Sermon Easter Sunday 2025  Luke 24  Relief                     Rev. Betsy Hogan

Have you ever just been really glad that something’s finally over? Complete and finished and past and gone? And if the sheer relief of it doesn’t always get to be as pure as PRESS SEND -- and off goes that paper, that project, those report cards, and we’re done – it’s still, at the very least, over?

I have a sense, on that first Easter Sunday morning 2000-odd years ago, from the passage John read for us just now – that there were quite a lot of people who were just really glad that it was finally over.

That Jesus and his preaching and his teaching and his followers and his commentaries and his interference and his incitement and his troublemaking – that it had all finally been ended. After three long years of the divisiveness of it all.

I have a sense, and it’s borne out in the stories of that last week of his life, that there were quite a lot of people for whom that was a relief.

Not that all of them were terrible and appalling and bloodthirsty – there WAS a certain mob mentality, for sure, that had kind of taken over the crowds in those last few days, shouting themselves hoarse for his crucifixion, egging on the guards in their violence –

But once it was over, relief.

Relief for Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor, the lover of peace, order, and good government – no more threats to social stability, no more threats to his authority, no more irritating warnings of insurrection on the ground. Just relief.

And relief for Herod, his puppet King – no more simmering mobs, no more public contention, no more outbursts or conflicts or too easy reasons for the Romans to crack down. Just relief.

Relief for the scribes and the Pharisees, for the elders and the leaders of the people – no more wayward preachers of love and grace and mercy, undoing the stability of centuries, no more insinuations of hypocrisy, no more laissez-faire morality. Just relief.

Just relief for a great many people. Just the ordinary people, not the leaders, just the regular ordinary people. That finally all that divisiveness was finished. That the one who’d started all of it was gone.

Not that they’d always disagreed with him. Because in fact they really hadn’t. In fact, when Jesus had first began his travels around the Galilee, healing the sick, and ministering to the broken-hearted, and preaching and teaching with such wisdom about the Bible and faithfulness and God’s way, he’d really been inspiring.

He’d preached about the commandments as all being grounded in love. He’d reminded them of those words from the Bible, from Deuteronomy, to love God with all their hearts and souls and minds, and to love their neighbour as themselves.

He’d reminded them of the Bible’s teachings to welcome the stranger, and care for the refugee, and feed the hungry, and protect the widows and orphans – 

He’d taught from the prophets, that God loves mercy, that God forgives, that God’s love is unlimited. 

He’d taught from the prophets, that no one should be crushed by poverty, that God is infuriated by oppression, that God’s will is justice rolling down like waters, and everyone safe and well under their own vine and under their own fig tree where no one can make them afraid.

He’d said, “Believe and trust and love. Default to kindness, default to generosity, default to protection and embrace and kinship.”

He’d been inspiring. They hadn’t disagreed with him at all. They’d been caught and captured and uplifted by the vision of what he proclaimed.

By the vision of what he embodied, in the way he was with people. Because it wasn’t just all talk. It wasn’t just all magical miraculous healings – he embodied his teachings in the way he was. All the time.

It wasn’t just words. He didn’t just say “God is merciful, God’s love is wide” – he sat down like a friend with tax collectors and sinners, with the criminals and the avoided and the despised.

He didn’t just say “God is infuriated by oppression” – he stopped the leaders trying to stone to death the woman caught in adultery. He called out the priests whose exhortation dragged out of a widow two pieces of silver, all she had to live on. 

He didn’t just say “all lives matter” – they did. Rich like Nicodemus, poor like a beggar on a street corner, mad like the man in chains, desperate like the woman with a flow of blood, rejected and ostracized like a Canaanite or a Samaritan – they did matter to him, every one of them. 

He embodied all the beautiful words and the wise teachings. And it inspired people. It captivated them, this Way he communicated – its love and its spirit.

And at first, I suspect, they didn’t even notice any shift. Either around them or in themselves. But it was beginning.

Any new way is always going to crash up against the old way. They were inspired by Jesus’ teachings, by the Way he embodied, but on the ground?

Slowly there were conflicts, slowly there were issues. When they tried to talk about starting with mercy, starting with love, it wasn’t easy, what they got back was anger, people feeling judged. 

When they wanted to feed the hungry and shelter the destitute, it was messy, there were concerns, there were complaints -- they’ll take advantage, it’s just enabling.

When they believed God’s love was deep and wide and inclusive, suddenly this one wanted to be heard, suddenly that one wanted to be heard – it was challenging, it stirred things up, it made trouble.

It all made trouble. It was all so provoking and overturning and problematic and divisive. So it was a relief when it was over, for a great many people. From the ordinary to Pilate himself.

But not for everyone. Not for the handful of women who hurried to Jesus’ tomb that morning. Who knew that it’s not divisive to identify a division so that it can be healed.

Jesus WAS provoking and overturning and problematic. He WAS challenging, he did stir things up. But in doing so he wasn’t being divisive – he didn’t need to be. The division was already there between the Way of love and justice and peace, and the way things were. 

All he did was name it. Out loud. Like it was real, and it was wrong, and it didn’t have to be, and it could be healed.

It could be healed. For the handful of women who hurried to Jesus’ tomb that morning, for the others scattered alone or with each other in their grief, that was a revelation. 

What the mobs had screamed was divisive, for them it had been the division healed. For three years, it had been the division healed. For the past few years, they’d lived and learned and been embraced within the Way of love and justice and peace, as it did its work of healing that divide with the way things were.

And now the past few days had been nothing but crushing despair. 

Until they realized the tomb was empty. Until they heard the words “he is risen.” Until they grasped that those endless few days of empty relentless despair were finally over. 

The relief of it. The sheer joyous relief. Christ is risen, risen indeed. Amen.