Easter 2025: Who left the door open?

Friends

Peace be with you.

Occasionally, early in the morning, I’ll get a text from the person who unlocks the church letting me know that a door was left open the night before. Most recently, it was one of my garage doors, which prompted me to run downstairs to make sure that my car and my bikes were still there. I wouldn’t have been this concerned if I still lived in Bellevue but, in downtown Cedar Rapids, things have a tendency to walk off if they aren’t properly secured. Thankfully, everything was still where it was supposed to be but I felt unnerved for the rest of the day, wondering if something that was supposed to be there aside from my car and bikes may have been taken.

I wonder if this was the feeling this group of women felt as they approached the Tomb of Jesus that day. As it was, they were probably going to have to find someone to break them into the tomb because a rock was intentionally put in the doorway to make sure no one could steal his body. It had to be a double gut punch, first to see the stone rolled away and then to see that their fears were realized, his body wasn’t there. It certainly would be enough to make me fall down terrified thinking about who had stolen the body and what might be happening to it.

One of the amazing details about the resurrection is how few details there are about the actual event and how unspectacular it is compared to other events in the life of Jesus that lead up to it. Jesus’ public ministry begins with his baptism, in which a dove comes down from heaven and the voice of God is heard saying “This is my beloved son, whom I love.” That’s huge! That gets your attention. When Jesus prefigures his resurrection on the Mount of Transfiguration, his clothes become dazzling white, Moses and Elijah appear, and again a voice is heard saying “This is my beloved son, listen to him.” You know Peter, James, and John talked about that with other people after the resurrection. Lastly, think about what we heard last week about the crucifixion during the reading of the Passion. It said, at noon darkness came over the land and the veil of the temple was torn down the middle right before Jesus said “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” and died. That’s a spectacle that got people’s attention.

When we get to the central experience of Christianity, the resurrection, we hear about a group of women approaching an open tomb terrified that someone left the door open and stole his body. That’s why there are two important details. First, there are these two men who are later identified as angels who call Jesus the living one and ask Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and May the mother of James why they are looking for him among the dead. The angels then remind the women that he had told them in his ministry of his trial, death and resurrection. Still, you get a sense that the experience left the women feeling a little wanting. On the one hand, they run back to the upper room to share the gospel story with the 11 apostles and some other people but it sounds like nonsense to their hearers.

It’s not until Peter runs to the tomb and notices something they missed: the burial shroud is still there. Most people acknowledge that this detail is put there to point out that it wasn't a grave robbery. If his body had been stolen, they wouldn’t have taken the time to remove the cloths. They would have taken the body still wrapped in them and removed them when they were somewhere they wouldn’t be noticed. But the cloths themselves also tell a story that Peter and the Apostles might have known that, possibly, was a bit lost until recently. Assuming this is the Shroud of Turin, Fr. Robert Spitzer, a brilliant physicist, notes that something dramatic happened to make the image on that shroud. He says it would have taken a powerful, brief burst of vacuum ultraviolet radiation (equivalent to the output of 14,000 excimer lasers) emitted from the body to make the image. Now, that would have been a sight to see! But it seems to have happened when no one was around and the door was shut. It seems, instead, Jesus was resurrected in some kind of powerful burst of energy, he removed his burial cloths, and then either moved the stone himself or had the stone removed by these angels before he went to the underworld to save the souls of the just who had already died.

I think this was deliberately done. I don’t think Jesus’ resurrection was meant to be seen and written down. It wasn’t meant to be a spectacle like the fourth of July. It was a fulfillment and deepening of people’s faith. But people have to have the eyes of faith to understand what happened. I think that’s one of the reasons so many people reject the gospel, not because they have seen and rejected the gospel but because they haven’t taken the time to let God open up their eyes of faith. It’s not something we can do for ourselves. It’s not something that can come about because of the perfect argument. Faith is a gift given to us by God developed on our knees in prayer, in conversation with God. It makes us feel vulnerable and confused, like those women did when they saw the empty tomb. But it grows in us if we take the time. Like the grass, flowers, and other plants that are just starting to grow this time of year, if we take the time to talk to God, our faith will likewise grow. Now that our Lenten journey of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving is done, what are we going to do for the next fifty days of this Easter Season to ask Jesus to open our hearts to greater faith?