A large stone was rolled across the entrance of the new rock-hewn tomb where Jesus was laid. It was the custom to seal a tomb of this kind, not only with a large stone but with other seals as well to prevent the incursions of grave-robbers and wild animals. The stone would weigh at least a ton, and it would usually be on an incline to make it easier to roll downhill into place and harder to move uphill to dislodge. The women, we are told, saw the stone being moved into place, and they must have wondered how on earth they would move it if they were to return to anoint the body of Jesus properly.
The blocking-stone must have seemed to them and others like a cosmic full-stop, symbolising the end of all the hopes and expectations they had attached to Jesus. It’s what we hear from the disciples on the road to Emmaus as they speak of the Jesus whom they don’t recognise, “Our hope had been that he would be the one to set Israel free” (Luke 24:21). The stone wasn’t just over the entrance to the tomb; it was over the entrance to their heart. It blocked their way into the future; it signalled the end of hope. Their heart, like the tomb it seemed, was sealed forever.
No wonder the women ask as they go to the tomb in the early morning, Who will roll away the stone for us? But when they arrive at the tomb, the stone – to their astonishment – has already been rolled away, we’re not told by whom. At first they think it’s the work of grave-robbers and, without entering the tomb, they run to tell the disciples what they’d seen. Peter and the other disciple run to the tomb, and Peter is the first to enter the tomb which is empty, seeming to confirm that grave-robbers have been at work.
But then we have an odd-seeming detail: Peter sees “the linen cloths lying there and the face cloth which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself”. Seeing the Risen Lord will come later, but for now they have to put the pieces of evidence together and work out what has happened. They have a stone rolled away, an empty tomb in which there are the linen cloths used to wrap a corpse. Grave-robbers seem the most logical answer. But the disciples will eventually come to recognise that Jesus is risen from the dead; and with that, the world and their world will change forever.
They will come to understand, as we do, that God has rolled away the stone and has raised Jesus from the dead. They will come to understand, as we do, that rolling away the stone is the unblocking of hope and the birth of an unimagined future. Far from being a cosmic full-stop, the stone now opens a cosmic doorway to a life that nothing and no-one can take away.
The disciples will come to understand that the linen cloths lying on the floor of the tomb are all the things left behind by the Resurrection – all the old fears and anxieties, the old failures and depressions, the shattered hopes and expectations. The priest-poet R. S. Thomas writes:
There have been times
when…I have looked
in and seen the old questions lie
folded and in a place
by themselves, like the piled
graveclothes of love’s risen body.
The disciples will understand that all the old questions have been left in the tomb like the linen cloths – questions like: Is there a future? Is there a reason to hope or even to live? Does life have a chance? Is death the last word? Does peace have a chance? Does violence have the last word? These and all the old death-dealing questions are left rolled up on the floor of the tomb; and the vision of “love’s risen body” will give the eternal answer to them all. The face and the name of the answer is Jesus, “the firstborn from the dead” (Col 1:18). He is the love whose body is raised.
It will take time to focus all this properly – which is why Mary Magdalene, when she first sees the Risen Jesus, thinks he’s the gardener. Then there’s a vision of angels; but what they say, “Why are you weeping?”, quite apart from who they are, only adds to Mary’s perplexity. It takes time to see the Lord.
Tonight we see all our old burdens and questions left lying in the tomb. There we leave them, as we turn from the tomb like Mary, to be greeted by the Risen Lord and to greet him in turn, once our eyes are opened and focused. To see him and to hear him is something beyond our wildest dreams. Yet here he is, seen and heard; and he is no dream but the reality at the heart of all reality, the only thing that’s ultimately real.
The story told tonight of the stone and the tomb and the linen cloths and the encounter is the story of each of the brothers and sisters we initiate this evening; and what a gift they are to us. But it’s also the story of each of us who gather for Easter. Together we come like the first disciples to the tomb, wondering who if anyone will roll the stone away. We see the stone already rolled away, opening the doorway into a new world. We see the empty tomb and the linen cloths rolled up on the floor, old burdens and old questions we leave behind as we turn to meet the One who comes to meet us, speaking of peace. Like the disciples, we will go from here; we will leave the tomb. But we will never cease saying what the early Christians said, “We have seen the Lord” (John 20:25); and the One whom we see will be with us “always, even to the end of time” (Matt 28:20). Amen.