The Inadequate Stone
Rev. Richard A. Bolland

Luke 24:1-11
(Easter Sunday, April 11, 2004 Sermon Transcript)

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        Please be seated.

        Stone is, of course, noted for its durability and its permanence. If you want something to last, we make it out of stone. We even have a cliche that says if something is absolutely set and permanent, well then, it’s "written in stone".

        But that sad funeral cortege that traveled from the place of the skull to the tomb on that first Good Friday was anything but a joyous experience. As it was when we first entered the sanctuary, there was not any celebration. Indeed, there was death.

        It was not a pretty sight. Those who had struggled, two men and a few women, to carry what is a dead body from that one place to its resting place struggled to get it done. It must have been utterly awful. For in their arms they born the one who had been God Himself in human flesh, who had confessed Himself to be, on many occasions, the son of the living God. The one who was the Messiah, the Christ of God.

        And certainly, as they made their way to the tomb, it had to feel in a very, very real way, that God had died. He had claimed that He was the source of life. But the crucifixion, and that funeral procession was a scene of death written in capital letters.

        And then they finished. They weren’t able to do all that Jewish custom required, that is to prepare the body. And so they hastily laid Him in a tomb, wrapped in linen clothes, and made their way home to commemorate the sabbath.

        And so, very early in the morning, as our gospel lesson indicated, they come to finish that which was left undone, the embalming of a body. Not a pleasant task.

        But on their way, we read from the parallel text, that also there was a problem. The women asked the question between themselves, "Who will help us roll the stone away?" Such stones were no small item of rock. Indeed, if anyone wishes to, after the service is over, you’re welcome to come into my office and there view a picture of a still-existing stone grave, very much like that used by Jesus, hanging on my wall. The stone was about a foot and a half to two feet thick. It was about six or seven feet in diameter. It was placed in a little rock trough and rolled down a little incline into place. And it could not be easily removed.

        But as the women were worried about it, they came upon the tomb. And as the gospel lesson I just read to you said, the stone was rolled away from the tomb. In the parallel accounts we find that it wasn’t just rolled back up the ramp, but rather, an angel of the Lord had come, and had pushed it out of the track. It was laying flat on the ground and the angel was sitting on it. What an amazing, incredible morning that must have been.

        However, let us remember one thing. When they tried to find the body they came to embalm, it was not there. And what’s more, an angel informed them - there were two there, one spoke - the angel informed them, Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen! (He is risen indeed!) Alleluia!

        Dear friends in Christ, as we gather this day, we have to remember that there were stone-like objections, and still are, to those who wish to believe in Jesus’ resurrection. Indeed, we remember that our human reason refuses to believe in something that is not regularly a part of our experience. And so, to make the claim that Christ is truly physically resuscitated and risen from the dead goes against everything we think of in terms of our rational thought. And so, we insist, in our rational minds, that when things die, they stay that way. We, in our rational thought, cannot imagine that there would be an exception to something that seems such an inviolate rule.

        And so, human reason seeks, literally, any and every reason to explain away why the body might not have been there. Completely ignoring, of course, the words of the angel, who said, "He is not dead. He is alive."

        Human reason would sometimes have us consider that, after all, and this has been a serious suggestion, that after all, Jesus didn’t really die, after all, He sort of swooned and woke up later. And everybody thought He’d risen from the dead. Well, tell that to the Roman soldier who shoved a spear into His side to make sure that He was dead. For those of you who know about what happens to human bodies after death, you know that the blood separates into it’s component parts, and when that spear was thrust in, out came those separated elements, looking like water, and certainly filled also with blood. It was not pretty, but it was an absolute certain medical sign of death.

        So much for the "Jesus didn’t really die" theory.

        Then, of course, there are those who claim (and I love this one. This one is my favorite!) they couldn’t really find the tomb. They walked into the wrong tomb by mistake and found an empty one, and so they figured that He had risen from the dead! Well, I guess they seem to have forgotten that the women were there on Friday night, and went to the tomb, and there is no mention in the scriptures that they had any trouble finding the tomb. And what’s more, it didn’t happen that way. They went back to the place where they had laid Him. This was someone they loved. Someone they loved dearly and deeply, and they knew where they put Him. And they found the right one, all right.

        And then, somebody said, "Well, you know, it was some poor startled gardener! That poor old guy was so confused that he just said, ‘That’s the wrong tomb. You gotta go look somewhere else’." Forgetting of course, that the only gardener in the gospel accounts was the resurrected Lord Himself.

        Well, so much for that theory.

        But then there’s the ever popular "who stole the body" theory. And here is the idea. That here are these poor, scared, hiding-in-locked-room apostles, who think that the same thing is going to happen to them that happened to their Lord. After all, somebody had already identified them and said to them, "You’re one of them, aren’t you?" And Peter, of course, denied it at the time, but they could only deny it so long.

        So this bunch, this scared bunch of men went up to what was, at that time, the equivalent of a bunch of U.S. Marines, knocked the guard out of the way, pushed the tomb out of the way, scared the soldiers off (who were well-armed!) and stole the body. Well, if you want to believe that, you have more faith than I do! Because it’s easier to believe that Christ rose from the dead than that one!

