April 20, 2025: Easter Sunday C
Luke 24:1-12
In a 1789 letter to French scientist Jean-Baptiste LeRoy, Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”[1]
Franklin didn’t originate the phrase, but he popularized it. It’s trotted out with a weary smile or disgusted scowl every April 15th year. And it’s self-evident. Everyone dies. Everyone (well, except for some very special people, perhaps) pays taxes. There’s no escape from these two certainties of civilization and human mortality.
But on Easter morning, the finality of death becomes a lot less certain.
Let’s not make the mistake of assuming the people in Jesus’ day were any more superstitious, or any more prone to fantastical belief than any of us. While literacy and scientific knowledge were restricted to a few, people understood cause and effect. If you paid your taxes, it was less likely that the tax collector would pay you a visit. If you stayed out of trouble, it was less likely that the authorities would put you on a cross. And if you died, you would most certainly stay dead. The disciples knew that. The women at the tomb knew that. Everyone in Jesus’ day knew that, just as we know that. Death and taxes, then as now, were among the Empire’s favorite tools to enrich themselves and ensure compliance. And no one had seen anyone come back from the dead. Sure, some ghost stories made the rounds. Sure, people have had dreams of the dead or experienced things they can’t explain. But no one had ever seen someone dead and buried one day; and then alive, in-the-flesh, walking, talking, and eating.
Except once.
To be clear, many Jews in Jesus’ day expected a general bodily resurrection. They gathered this from the tantalizing resuscitations in the Old Testament. Elijah and Elisha both raise young men up.[2] There is also the strange case where a dead man is thrown into Elisha’s tomb; upon touching Elisha’s bones, the dead man resuscitates.[3] And there is the end of the Book of Daniel, which explicitly prophesies the resurrection at the end time.[4] But in following these texts, these folks expected it to (a) apply to everyone and (b) occur at the Messianic Age, after the final defeat of ungodly imperial forces. Nobody expected it to happen to one man. Nobody expected it to happen under imperial occupation. And they certainly didn’t expected resurrection to happen to this Galilean; this teacher, healer, and provocateur executed as an enemy of the state.
So, when the women report what they saw, is it any wonder that the disciples thought their words were nonsense?
Of course that’s what they thought! Their words had to be nonsense! If they were speaking the truth, that would undermine one of the core certainties of existence. If death is no longer a certainty, then what can be counted on? What happens to your worldview if something you thought was permanent is not? It’s frightening. Look at what’s happening now as accepted realities of life in this nation are being overturned. Or as A.I. begins to gain even greater power and prominence. In our confusion and terror, we can long for something, anything, to remain the same, even if that something is death. And after Jesus’s murder, death and hopeless were the disciples’ constants. In the next story, as two disciples walk to Emmaus, they tell a hidden Jesus, “We had hoped he was the one who would redeem Israel.”[5] They had lost hope.
Imagine the impossibility of having hope again after it has been lost. Jesus was taken violently. He was killed. He was buried. Nobody came back from that. The disciples must still have been in shock. It all happened so fast. Jesus ate with them. He was arrested. The next day he was dead. No one can even get over their shock, much less go through the grieving process in such a short time. Their worldview had been upended once. And now these women – THESE WOMEN – are asking them to upend it again? Nonsense! Humbug! BS! They are having none of it.
But their story does something. A seed is planted. Peter, at least, is curious. He doesn’t believe them, but he runs out to the tomb. And he sees only two things. An open tomb. A linen cloth. No sign of Jesus.
That’s where the Gospel leaves us on this Easter morning. The risen Christ does not appear yet. But the resurrection has happened. Two men in radiant white clothing have told the women to “Remember what he told you while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”[6] Sight unseen, the resurrection has been proclaimed. Jesus is raised from the dead. Reality is changed forever.
Sisters and brothers, we are in a similar place today – but there is a key difference. This “nonsense” story has persisted for two thousand years. This “nonsense” story persisted among Jesus’ followers, through torture, imprisonment, and death. This “nonsense” story was experienced, believed, and lived out by the least likely people. The arch-reactionary Paul. The worldly Augustine. The bandit St. Moses of Ethiopia. The fabulously wealthy Sts. Anthony and Francis. The internally tortured Luther. The lustful Thomas Merton. Even the machiavellian Chuck Colson. Though we may not have seen it with our own eyes, Jesus has risen from the dead, and because of that, death is no longer the end for us. Death no longer has the certainty, the finality that it once did. Even in the middle of our earthly lives, we can experience resurrection. We have heard his words. We have been united with him in our baptism. We have received him at this table or others like it. And we see him every day in the people around us. This nonsense that the women tell turns out to be the very thing that re-defines reality for us. That gives us the courage to live into the unknown days ahead. That gives us courage to live the resurrection today. The two certainties of life, it turns out, are not death and taxes. They are Jesus and his victory over death. Those realities will never change.
© 2025, David M. Fleener. Permission granted to copy and adapt original material herein for non-commercial purposes with appropriate credit given.
[1] Albert Henry Smyth, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. X (1789-1790). (New York: Macmillan, 1907), 69.
[2] 1 Kings 17:17-24, 2 Kings 4:32-37.
[3] 2 Kings 13:21
[4] Daniel 12:2
[5] Luke 24:21
[6] Luke 24:6b-7