Seeking information, a reporter for the Carroll County Times a number of years ago checked out a local elementary school. He didn’t visit the library, or talk to the principal. He went straight to the source to find the answer to his question: What does “resurrection” mean?

“Jesus Christ was a really nice man who said some things that made some people mad, so they put Him to sleep. Then Jesus’ dad woke him up, and they moved a big stone and everybody was happy.”

That’s how 7-year-old Greg saw it. “The day his dad woke him up is called Easter. Easter means ‘wake up,’ I guess.”

8-year-old Emily thought that Jesus was crucified because he believed in things that others didn’t believe in. “And a man named ... Punchy Pilot told him to die and then he washed hands and had dinner.”

According to 7-year-old Kelly, resurrection “is where the Indians live.”

“We celebrate Easter because that’s the day when Jesus came back to life,” said 9-year-old Ashley. “He got tired of being dead.” ...

“Easter’s the day when Jesus went home,” said 7-year-old Martin. “He had a bad day at work, and he’d had enough.”

         While the children may have disagreed over what happened to Jesus, they did agree that he was a nice man who did lots of nice things.

And on this Easter morning we come to celebrate that nice man named Jesus and the fact that he indeed was resurrected. Right?  But what will happen here today?

The truth is, our actions, our behaviors, the way we act from Easter to Easter indicates that we don’t expect anything much to happen here today at all, because, the day after, we live our lives in exactly the same way we always have.

Perhaps for us it is just one more Sunday. Perhaps Easter is simply a day to celebrate with friends and family, to share in a good meal, to finally indulge in whatever we have given up for Lent … ah …for me it’s desserts!

Perhaps Easter is a day when the sanctuary looks extra nice (which it does), and we dress up in new clothes. Perhaps that is all we expect, and all we really want.

Because, the fact is, it would be awfully inconvenient for something more powerful to happen to us on the Day of Resurrection. If we came to the tomb, and found Jesus raised, and understood how God was working in this act, we might have to live differently.

We might have to take to heart all of those things that Jesus taught during his lifetime. We might have to admit that his way was better than our way, that his idea of kingdom is better than ours, that his idea of living and loving was right after all. We’d have to change our lives, right now, starting today.

But if our lives stay the same, if we live on, business-as-usual, then we’re saying we either don’t believe in the resurrection, or worse and possibly truer: we believe - we just don’t care enough to let it change us.

We know the story … we hear it every year.  But maybe we need to hear it again. 

When the very first Easter Sunday rolled around, the scattered disciples might have wondered if Jesus’ influence would live on. They had dedicated the better part of three years to following him. They left their jobs, and some even left their families.

In the hours after Jesus’ death, they were asking themselves if they had all made a mistake. Even though Jesus told them he would die, they never thought he would die on a cross like a common criminal.

Could the movement that Jesus began continue without him? It seemed unlikely.

His small band of followers were even now in hiding, fearing for their very lives.

As our text this morning begins, Mary is coming to visit Jesus’ tomb, much in the way we might visit the tomb of a loved one shortly after his or her death.

She immediately notices, of course, that the stone closing the burial cave had been moved away.

She doesn’t go inside and check things out – if you’ve ever been alone in a cemetery, maybe you can understand that anything unusual going on might give you the creeps, as well as a desire to have someone else there with you.

So Mary runs and finds Simon Peter and the ‘other disciple’. She tells them, “they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Who does Mary think has taken Jesus? Those who crucified him? That doesn’t really make sense – after all, it was Pilate and the other religious leaders who feared that the disciples would try to snatch Jesus’ body, to make it seem as though he had risen from the dead.

But Mary is so overwhelmed by the unsealed tomb that she’s just saying whatever words come into her mind.

So Peter and the other disciple return with her. For some reason, they seem to race, literally race each other to the tomb. Who can understand the male ego, even at such a time as this, right?

We read that the unnamed disciple outruns Peter and reaches the tomb first – but for all his speed, when he gets to the tomb, he stops short, and doesn’t go in.

Peter, never one to think before he acts, boldly walks directly into the tomb. Peter sees that Jesus is not there, and that the burial clothes are laying there, empty.

The other disciple comes in too, sees the same things. We read that “he believes,” but we’re not sure what he believes, since we also read that he and Peter “as yet . . . did not understand the scripture that [Jesus] must rise from the dead.”

Then, after all that, they say nothing to Mary, nothing to each other, or nothing to anyone else. They go back home. Perhaps they are afraid. Perhaps they are in shock. They are numb, overwhelmed, confused. But whatever they are feeling, they go back home, and leave Mary, weeping outside the tomb.

        Poor Mary. A lot of good it did her to get Peter and the other disciple, for all the help and comfort they were.

She is left alone, crying, outside of where Jesus was laid. Finally, she looks into the tomb. And there, she sees two angels, sitting where Jesus had been laid.

They ask why she is crying, and she again says what she said to the disciples, “they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”

In perhaps the most peculiar scene in the gospel, Mary then turned and faced a third person – this one behind her.

