"The Way Is Through" (Luke 24:1-12)

The Women Do Not Avoid the Cross

Today’s scripture gives no introduction to its characters. “They” came to the tomb (24:1). Who are “they”?

Of course, we find out soon enough. But the initial anonymity of this “they” reminds us that we are actually in the middle of a story. We have to retrace our steps back to the cross first to understand the story more fully. So, let’s return a moment to the cross.

“When all the crowds who had gathered there [at the cross] for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts,” Luke tells us (23:48). In other words, most of the people who witnessed the crucifixion, leave immediately afterward in disappointment. Perhaps some of these people had been at the entrance to Jerusalem earlier in the week, celebrating Jesus’ arrival with palm branches and shouts of praise. They had anticipated that Jesus would initiate a divine revolution and would help them to break free from the shackles of Rome. So when they see him hanging on a cross, they see only their broken dreams and can stand it no longer. They go home to avoid further disappointment. We might say they take the path of avoidance.

We know that many of Jesus’ followers took this path of avoidance, either leaving town or locking themselves away. A little later in Luke, we find two of Jesus’ followers leaving Jerusalem to go to Emmaus. We don’t know why they’re leaving, but we can imagine it is because they don’t want any further reminder of their disappointment. As they share mournfully with a stranger on the road, “We had hoped that he [Jesus] was the one to redeem Israel” (24:21). In John, we find the eleven disciples shutting themselves up in a locked house (John 20:19). They are avoiding their painful reality out of “fear.” They worry that they might be next in line to suffer.

But none of these characters are the “they” whom we find in our scripture this morning. The “they” in our scripture this morning are found still at the cross when the others have left. Luke tells us that they are “the women who had followed him from Galilee” and who “stood at a distance [at the crucifixion], watching these things” (23:49). While others leave or lock themselves away, whether in disappointment or denial or dread, this group of women stay with Jesus unto the end and even beyond the end. They hold the suffering. They affirm the goodness they have known.

A little later, when a sympathetic Jewish council member, Joseph, retrieves the body and finds a tomb in which to bury it, they follow him. They see the tomb and how Jesus’ body is laid there (23:55). They return home to prepare burial spices and anointments for the body (23:56).

The First to Receive the Good News

Which brings us finally back to today’s scripture. The “they” are the women who are coming back to the tomb with their burial spices. While everyone else has long fled the scene, avoiding their disappointment, the women return to be with Jesus.

There is something about their silent faithfulness to Jesus. Just as their spices are meant to cover over the odor of the death, the women’s presence with Jesus itself defies death. It is as if they are saying, “Nothing can take away from us what Jesus has already given. Disappointment cannot rob us of the gift. Fear cannot rob us of the gift. We know the way now.”

Of course, we all know what happens next. The empty tomb, the two dazzling messengers, the women proclaiming the impossible news.

Why are the women the first to receive the good news? Elsewhere in scripture we learn that God’s goodness is unconditional and given to everyone. Jesus compares it to rain and sunshine, which fall indiscriminately on everyone alike (Matt 5:45). And indeed, other disciples and followers will soon hear the good news too. But as we will see, while God’s grace is unconditional, our reception of it depends on our condition. To some disciples, the women’s report is nothing more than an “idle tale.” They are not in a condition to receive the good news. But the women are.

I can’t help but see a connection here. The first people to receive the good news of resurrection are the people who have fully walked the way of the cross. The women do not avoid the cross, whether out of disappointment or denial or dread. They hold the suffering.

A simpler way of putting it would be this. The way is not around; the way is through. There is no resurrection without the cross, no transformation without first holding the suffering.

The Surprise of the Resurrection

In the ancient Jewish imagination, resurrection is not an individual phenomenon, but a universal event, not a solitary experience, but a worldwide occurence. We see, for example, that characters in the gospel speak about “the resurrection,” as when Mary says, “I know that [my brother Lazarus] will rise again in the resurrection on the last day” (John 11:24). This universal event is imagined as a time when the dead will be raised and wrongs will be redeemed and wounds will be healed and tears will be wiped away and God’s love will finally reign over all.

The surprising news that the women receive at the tomb is not that there is such a thing as resurrection, but that this universal event—the resurrection—has begun. The surprise is that it has started. It is now, not just “on the last day.” In Christ, wrongs are being redeemed and wounds are being healed and tears are being wiped away and God’s love is breaking into our world.

To be clear, the good news of Easter is not immortality. Immortality is the small, fearful dream of the ego, which wants to live forever and ever, unchanged and invincible. But the resurrection, which comes through the cross, is all about transformation and the loss of ego for the sake of all creation. It is as Jesus had said earlier: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Luke 9:23). For “those who want to save their life”—want immortality—“will lose [their life],” but “those who lose their life”—let go of their ego—“for the sake of the good news will save it” (Mark 8:35).

“In Christ, the World Has Risen”

I’m mindful that this might not sound like the most exultant Easter sermon. It might sound burdened with suffering and difficulty. But that is precisely where I find hope in the Easter story. All of the followers of Jesus have fallen into despair after the crucifixion. In a sense, they all have a cross to bear, but only some of them are bearing it. And it is the precisely these characters who bear the cross of their love and suffering, who do not avoid the cross out of disappointment or denial or dread—it is precisely these characters, the women, who are first to receive the good news of the resurrection.

These women model for me the way of the cross, which is also the way of the resurrection. Whatever the difficulty in life—whether the grief of a deep loss, or the unknown of a tough diagnosis, or conflict in a relationship, or problematic habits or addiction—whatever the difficulty, the way is through. It is not avoiding the matter, choosing instead the fantasies of an ego that can fix or control or manage things, that can live forever. Avoiding the difficulty will always rob the experience of its transformative power. It will allow old patterns to remain unchanged. Untouched by resurrection.

The way is through. It is holding the suffering with appropriate lament and also with the same tender love and affirmation that the women show to Jesus. And then, just as the kingdom of God grows from an invisible seed, the farmer knows not how (cf. Mark 4:27), so the suffering and the struggle will become the seed of transformation, the gateway of resurrection.

Ambrose of Milan, a church leader in the fourth century, celebrated Easter with the proclamation, “In Christ, the world has risen, heaven has risen, the earth has risen.” How striking—he does not simply say, “Christ is risen,” he sees the resurrection in all the world. In other words, the resurrection is here, now, transforming all things. We might just as well add, “In Christ, the grieving are risen, the wounded are risen, the addicted are risen, the lonely are risen,” and so on.

And if that doesn’t feel real or right to you, that is okay. It doesn’t always feel real or right to me. But if the example of the women shows us anything, it is that entering into the resurrection is a process. Being raised is a process. (It takes my biscuits about twelve minutes. It might take some of us a little bit longer.) The pain cannot be avoided. It must be held tenderly, with tears, with care, with patience.

Until one day we discover, with the women, that in Christ, the suffering has been transformed. The resurrection is here.

Prayer

God of the cross,
God of the resurrection,
Who enters into our suffering
That it might be transformed
…
Where we have experienced the resurrection,
We rejoice and give you thanks!
Where we still suffer or struggle,
Grant us the courage of the women
To hold our suffering
Tenderly, patiently,
Trusting in the goodness of your love.
In Christ, crucified and risen: Amen.