Easter Sunday – 2025c

Old Testament – Isaiah 25:6-9

New Testament – John 20:1-18

 

"The Last Thing…"

​

INTRODUCTION: It seems for as long as humans have been able to contemplate the notion of an afterlife, we have felt the need to also honor and recognize the dead. 

 

After all, get to ruminating on the idea of some kind of grand hereafter and it’s only natural to start paying homage to those folks we believe have now entered it. 

 

Prehistoric people, for example, were known to lay their dead deep into caves. Or, when caves were unavailable, to cover them with rocks in shallow graves to protect them from wild animals.

 

Of course, over time simple gravestones also became another common way to honor and mark the location of the dead. Initially, sticks driven into the ground were typically used, but eventually large fieldstones also became another frequently used method. 

 

And perhaps not surprisingly, as fieldstones gave way to things like sandstone, granite, marble, and even materials like iron and bronze, it quickly became common to also carve images and inscriptions into such sacred markers. 

 

And while even today many gravestones still just offer the traditional things like the deceased person’s name and the dates of birth and death, others have used gravestones as a way to offer words of advice for proper living and even warnings about the fragility of life. 

 

One old gravestone, for example, reads as follows: “Remember me as you pass by, as you are now, so once was I, as I am now, so you will be, prepare for death and follow me.”

 

And then there are the final words of a British soldier who fought in World War I. “No more wars for me,” says the man’s gravestone poignantly, “No more wars for me.”  

 

But out of the innumerable inscriptions that have been written in gravestones down through the centuries, one of my personal favorites comes from a cemetery out in, of all places, Kansas. For the inscription is both funny and a statement of faith all at the same time.

 

Yep, whoever came up with the inscription, I think, had a moment of pure ingenuity. For in just a few short words, the gravestone out in Kansas says it all with the following insightful comment. It reads this way: “Thanks for stopping by. See you later.” 

 

ONE: Of course, the empty tomb on Easter Sunday all those years ago was just God’s way of saying the same thing, “Thanks for stopping by. See you later.”  

 

For in the end, the promise of Easter Sunday is that nothing can ultimately separate us from the love of God. Paul, of course, famously expresses such an idea in his Letter to the Romans. “Not even death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord,” declares a misty-eyed Paul in chapter 8. Not even death can separate us from God.      

 

God, after all, is always more than just faithful and true. Nope, turns out God is also always a kind of leader and guide for us as we trek our way through life.

 

And for proof, just take a look at the Bible. In page after page, we’re told about a God that leads the people through uncertain and difficult times by always going first in order to show them the way. It’s as if God likes to engage in some kind of cosmic version of follow the leader.  

 

When Moses, for example, led the people out of the land of Egypt, God showed them the way as a pillar of cloud during the day and fire at night. “Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people” we’re told in Exodus. Day or not, God was there blazing a trail with the simple charge that the people follow. 

 

And when it came time for the people to cross the River Jordan, God blazed the trail yet again. The Ark of the Covenant, the very symbol of God’s presence, went first into the River Jordan as the people followed behind it. Or as the officers instructed the people in chapter 3 of Joshua, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the priests...Follow it so you may know the way you should go.”   

 

Even when Israel fell at the hands of the Babylonians and the people were hauled off to live in exile, well, God led the way into that horrible foreign land . Years later God would lead the people yet again as they began the long journey home from their exile. “With weeping they shall come,” said God in the book of Jeremiah, “and with consolations I will lead them back.”     

 

And so it goes with death and the grave. Just like in the past, God leads the way. Jesus Christ has gone first and because of that we can be assured of coming out the other side. 

 

Or as that inscription on that tombstone out in Kansas puts it, “Thanks for stopping by. See you later.”

 

TWO: Look, when it comes to God, the last and final word is never death but instead always life. Life spelled so large that it’s written across the entire length of the universe like some gigantic, cosmic promissory note. 

 

According to the Episcopal Priest John Claypool, many years ago Frederick Buechner surprised even himself by enrolling in Union Theological Seminary up in New York City. You see, up until that point, Buechner had hardly been a church goer. 

 

Why, the decision seemed so weird and out of character, some of Buechner’s friends and relatives even took to worrying about his mental state. Or as one family friend said to Buechner one day over lunch: “I understand you are thinking about going to seminary. Is this your idea, or have you been poorly advised?” 

 

Really delving into Scripture for the first time during his studies while at Union, Buechner came to, what for him, were two stunning conclusions. The first was that the Bible is unbelievably frank about humans and our capacity for evil. Even the heroes in the Bible, folks like Moses, David, and Saint Peter, Buechner realized, are portrayed as flawed and broken creatures in the end. 

 

But even more stunning than the Bible’s frank depiction of humans, for Buechner, was God’s refusal to allow the worst things in life to be the last things. 

 

Or as Buechner would one day put it himself, “The worst isn't the last thing about the world. It's the next to the last thing. The last thing is the best….The last, best thing is the laughing deep in the hearts of the saints, sometimes our hearts even. Yes. You are terribly loved and forgiven. Yes. You are healed. All is well.” 

 

THREE: Of course, amidst the proclamation of such a grand promise, it’s important that we not make light of death. 

 

For while life might always be the final word when it comes to God, there’s also no denying that death is something very real that awaits us all. 

 

Truth be told, because of God’s promise of new life, it can be easy, understandably so, for us to gloss over death as if it’s just some minor detour in life. But that’s hardly the case, is it?

 

Nope. Unlike Mark Twain, who after reading his own obituary in a newspaper was able to glibly say, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” we don’t get to do that, do we?

 

After all, we are people who belong to a tradition that regularly asks us to declare, among other things, our belief in resurrection. So if there’s one thing the Christian tradition is frank about, it’s the reality that death is something very real and, yes, even unavoidable. 

 

And yet despite such an honest assessment, there is also the promise that even death cannot stop God’s love.    

 

FOUR: As many of you probably know, J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy The Lord of the Rings is laced with religious imagery.

 

A devout Catholic, it was only natural for Tolkien to weave religious concepts and ideas into his writing. In fact, Tolkien was so devout, he apparently often worried about the state of his good friend’s soul, C.S. Lewis, who was a member of the Anglican Church. 

 

In his famous story, Frodo Baggins and his good friend Samwise Gamgee are tasked with destroying an evil ring against great odds.  

 

Toward the end of the story Frodo and Sam have finally finished their task. Having thrown the great ring of power into the river of lava at the bottom of Mount Doom destroying it, they sit trapped on a little pillar of rock as the mountain crumbles and lava slowly rises around them.     

 

Frodo states the obvious to Sam, “An end comes. We have only a little time to wait now. We’re lost in ruin and downfall, and there is no escape.” The two hobbits, exhausted, then slip off into sleep. 

 

But while they sleep, Gandalf’s giant eagles come and carry the two away to safety. When Sam finally awakens from his slumber, he sees Gandalf for the first time in months. “I thought you were dead!” Sam proclaims. “But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue?”   

 

CONCLUSION: Well, that is about as concise a summary of the faith as we can hope to find, I think. 

 

For while it’s never easy to summarize any religious tradition, perhaps not a bad way to think about ours. 

 

For after all the thick books and theological ponderings, after the study of Scripture and reflection, maybe our faith, in the end, comes down to that simple promise from God - that everything sad, including even death, is eventually going to come untrue. 

 

Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.