Again, imagine the shock. She thought she was alone in the cemetery. We are privileged to know that it was Jesus standing behind her, but she didn’t know that.

“Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?,” the stranger asked.

Putting two and two together, she guessed him to be the cemetery maintenance man. Perhaps he had something to do with the disappearance of the body... And so, we come to this odd request, with which Mary accused Jesus of stealing his own corpse. “Mister, if you took him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him.”

Still, she doesn’t understand what is happening. So bound by the devastation of this destructive world, she KNOWS that dead still means dead, and so, she doesn’t even see him when she sees him.

Then he calls her name. See, she didn’t find him. He found her. She didn’t run through the cemetery calling his name in feverish hope. He speaks her name as she sheds her tears. This is an image of the methods of God and the grace of God.

The resurrection of Jesus is not only a claim on history, but also a claim on the circumstances of here and now, a claim that Christ is the one seeking and finding and calling and consoling, even when all we can imagine are tombs and robbers.

And when Jesus speaks her name – Mary snaps out of her dazed confusion, recognizing her master, and responds, “Rabboni,” which means teacher.

Finally, Jesus sends Mary on her way, and tells her to share what she has seen and heard. She departs, and tells the good news to the others, “I have seen the Lord.”

As much as different parts of this resurrection story can bewilder me or even amuse me, as I picture a huffing-and-puffing out-of-breath Peter, or perhaps even a smiling Jesus, when Mary suspects he’s hired help, I honestly can’t imagine how I might react to the events of this day.

Something so unexpected – the last thing they expected to see at the tomb was nothing at all, no Jesus at all, or, even more so, a living Jesus.

How would you react? Would you be able to put what had happened into words? To tell what you’d seen? To make sense of it? Believe it?

Put all the pieces of the puzzle of the last three years you’d spent with Jesus together, and say, “Ah hah! Now I get what he’s been talking about all this time!”

Actually, if we are to believe Luke’s (another Gospel writer) account of that day – the apostles when confronted with Mary’s claim, thought is was an idle tale, and didn’t believe it.

Isn’t that a fascinating statement to include in his version of the resurrection? Here we are, come to celebrate the greatest event in the history of the world.

Here we are, come together to rehear the greatest story ever told -- that death has been defeated, that sin holds no power to destroy us, that a kingdom awaits us, that there can be new life now. Here we are, and what do we hear?

We hear that those closest to Jesus during the three years of his ministry, those who heard him preach on hillside and beside water, those who had shared in miracles, those who had broken bread with him as only friends can in the intimacy of the upper room, those who had heard him teach with patience about the kingdom of God, now we hear that when they heard the amazing story of the empty tomb, they thought it was nonsense!

But it happened! It is nonsense, but it happened. I believe one of the biggest problems with Christianity is that people want to take the nonsense out of it.

I’ve heard radio preachers and television evangelists and all manner of Christians try to tell me that Christianity makes sense. That it’s the easiest, most natural thing in the world to believe in Christ.

I’ve been told and preached to and almost convinced that being a follower of Jesus is simple, that the stories of miracles and healings and the accounts of Jesus’ life, some of them amazing to me, are easy to accept.

I’ve been told that it’s logical to believe in someone who walked this earth almost 2,000 years ago in an obscure corner of creation, someone who performed miracles, who fed 5,000 people with a few loaves and fish, who raised a friend from death, who forgave a scorned woman at a well her sins.

Tell me, is it logical to believe in something that happened so long ago, so far away, something that defies medical, scientific, rational explanation?

I’m sorry, folks, I don’t buy it. I’m afraid I’m in the camp with the disciples. It is nonsense. For me to believe any of this would be for me to accept what isn’t possible. Believing in an event, in a story, that is so radical would have to change my perception of life.

If I believe the women’s story who ran from the tomb that first Easter morning, then I’m stuck with believing something so bizarre, so amazing, so radical, that my life will have to change.

And, my friends, that is exactly what God is asking of me. He doesn’t expect me to be able to prove it or even to completely understand it … it is always going to be nonsense … but it’s GODLY NONSENSE.

Maybe today He just wants it to sink in.  He just wants me to savor it and let it ruminate like a fine wine. Let it work on my soul.

Maybe today is a day we come simply in awe. Maybe today, the best we can do is marvel at the beauty of the flowers, enjoy the sounds of the trumpets, sing that Christ is risen.

But tomorrow – tomorrow is a different story. What matters most about Easter is what we do tomorrow. If we return to our homes and don’t think about Easter again until next year, then we’ve entirely missed the point.

If we don’t let what we hear and see today burn into our hearts and souls and minds, maybe we needn’t have bothered to come today.

Tomorrow, be Mary, recognizing the one who is our Teacher. Be Peter or the other apostles, who begin to share with anyone who will listen about what God has done for them. Be disciples, and announce the news, “We have seen the Lord.”

Amen.