Roll back the stone

Easter Day – Eucharist - 9th April 2023

(Acts 10.34-43; Matthew 28.1-10)

The ‘angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled the stone away, and sat on it.’ It’s St. Matthew in the Gospel reading we use today, who tells most directly that the message of Easter is the triumph of Christ’s Resurrection. To say that Christ is risen is to affirm that death is defeated, and how can we picture it better than with that image painted by Matthew? – the angel who rolls the stone away from the grave and sits upon it!

It’s only Matthew who puts it quite so wonderfully, but all the Gospels recognise that stone which blocks the mouth of the grave to be a real problem. All the Gospels end the account of Jesus’ crucifixion on Good Friday by referring to the witnesses who see him taken down from the Cross and laid in the tomb. This man, they say, hailed as a Saviour of his people, is truly dead. Matthew and Mark tell how a great stone is rolled before his tomb – no way can he escape death’s bonds, they are saying. And Mark puts the question on the lips of the women who come to his grave that first Easter morning: ‘Who shall roll away the stone from the door of the tomb?’ Luke’s and John’s Gospels don’t tell us how the stone was put in place – but their silence is all the more testimony to the fact of its reality: they take it for granted, because their account of the first Easter begins with their telling how the stone was found to be rolled away. 

But it’s Matthew who paints the most graphic picture of Christ’s victory over the powers of death. For the other Gospel writers there is silence as to the events between Good Friday and Easter Day. Matthew is the only Gospel writer to tell us what happened after Christ’s burial… Matthew tells us that on the day following Jesus’ burial, the command was given that a guard should be placed upon the tomb to ensure that no one and nothing can get in or out. Death is not to be cheated of its victim, and the Jewish and Roman authorities work together to make sure of that.

Perhaps some readers of St. Matthew’s account will object that he might have made this part of the story up. Matthew seems to show real dislike of the Jewish authorities, and he comes dangerously close to anti-Semitism at times. As for the Romans, we find Luke and John especially keen to let them off the hook as far as their responsibility for Jesus’ death is concerned. But we shouldn’t be seeking to attribute blame for something that happened 2,000 years ago: what we cannot avoid in the here and now is that we live today in a world where so many forces continue to conspire to give victory to death and destruction. It’s not surprising that the authorities of ancient Jerusalem should have wanted Jesus dead – it’s not surprising that they should want his grave sealed and guarded from his followers. Because we live in a world that isn’t much different, and might be even worse. It’s all over our television screens, on the radio bulletins and on the front pages of our newspapers, where we see violence and murder perpetrated on a massive scale by vicious people desperate to keep control of others. The tools they use are the weapons of war, terror, death and destruction. In many cases they’ve reached the point where they can no longer be bothered to cover up their deeds, in others they guard themselves by burying their victims in unmarked graves. As we have seen in so many atrocities through the twentieth century and into this one, the greatest category of the victims of this world’s violence might be called simply the ‘disappeared.’ What more could Jesus’ enemies wish than that he should disappear?

But it was not to be. The power of God is so great that death could not hold him. The ‘angel of the Lord rolled the stone away, and sat upon it.’ And here there is hope for this mortal world of so much death, despair and destruction.

Hope first for those women who came to mourn at Jesus’ grave that first Easter morning. These are the women who stood by his cross when the other disciples fled, who helped to lay him in the tomb. These are the women who persevered when all seemed lost, and at last they find their reward. How shall they roll away the stone? They find the question does not need an answer, for God’s purpose is already being worked out. I read of those women who persevered, and I think of other women in Ukraine, in the Middle East and in so many other lands, who have seen their menfolk taken away and perhaps murdered, but who persevere as they seek to bring their families to a safe refuge. I read of those women who stood by the Cross, and with the anniversary of the Good Friday agreement I think of those women in Northern Ireland who dared to speak out against the atrocities perpetrated by men, who persisted in their call for peace and reconciliation in their land. I read of those women going to Jesus’ tomb, and I think of the women who have maintained vigils in countries where tyranny has held sway as they sought an answer to the fate of loved ones taken from them by unlawful dictators. It’s no chance thing that the first witnesses to the Resurrection are women who prove themselves by their dedication – and if there is to be hope in our world now, it must be in answer to the efforts of those who follow their example today. And we realise how desperately we need such witnesses still in Russia, China, Burma, Syria, Israel & Palestine, the Horn of Africa…  the list seems to keep on growing.

How can we build upon the Resurrection hope? ‘The angel rolled away the stone and sat upon it.’ Later in the Bible Jesus will himself be described as the stone rejected by the builders which has now become the chief cornerstone. Stones can be dead things, or they can be put to constructive use. There’s a photograph I recall from some years ago which shows a little girl in the bomb-blasted devastation of Beirut, carrying a shiny new brick out of the ruins of a street, in order to start building again. Life is stronger than death. We refuse to allow death to destroy us. We are going to live. And that is why Jesus came in the first place – to give us life, life in all its fullness.

This is what the first Christians so quickly realised. A practice of many in the time of Jesus had been to bury their dead in tombs which faced west, towards the setting sun, because for them death meant the close of life’s day and a passing into eternal night. But when they received the message of Christ they began to face their graves towards the east and the rising sun, because Easter Day speaks of radiant promise and a rising to new life and light. The change is especially noticeable in the catacombs of Rome. In one chamber going back before the time of Christ, there are tombs which speak of pagan gloom and hopelessness with inscriptions that are cynical of the gods or bitter in their complaints. But, nearby, another chamber contains the remains of Christians who had suffered the extremes of persecution, torture and death for the sake of what they believed: and there the tombs have inscriptions of joy, with carved lilies – the Easter flower and symbol of immortality. Decked out as if for a wedding, this chamber declares the living presence of Christ which cannot be held by the bonds of death.

This is what is declared in those few words which describe the rolling away of the stone from the tomb of Jesus. It is not easy to comprehend. The women who witness it cannot take it in except to grasp a message to share with the other disciples that Jesus has been raised from the dead. And they leave the tomb in a hurry, in fear, though at the same time in joy. Only then – in the midst of their confusion and with so many mixed feelings – do they find the risen Christ meeting them on their way.

And so we come here today. The joy of those women at the tomb is not something we can just imitate. They go there in the midst of grief and sorrow. And we cannot come here without bearing also the world’s sorrow, our hurts and our personal needs. But the promise is that God is at work even before we arrive, he brings new life and hope, he bids us look beyond the cruelties and limitations of this life. The ‘angel of the Lord rolled away the stone and sat upon it.’ As Janet Morley’s prayer so well puts it:

When we are all despairing;

when the world is full of grief;

when we see no way ahead,

  and hope has gone away:

Roll back the stone.

Although we fear change;

although we are not ready;

although we’d rather weep

  and run away:

Roll back the stone.

Because we’re coming with the women;

because we hope where hope is vain;

because you call us from the grave

  and show the way:

Roll back the stone.