Jesus takes away our grave clothes, too – Luke 24:1-12

Easter Sunday, Year C [Mass during the day, but I used the Vigil Gospel]; Holy Infant parish.

Our gospel ends with Peter amazed. Actually, in Greek, it says that he went away “marveling to himself.” I love that. Just imagining him walking and marveling. Like, his legs are keeping moving, but in his mind, and in his heart, all that he can think, all that he can feel, is “Wow.” Our gospel ends with Peter amazed, but I’d like to encourage us to read the whole thing amazed.

Let’s start with the women going off to the tomb. Let’s start by being amazed at how loving and at how courageous they are. Jesus has just been brutally executed as someone who was a threat to Roman Imperial Power, and they still want to be associated with him. His body, as far as they know, is bloodied and bruised, disfigured by that Roman Power that wanted to show how impotent he really was. And they still want to touch his body. They still want to pour out perfumes and spices and anoint that body, to celebrate the one they had known, the one they had loved, the one they still loved. They didn’t fear the consequences, they didn’t fear the potentially gruesome sight and feel and smell; love of Christ drove them on, drove them to the tomb. And that’s amazing.

And once we’re sufficiently amazed at that, we can get to what happens next, which is even more amazing than that: the body is not there. And they’re not amazed right away. Shocked is more like it. “Puzzled” is what our translation says, but we could also say, “at a loss.” But then the angels come. And the angels are brilliant, in the sense that they’re shiny. And the women are still not amazed, they’re far too busy being terrified. The angels don’t even tell them not to be afraid, but they get straight to the good news, the good news that has brought us all here together. He is risen!

And Luke doesn’t tell us how they feel about that, just that they go and tell. And they tell the apostles and the apostles, it seems, don’t seem to know what to think. They don’t believe right away. They doubt. And, to be honest, who wouldn’t? If we’re surprised that the apostles don’t believe right away, then we’ve probably lost the sense of how scandalously amazing the good news that Mary Magdalene and her companions brought is. They’re saying that someone who everyone had seen die, lived. They’re saying that Jesus’ love for us is so powerful that not even death, death at our hands could keep him from being with us.

And the apostles doubt. Who wouldn’t? What’s amazing is that even with his doubts, Peter got up and ran. Peter got up and ran to the tomb, because there was something in him that said, “What if? What if this is really true?” And that little voice of “What if?” managed to be stronger than the logical collected voice of doubt and bid him run. That’s amazing.

And only once we appreciate how amazing that is, can we properly marvel at what he finds at the tomb. Not angels, but grave clothes. Jesus’ grave clothes. Now, leaving those behind has a practical function: it shows Peter that Jesus’ body has not been stolen, because what grave robber would go to extra effort to strip the body and leave behind the grave clothes? But it shows us even more. It shows that Jesus has shed his grave clothes. Nothing of death will cling to him anymore.

This is amazing. Jesus has made death temporary. And that’s not a victory he will keep to himself. No, Jesus will take away our grave clothes too and clothe us with glory, the glory of a resurrection body. All that is deathly about us, all that is sinful, will be cast off, and that won’t make us any the less us, but will makes us who God creates us to be.

I don’t like wearing a beard, and those of you who have been worshipping with us over Lent will know that one of my Lenten practices is to grow a beard. And for those of you who said you like it, thank you, I’m pleased it wasn’t a penance for you, but it was for me. And as I shaved it off yesterday, as I got rid of everything that was prickly and scratchy about it, I thought of Jesus casting off those grave clothes, I thought of what Jesus will cast off from me in a final way at the resurrection, and what Jesus is acting to help me cast off here and now. And it’s not the same, I’m not saying that. But it was an embodied symbol for me of the reality that all that is not of God will be cast off from us.

Lent is maybe more especially a time to build up our longing for that, to name more precisely to ourselves what needs to be cast off, what of death still clings to us. Easter is a time to celebrate that has happened definitively with Christ, and the work of resurrection is begun in each of our lives, and the good work begun in us will be brought to completion. And that’s worth being amazed over.

And Mary and Peter together show us how we encounter that good news. We go to places that are scary, to tombs. We face head on our grief, our fear of death. We go with confidence, with love, and with courage. We go knowing we have gifts to offer, with which to anoint. We run, even if doubts tell us not to bother. We listen, even to people with what seem like crazy things to say. We tell the good news, even if we’re still afraid. And we let ourselves be amazed. Because that “wow” within us comes from somewhere real, and leads us on to somewhere brilliant.