martyrs, preachers and prophets, activists and organizers.”14
They added themselves to the resurrection story with another conjunction, “and.” And us too.
And they saw the little moments where there is only hopeless and despair but experienced a message that brought life.
And they saw meanness and hostility but turned them into to moments of hospitality and forgiveness.
And they saw in their lives moments of laughter and song, joy and gladness. And we can see moments of resurrection all around us if we but stop to look and see them.
We can see the reality of Easter and resurrection all around us.
We can see it in people who live in dreadful circumstances but still carry on with grace and dignity.
We can see resurrection in the woman who will not give up but continues to fight the good fight for peace and justice.
And we can see resurrection in the parents who continue to care for their challenged daughter.
We can see it in the physician who uses his retirement not to jet off to the south of France but uses his resources to start a clinic.
We can see resurrection in the teacher who could make a lot more money doing countless other things but who will not give up on her students and shows up in the classroom day after day.
We can see resurrection in the musician who could be outside playing in the sun but instead can be found practicing relentlessly to add beauty to life.
We can see resurrection in the ordinary people who will not settle for war and injustice but give themselves over to work for peace in Christ’s kingdom.
We can see resurrection in the lives of Easter people who believe that hope is stronger than despair, that hate may be strong, but the love of Jesus is even stronger.
This is not "an idle tale," "empty talk," "a silly story," "a foolish yarn," "utter nonsense," "sheer humbug." or even a little bit of leiros, but it is a story about women who came to the tomb on the third day and discovered that hate didn’t triumph after all but that love won and Jesus was risen.
That is what this day is all about.
Love won and lives were and are changed because Jesus is risen.
That’s our message Jesus is risen, and lives are being changed by the message of this day. The message of resurrection power.
No ifs, ands, or buts, about it.
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