"The Stone Cries Out: He is not here! He is risen as He said!" - Luke 24: 1-12

Christ is risen!
He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!

We are risen!
We are risen, indeed! Alleluia!

“On the first day of the week, at early day, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb…”

I have stood in cemeteries from Houston, Texas to Howells, Nebraska, from Missouri to Massachusetts. Some, like the Texas State cemetery in Austin are filled with military heroes and dignitaries, men like Stephen F. Austin and women like Ann Richards who have stood tall in our states’ history. Outside of Boston, Mass, I saw tombstones that read like a who’s-who of early American literature, carved with names like Hawthorne, Emerson and Whitman. I’ve seen cemeteries with monolithic markers that are dozens of feet tall, proclaiming in death one’s seeming importance in life, a sharp contrast to the county pauper’s cemetery fifteen miles away where people, sadly unclaimed and unknown like lost baggage, are buried and forgotten in death as they were while living. Then there are small cemeteries, just a plot of land carved out of a wheatfield on the top of a hillside, only known to those who have family there. If my grandparents, my mom’s folks, weren’t buried at the old St. John Lutheran Cemetery near Howells, Nebraska, I wouldn’t know it even existed.

“Cemetery” comes into English from Greek, koimeterion, meaning “resting place.” Although it is used also for public graveyards, the word, itself, is a powerful confession of what we as Christians confess in the Creed, “I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.” The grave, and the cemetery that contains the graves, is only a resting place because when Jesus returns in glory, the resurrection promise that began this day some 2000 years ago will come to its consummation and fulfillment.

At the head, that is the top, of the gravesite, there usually stands a marker. They vary, of course. If you watch old westerns, the marker was often a simple cross made from scraps of wood or branches found nearby. Some markers are tall obelisks; others, flat, almost flush to the ground. While some are cement, brass, or even wrought iron, I suspect most often, we connect these markers with stone, like granite. The stone markers, also called the headstone, tell the name of the deceased, along with a date of birth and a date of death, the in-between dash a silent and all-too-brief abbreviation of the life lived. It is up to the reader to interpret, to read, what is inscribed on the stone to tell the story of the one in the grave.  That makes sense because the stone, itself, is silent, of course. Stones can’t speak.

But, in the history of the world, there was one stone that spoke volumes.

Good Friday evening, shortly after Jesus breathed his last, His body was removed from the cross, quickly wrapped, and buried in the new, unused tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. It was an ironic move: the Jews were afraid of disobeying Sabbath Law, allowing the bodies to remain on the cross (dying was work, and one couldn’t work on the Sabbath), but perfectly willing to overlook the 5^th Commandment they had broken in condemning an innocent man to death. A large stone was placed in front of Jesus’ tomb. While the stone was probably imposing enough to keep animals and riffraff from grave-robbing, this stone had an even more important role. It was no ordinary Man within the grave that it was guarding. This Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, had proclaimed a resurrection three days hence. That was part of the accusation leveled against Him at trial. So, to do due diligence and to make sure that no one would steal Jesus body, as the Jewish leaders feared, Pilate ordered a guard to keep miscreants and pesky body-snatching disciples at bay. The stone, and the grave, needed to be secure, so Pilate also placed his seal on the stone. Don’t think seal, as in spackle and caulk you put around your windows and doorframes to keep moisture and bugs out. Think symbol – a pool of hot wax into which a signet ring or stamp was pressed, marking something as being under Roman protection, an ancient equivalent to the Official Seal of the State combined with yellow “Police Line – Do Not Cross” tape. Although the stone remained mute, that seal stood as a declaration of whose it was, Pilate’s, and the power and authority that his office conveyed.

Once it was in place, from Friday at twilight thru the wee hours of Sunday, the stone was silent, it – along with it’s grave – paying homage to the One therein.

