Here we are: Easter morning in the year of our Lord, 2010! Are we ready to come to the empty tomb? Are we expecting to see a dead body still wrapped for burial inside the tomb? Why do we come here this Easter day?

This is one of the most strange and even most un-natural Day of Days…We Christians, like Mary, come to the tomb on Easter morning with a strange mixture of apprehension and fear! And when we find the tomb empty, we may find ourselves both shocked and confused!

Today, like Mary, we come to the garden and we aren’t sure what to expect…. Perhaps we, too, won’t recognize the risen Christ – standing right there in the garden, waiting for us…

On Easter morning, like Mary, we are strangely confronted with the presence of an embodied Jesus who is not quite human any longer and yet not yet quite eternal either…

On Easter… many of us may walk into church with equally as much doubt and bewilderment as we do hope and trust…

We know the story of our faith: we remember that Jesus just a week ago rode into Jerusalem hailed as the long awaited King of Kings, and, inside of a week was arrested, tried, and hung on a cross to die. We remember that he was buried in a tomb and then three days later is seen walking around – first in the garden by the tomb and later on that same day walking on the road to Emmaus, and later still, greeting his disciples behind locked doors and eating breakfast with them on the shores of the Sea of Galilee…

Today, we celebrate the exuberant and extraordinary joy of the Resurrection! And yet, we also encounter the great mystery of our faith - the challenge to understand how death is overcome by the promise of eternal life for Jesus, and thereby, for each one of us!

Today we try to make sense out of a miracle of the Resurrection!

For six weeks we have been walking through Lent… For six weeks we have been trying to prepare for this Easter day, following Jesus as he walked closer and closer to Jerusalem until last Sunday when he finally comes into Jerusalem on a humble donkey…

This past Holy Week we have continued walking with Jesus after he came into the city of Jerusalem… We have accompanied him to his Last Supper with the disciples… We have walked to the Garden of Gethsemane where he was arrested and brought to trial… We have walked with Jesus as he was crowned with a mock crown of thorns. We have walked with him as he dragged his own cross and was hung up to die… Today we finally walk into the garden and are astonished to see the risen Christ!

Are we ready to walk with the risen Christ today?

Are we prepared to see Christ here, in our midst, this day?

I think we walk through our lives – too often with our heads down - not always awake or alert to the possibility of God’s presence with us… I think we can easily miss God’s presence with us because we aren’t living with the expectation that we will see God… I believe that each of us has moments when we catch a glimpse of the risen Christ - perhaps out the corner of our eyes – and the experience may be so fleeting that we doubt what we’ve seen… I’ve heard many folks testify to their experience of walking with God, of walking with the risen Christ, of feeling the breath of the Holy Spirit… and these testimonies are precious and holy moments!

Belief is a fragile thing… I believe that we each hope for greater clarity, trying to focus our vision, so, like Mary in the garden, we might see and believe more clearly…

On this Easter morning remember that we are not the only ones who do not see clearly or fail to recognize Christ in our midst. Another Gospel rendering of the First Easter day shows the risen Christ walking with several of the disciples, on the road to Emmaus – just outside of Jerusalem. Those disciples – who had spent three years with Jesus, day in and day out - did not recognize the risen Christ on the road that day... It is only when the risen Christ shares a meal with them, when he takes up the bread and the cup, that their eyes are suddenly opened and they see God present with them!

Perhaps you came here today not even knowing what it was you were seeking… Perhaps you didn’t even know that you needed to walk more clearly with God in your life… Perhaps none of us knew when we got up this Easter morning that God would remind us anew of the promise of “new life”...

We each walk in our own gardens…

Sometimes we may feel God’s presence… and…. at other times we may not…
Sometimes we may have great clarity about the risen Christ walking with us… and …at other times we may not...

Today Mary comes to the tomb “in the dark”… Mary walks into the garden alone… And while walking in the garden she comes to new clarity and new vision… Mary runs out of the garden knowing that she will never be alone again…

May we each come to that new vision in our own lives…
May we each sense God’s presence with us always…
May we trust the eternal life that God has gifted each one of us…

Alleluia! Amen.