Matthew 28:1-10 and Is. 25:6-9

Easter is filled with our pale attempts at life's force with bunnies and their broods, eggs as containers of life, green plastic grass that does indeed seem capable of reproducing. In this account, we get an angel here as an actor and a speaker. Instead of cute,  we get a report of daunting forces of nature: apocalyptic images of earthquake and lightning ( see transfiguration). We get the shock of the new:the women are the first messengers -2X they are told to spread the word to the male disciples, as frozen with fear as the guards. Not only are they open to the message, they move and share it. As they are going to do a good thing the guards, the guardians of the established order,  are frozen with fear -why guard an empty tomb? Guards are custodians of the tomb, custodians of a corpse.
Born in a grave image from Tillich. Frankl story of the globe where loves turns the world.

The Bible has a clear trajectory in grasping the nature of God: god of the living, the god of life, not death. God is a god of open doors. I am reminded me of the president congratulating Congress that the doors were open to the great sites of our nation, but he picked the Lincoln memorial, where no doors are to be found to block one's way.The women came expected a sealed tomb but it was wide open. Easter resurrection is the great reversal a disclosure of the new age- a new world world to transform this one, to restore what was lost

2x we get basically the same message from angel and Jesus, especially to not be afraid and go and tell. I find the casual greeting form Jesus to be hilarious.(laugh track in background) Still, the usual word for greeting here literally means Rejoice.when they grab his feet that is the same word for worship/homage.

On Is.25,the new age is a banquet image.  I remember a Lutheran theologian reading  this and proclaiming with his girth, God loves fatness. I think of the New Orleans motto, let the good times roll. It is a good thing to continue Communion with a big Easter brunch. It underscores the thanksgiving and celebratory aspects of communion. Indeed, we call it a foretaste, an appetizer, for the joys of heaven in C. '67. this morning we match a spiritual banquet with a brunch banquet, an extension of Communion.

The resurrection uplifts the kind of life led by Jesus. solidarity with the dead.  Easter is a promise of a new dawn the future- (Lewis) "as we await a movement into the tearless dawn of God's wrapping up our world into the final embrace of divine love"- no more shroud, but a nice warm blanket over a safe earth. Just like we don;t know of smallpox now, or polio, one day we won;t know of cancer.(65) God's tomorrow is taking up residence in our today.

Easter is God's yes to all of us. Vindication of life itself in a new key/dimension, a real life was vindicated, so not a flight from this world but a deep abiding engagement with it. for god, on Holy Saturday, a day was like 1,000 years. God IDs with "death's defeated ." Easter is more than new birth, springtime, or renewal. it is a new creation, for only god, the god of the living, the living God,  can make a tomb a womb; only God can bring life from death, only God can make grave clothes swaddling clothes; only God can make a bier a manger.
how often to we roll the stone back on our own lives?