Then, something changed. “On the first day of the week, at early dawn,” Luke says, the Lord of Life, God in Flesh, with the sign of Jonah fulfilled, Jesus awakened from His three-day rest. With His Sabbath complete, an angel – perhaps the very same that ministered to Jesus three years earlier after facing satan’s temptation - rolled the stone away from the tomb and Jesus, alive and resurrected, strode forth from His borrowed burial chamber.

And, in that moment, the stone spoke volumes.

Go back with me one week’s time to Palm Sunday. Jesus entered Jerusalem, the people welcoming Him as the King. They misunderstood what that Kingship would look like, but their welcome was boisterous, to say the least, crying out, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” The Pharisees, growing more and more jealous at every wave of a palm branch, snarled at Jesus that He should silence the people. Jesus’ answer was, “I tell you, even if these people were silent, the stones would cry out.”

A week later, Sunday morning, Resurrection morn, while people still slept and while the women went toward the tomb, the stone having been rolled away from the entrance, cried out a message of resurrection hope, joy, and life. It had plenty to say.

·       The stone declared that the Lord of Heaven and Earth, the God of Creation, was alive.

·       The stone proclaimed that the grave, long considered the “final resting place of the dead,” no longer had the final say.

·       The stone announced that death would no longer be the end, that the long-awaited and hoped-for resurrection that even Job yearned for, would take place.

·       The stone revealed that all the promises of God had come to its completion in the life, death, and now the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ.

·       The stone spoke clearly that Jesus’ declaration, “It is finished” on Good Friday was not merely a final, sad ending to a man’s life; rather, stone’s revelation of the empty grave openly demonstrated the Father accepted Jesus as the perfect sacrifice, that the will of the Father was complete, that Jesus’ death was sufficient for the sins of the entire world, and that the redemption price was completely paid.

·       The stone showed that the peace – wholeness and restoration with the Father – was restored. 

·       The stone, stamped with Pilate’s seal, displayed whose held authority it beheld: not the words or seals of man, but the word and power of God.

·       The stone cries out with joy that the resurrection is real, Jesus is alive, and that in Him, there is life the endures even beyond the lifetime of the stone.

·       The stone speaks for the One who is our Rock, our fortress, our refuge and strength.

It is most fitting that the stone tells the Easter narrative because Jesus had previously compared Himself to the stone that the builders had rejected. The resurrected Christ is the keystone, the capstone, the cornerstone upon which the church rests, proclaiming the resurrection message of forgiveness by God’s grace through faith in the One who died and rose, and is now living and reigning at the right hand of God.

Today, you proclaim the message of the stone as you come to the Lord’s table. In the Old Testament, Israel, wandering through the wilderness, “were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ,” (1 Cor. 10:2-5). Today, this very Rock, Christ Himself, is present in the bread you eat and the wine you drink, a meal that both forgives and strengthened you in your own journey in life and faith until your own resurrection.

Make no mistake: the Cross is, in fact, the power of God for those who are being saved – not the stone. But the stone does bear witness to the power of the cross and the power of salvation. That stone, rolled away from the grave on that Resurrection morning, would cause many to stumble, denying its message, seeking to bury the stone and its message back into the earth, never to be heard again. Even this morning, there are those who doubt, despise, and disbelieve the truth that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. The day will come when that stone will fall on those who deny Jesus. In the resurrection of all flesh, the stone will bear silent witness of their denial of the resurrection. Instead of being a marker of faith, that stone will become a marker of death that endures.

But for those who rejoice at the death and resurrection of Jesus, and who believe and trust the message of the stone, He is not here as He said, for us every tombstone becomes a descendant of that resurrection stone, sharing the same message that the grave is only a koimeterion, a resting place, of the faithful as they await their own resurrection moment into eternity with Jesus. That is why I don’t just say, “Christ is risen.” We have His promise, already, now, present-day: We are risen as well, the resurrection a present-day gift and promise through the death and resurrection of Christ, our Lord.

The stone proclaims it.
And, so do you.  

Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed!
We are risen! We are risen, indeed. Alleluia!