Who's Going To Do What We Can't- Mark 16:1-8 - Easter Sunrise

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.  And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.  They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?”  When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.  As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.  But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him.  But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”  So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

This is the Word of God, for us the People of God.  Thanks be to God!

I have to admit, it can be a bit embarrassing.  It kind of takes a stab at my masculinity.  I dislike parking in crowded parking lots.  I dislike it because I am not good at it.  There have been times where Anita and I talk about where we are going and what the parking is going to be like and we decide that it is a better idea for her to drive because the parking is going to be tight.  Making that decision goes back to a trip we took to Crabtree Valley Mall sixteen years ago.  I had driven us from Rich Square to Raleigh and we decided to stop at the Mall to pick up some supplies we needed (because there was no mall in Northampton County and you picked up supplies whenever you were in a big city).  Anyways, we stopped and if you’ve been to Crabtree Valley, you know how tight that parking can be, particularly on the upper deck.  We found one parking place, I went to pull in and my hands and mind just shut down and I decided I couldn’t do it, but we couldn’t give up the parking place.  I had to get out of the car in the midst of the crowded  parking lot and let Anita slide over and do for me what I could not do for myself.  We’ve all had those kind of times.  Maybe it was not in regards for parking, maybe it was following a surgery and there were things that you weren’t allowed to lift, or that you were physically unable to do, like buttoning a shirt or washing your back.  Maybe it was something you simply didn’t know how to do, whether it was setting up a computer or pumping gas.  At some point in our lives there has been a time where there was something that we needed to do that we could not do for ourselves and we needed help.

That’s where Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome found themselves on that morning so many years ago.  They were on the way to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body with burial spices.  On their way in they began discussing that there was something that they knew they would be unable to do for themselves.  “Who’s going to roll the stone away for us,” they questioned one another.  They knew that not even their combined strength would allow them to move the huge stone that they had watched Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimethea use to seal Jesus’ tomb.

They arrived at the tomb and were greeted with a shocking revelation, the stone had been rolled aside.  I imagine that discovery left them with mixed emotions—relief that they would not have to move the stone, wonder at how had the stone had be moved, and fear about the motives of whoever moved the stone, and what their motive might have been.  They knew that Jesus had enemies and someone wight have come to steal His body or desecrate His place of burial.  Slowly entering the tomb, fearful of what they might find, they encountered an angel.

The angel addressed the women as they stood there, fear having frozen them in place, “Don’t be afraid for I know that you are looking for Jesus.  Do not worry that he is not here for although he was crucified and laid in this tomb, just as Jesus had promised, the Father has raised Him from the dead.

It began to sink in to the women.  God had done what they could not.  It was God who had moved the stone that they could have never moved.  It was God who had placed this angel in the tomb to wait for them to remind them of Jesus’ promise to be raised again.  It was God who had who had done what none of us could do for ourselves…through the cross He had one and forever freed us from the power of sin’s hold on our lives.  With the empty tomb God had once and for all defeated death and its power to bring an end to our lives.

My brothers and sisters, as we gather here this morning, we gather because of what God has done.  We gather for God has done for us what we would never be able to do for ourselves—He has saved us and given us new life.

My friends, what stone have we struggled to move on our own and realized that we just can’t do it?  Is it the struggle of overcoming an addiction?  Is it the struggle of forgiving someone who has wronged us or even forgiving ourselves for failures past?  Is it the struggle to let go of grief?  Is it a struggle to escape the darkness of depression?  Is it a struggle with our own mortality—trying to figure out just how we can escape the grave that claims so many that we know?  None of those stones are stones that we can move on our own—we need someone to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves and give us the strength that we don’t possess on our own.  That strength can be found in the One who moved the stone from that tomb in the pre-dawn hours of that first Easter Morning.  It can be found in the response given to Peter when he asked Jesus, “‘Then who can be saved?’”  Jesus responded, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God, for God all things are possible—including rolling away a stone and raising up the One who was laid there.

This morning we have the awesome opportunity to celebrate that very new life that God offers as one of our dear friends and his children are going to come forward to receive the waters of baptism, marking in their lives the fact that God has done something for them and for us that we cannot do on our own.  They are going to step into the water and as I lay them back into the water baptizing them in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they are going to lay down in death, their old self dying, and when they come up from the waters, we are going to recognize that God has done something we cannot do for ourselves, He has placed His Spirit within them, joining them to Christ, changing them from friends to our brothers and sister, and giving them new life.  Let us praise God that He has rolled away the stone.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.