Saturday, April 19, 2025
Easter Vigil
Love Wins
The Rev. Mark D. Wilkinson, Rector
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Katy TX 77450
Alleliua, the Lord is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia.
We loudly proclaimed this truth just a few moments ago as we began this incredible Easter service. However, that is not how the disciples greet the words of the women as they return from the tomb in Luke’s gospel.
What are you women talking about. What nonsense is this? You don’t really believe this do you? Yes the women are met with skepticism and doubt in fact down right disbelief. Now I’m sure that’s not the response any of you were expecting, but in effect this is how the disciples greeted the words of the women who came back from the tomb.
To the disciples these words seemed to be an idle tale. These words “seemed to be nonsense” in the NIV translation. In the Message translation the apostles thought they were making it up. The Greek word is leros (leros) from which we get the word delirious. Hold on to that thought while we step back and look at what Luke tells us about the story. Because we are in Year C the Luke story is the one that is used for the vigil since the vigil is always from the synoptic gospels. Tomorrow we hear that it is just Mary Magdaline who comes to the tomb to mourn.
This passage begins, as do most of the versions, except for John, with women doing women’s work. They are preparing the dead for burial, caring for Jesus to the last. At the end at the foot of the cross it is only the women are left except for Joseph of Arimathea who comes and asks Pilate for the body and places him in his tomb. On Good Friday in John’s gospel, the women followed Joseph to see where he put the body and went home to prepare the spices and perfumes for burial.
Now on Sunday, the long wait to make the final preparations is over. I would think that they would be dreading what they would find. A body two days dead would not be pleasant, but they had to wait for the Sabbath to be over before they could do the final preparations.
The women are greeted not by a corpse, but by two men, who of course are angels and they are terrified. The angels remind them of Christ’s many words and only then do they remember that Jesus had told them that this is exactly what would happen.
The word remember, literally means to put back together. It is the opposite if you will of dismember. The angels allow the women to remember Jesus’ teaching and then to put new meaning and understanding to what he had said prior to the crucifixion. They run back with their new understanding of what is happening.
The problem comes when the disciples think the women are telling an idle tale. Peter has to go run and see for himself because he does not believe the women. Some would say this was because of the Jewish tradition that would not admit a woman’s testimony because it was not considered reliable. And then after seeing the empty tomb he goes home!
Some people think that doubt means lack of faith. However it is ok to say I don’t understand how this happens, but somehow believe it. This is what faith is all about. Hope for what we cannot see or prove.
In today’s scientific world we are constantly faced by those who consider, not just the resurrection, but the entire bible as an idle tale. I struggled through that period of doubt some 45 years ago. I now know that this is in fact a rather normal stage of spiritual development when anybody who is going to grow spiritually is going to have doubts. Paul Tillich says that doubt is the consequence of faith. This is moving from a childish faith, through adolescence and into an adult faith. In fact our Lenten series was about just that process of embracing an adult faith. Yet people are afraid to doubt somehow convinced that God will smite them for having questions. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Many who come to the church as adults or come back to the church have been hesitant because of how Christianity is being portrayed in today’s political fights and in the media. As a society we constantly do Christianity harm when we portray an angry God focused on punishment rather than the God of love that Christ proclaims. Some are even saying that empathy, which is what Jesus showed everyone, is a weakness. This is why people fear God and reject Christianity in growing numbers.
The problem is not with God, Christ or Christianity. The problem is with Christians. The problem is with people who state they are deeply religious Christians and then act in ways that are anything but the way of love that Christ came to earth to teach us. This is the Jesus who says from the cross forgive them, they do not know what they are doing. Well, some people do not know what they are doing either.
The problem, the challenge is that the image of an angry God says more about us than it does about God. People say to me I don’t like the God of the Old Testament or I really do not want to believe in a God like that. Well God is God whether in Hebrew Scriptures or our New Testament. God does not change. What is different is how humanity, that would be us, views God, the image we carry and proclaim of God.
Rob Bell wrote a book entitled Love Wins. If you have not read it, give yourself an Easter gift and buy it and read it. One of the best statements in the book is whenever someone would say to Rob, “I don’t believe in a God who then fill in the blank with some horrible biblical story.” Rob Bell’s answer is “Well neither do I.” I agree with Rob, for the God that I know is a God of love. Yes terrible things happen in the world, but much of the time they happen because of our sin. Not because God causes them, but because in sin we break the loving relationship with God and go on our own human ways. There is a psalm where God basically says, they stopped listening to me so I left them to their own devices. When that happens disaster is often not far behind.
Which brings us back to the empty tomb. The God of love I know sent his son to us not so he could be killed in a horrible way to somehow pay a blood sacrifice price for our sins. God uses the worst that humanity could do to prove that God’s love wins. From disaster God is able to finally break through to a small group of people in Jerusalem and start one of the great religions of the world. A religion that literally thousands maybe millions of people became members of by baptism at Vigils last night and services this morning like we have here at St. Paul’s.
Jesus’ death and resurrection is a way of reconciliation just as was sung in the opening Exultet at the lighting of the paschal candle. “How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined and man is reconciled to God”[1]. We are reconciled by Jesus showing us the way of love that leads us through the cross to the Father. The cross is a way of love rather than punishment. The cross leads to the resurrection, which is all about love. Without the cross there is no resurrection.
If you take nothing else away from this morning take away just these two words, love wins. Through darkness and pain, love wins. Paul tells us and I read these words at every funeral that nothing can separate us from the love of God. We may choose to walk away and follow the path of sin or we can elect to follow the path that Jesus shows us of love in which Christ reconciles us to God.
Listen to the last few sentences of Love Wins and I hope you will ponder them as you leave St. Paul’s this evening:
“Love is what God is,
Love is why Jesus came, and love is why he continues to come, year after year to person after person.
May you experience this vast, expansive, infinite, indestructible love that has been yours all along. May you discover that this love is as wide as the sky and as small as the cracks in your heart no one else knows about. And may you know deep in your bones that love wins.” [2]
As Jesus said to his disciples at the foot washing. If you know these things you are blessed if you do them.
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep
your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God,
and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
[1] Book of Common Prayer page 287
[2] Bell Rob, Love Wins (Harper One, New York NY 2011) pg 197