        Human reason is a funny thing, isn’t it? Somehow it shrinks God down to our own size. it says God can’t do anything that I would consider impossible. Human reason, by it’s own right, is a gift from God, but it can also lead to human arrogance. To confine God in such a fashion that God cannot possibly even be confined! God is far beyond anything, or any limitation, we might place on Him.

        Still, people prefer to believe that no resurrection ever took place. It’s just, well, too good to be true! So they don’t believe it. But of course, our Lord specializes in doing things that are too good to be true.

        That God would become human flesh and dwell among His creatures, is of itself too good to be true! That He would choose to be raised in a poor carpenter’s family, when He had every rich, wealthy, influential, powerful, politically astute family to choose from is simply too good to be true! He became a common man, and worked as a common man. It would be too good to be true that, indeed, He would be able and willing to give sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf and life to the dead! But we would consider that also too good to be true, would we not?

        And then, of course, it would be too good to be true that this one man would be able to feed five thousand human beings on five loaves and two fish with twelve baskets full of left-overs remaining would be too good to be true!

        I would submit that indeed, it is no small wonder, then, that He should also rise from the dead. And even though that seems too good to be true, it is! And as the angel said, "He is risen!" (He is risen, indeed!)

        Dear friends, in Christ, because of that inadequate stone, that stone which could not contain, which could not restrain, which could not prevent the Lord Jesus Christ from rising from the dead, we know that we have fellowship with God now, and forever!

        There is no other cause, except the cause of sin, that sent Him to that tomb in the first place. We can try to explain it away, we can try to minimalize it, we can try to define sin out of existence! And try we most certainly do! We are experts at making excuses for those things which bring hurt and harm and pain into our lives, and into our world.

        But I would suggest to you that there is no other cause for all the suffering on this earth that we daily see and know, other than sin. And the reason we are celebrating this day is not merely because the grave is empty but because sin is dead, and sin is conquered.

        And it’s effects are broken. Every broken promise, every broken relationship, every broken life happens because of something called sin. It is not just the bad things that we do. It is what we are by our nature. It is exactly what we are from the moment of our conception, and what is more, it is sin that causes death.

        From Romans chapter 6, St. Paul writes, When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

        Sin’s wages, that which is the result of sin, are paid by the Lord Jesus Christ instead of us. He who had no sin lies dead in a tomb because of our sins, not His. His mother had to bury her son because of our sins, not His. Now, with two friends, she struggles to the tomb, finishing the unpleasant task of embalming the body because of our sin, not His.

        But as she arrives, the stone is not adequate, the stone is removed, and the tomb is empty. Because Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

        Do you see it? Do you get it? Everything Christ came to do has been done! Therefore the grave has no further right to keep the Christ of God. It cannot keep that which it cannot possess. If the wages of sin is death, then Christ has no sin, the grave has no power over the one who died.

        Dear friends, the angels said it plainly enough. Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen! And that is because death has met it’s match! Indeed, we know that death no longer has the last word, for it has been defeated.

        But human reason still has it’s way in this text. In the end, the women go running back to the other apostles. And they tell them everything that had happened. And of course, we read this wonderful sentence, But they did not believe the women because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Well, that’s human reason for you! It’s just too good to be true!

        Peter and John don’t seem to be willing to believe one single word of it, despite the fact that Jesus had predicted His resurrection on at least three different occasions during His ministry.

        But let it be known. Let it be known that faith triumphs over this doubt. For doubting as they were, as indeed we all have, those men got up and they began to run. And they began to run as fast as they could, John being the younger arriving first, sticking his head back into the tomb. Peter huffing and puffing, being older, like me, stuck his head back into the tomb, and there found the graveclothes lying as though a body had still been in them but was not.

        There they understood, and they understood that He had indeed risen from the dead. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

        And so, this first Easter day, not all His apostles were gathered there. Not all of them got the good news, not all of them ran to the tomb and saw the evidence of the resurrection, which would be surely underlined in the weeks to come, as Christ appears to them again, and again, and again. And at one point to a group of five hundred at one time.

        Rather, there were some who were missing, particularly one named Thomas. And Thomas came back a few days later, and Christ appeared in the room with the disciples a second time. And Thomas, of course, had refused to believe. That’s human reason, for you!

        But God is used to dealing with doubting human reason. And holding His hands out to the apostle, He says, "Come, Thomas. Touch your fingers into the nailprints. Put your hand into my side. Stop doubting, and believe!"

        Today, dear friends, we stand side by side with the apostles through that sacred word of God that He gives to us. We too know the joy of the resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ. We too understand that death has been defeated by the prince of life. That the victory over sin and the grave is totally accomplished. That if anyone were to lay a stone the size of the one on His grave across our graves, it would be as inadequate as the one was across His own.

        For on the day of His coming, we too shall rise. And we too shall know that death is not the end. For we were buried with Christ in our baptism, but we were also raised with Him, in His resurrection, and that life has last, and final, word.

        He is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia, and Amen.