Easter Vigil
Mark 16: 1-11
There was never any doubt that Jesus was dead.
The Romans were as efficient with the death penalty machinery as governments are today.
But, the leaders who caused Jesus= death were insecure.
What if some of Jesus' followers stole His body and then claimed that Jesus had been raised from the dead.
So they wanted the Roman governor Pontius Pilate to make Jesus' grave secure lest His claim that He would rise from the dead on the third day would seem to have come true.
That's the irony of our text tonight.
The insecurity of men led to the crucifixion of Jesus in the first place.
Now the insecurity of men leads them to demand a security detail to be placed at Jesus' tomb ‑ presumably to keep Jesus where they thought He belonged ‑ dead!
The world thinks that preachers really need to know their place.
Keep preachers in a pulpit talking about innocuous things like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin or what caret gold the streets of heaven are paved with.
Preachers should never talk much about anything really important like politics, or what people do in private with their bodies, or how money is or is not spent.
That's when preachers quit preaching and go to meddling.
Preachers are often reminded that they don't want to step on the wrong toes.
Those that are used to wielding power are likely to take the preacher aside to explain what should or shouldn't be said or done.
Some seem to think that preachers need to be taken down a peg or two on a regular basis lest they forget their place.
If that's true of preachers today, imagine how true it was when God's Son came as an ordinary rabbi from the backward province of Galilee.
He was always meddling with people's sense of how He ought to behave.
He was always talking about money.
He was always stepping on toes.
He was always challenging peoples' assumptions about what it meant to be God's people.
The tipping point, as some like to call it today, was that Jesus started messing with Jerusalem and the Temple.
Jesus just wouldn't keep in His place.
In short, He became a threat to the comfort of the religious leadership and a threat to the Temple‑based economy of Jerusalem.
It's no surprise that the Roman governor would want to keep the peace particularly at the most important local religious festival when the population swelled with pilgrims.
That's how Jesus ended up dead at the hands of the Romans.
He caused the religious leaders to feel insecure.
He caused those that made their living from the Temple to feel insecure.
Finally, Jesus caused even the Romans to feel insecure.
That preacher needed to know His place.
Indeed His place was to be numbered with the dead!
So, it's funny and ironic that even after Jesus was dead the Pharisees still wanted to make sure He was kept in His place.
But that was really too much for the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.
The governor reminded them that they had their own temple police if they just had to make sure Jesus stayed where He belonged.
Pilate's response is classic: "Go make it as secure as you can."
Some are Bible scholars, some are bishops, some are pulp fiction writers, some are preachers that invent a Jesus that looks and sounds a lot like the one they see when they look in the mirror. Plenty of religious people today prefer Jesus to stay in His place in a tomb in Palestine where He just won't make them feel any more insecure than they already are.
There are plenty of people that will be sitting in pews today or tomorrow who just don't want Jesus to get out of that tomb and start meddling with their politics, with what they do with their bodies, and with what they do or don't do with their money.
For if Jesus gets loose, there will be no end to the trouble He can cause.
Indeed if Jesus gets loose, He will turn the whole world upside down.
For if Jesus gets loose, men and women, boys and girls will feel even more insecure than they ‑ than we already are!
Indeed death came into the world at God's command in order that we might not live endlessly separated from God in a hellish eternity brought by our own foolish choices.
From before the foundation of the world, the Lord God knew that He would have to become human in Christ Jesus and live the life we cannot live and die the death we don't want to die in order to rescue us from sin, death, and evil.
God's Son Jesus could not be kept in a tomb by death or a huge stone or even by temple police. For in Christ Jesus: love is stronger than hate, good is stronger than evil, light is stronger than darkness, and life is stronger than death.
His place was never in a tomb.
Christ Jesus is the King of the Universe, and the Holy Spirit is on the loose in this world.
Of course, that's the real danger of the Christian story.
It's never been about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin or what caret gold the streets of heaven are.
It's about the death of sinners like you and me.
It's about dying and rising with Jesus in the waters of Holy Baptism that we might be His own and live under Him in His Kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.
There's nothing quite so dangerous as a group of baptized children of God whose lives are being turned upside down one day at a time.
For people who are convinced that their Lord Jesus isn't in that tomb refuse to accept that there is any corner of the universe or any corner of their lives that doesn't belong to God.
And such faith is contagious.
Yes, that kind of faith is extremely dangerous and pushes the fear buttons of people who, in their insecurity, must keep insisting that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit should be kept somewhere far away from anything that really matters.
I almost hate to break it to them, bad preacher that I am.
But Jesus isn't in that tomb in Palestine.
A security detail couldn't keep Him there 2,000 years ago, and no one today can keep Him from turning the world upside down!
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