Acts 10.34-43; 1 Corinthians 15.19-26;
Luke 24.1-12

I have a difficulty with a very popular funeral reading. It’s the one that starts “Death is nothing at all.” It goes on to talk about how the person who has died is only in the room next door and how nothing has changed, how those left behind should laugh and smile and pray as they have always done.

Now, I can quite understand why so many people use this at funerals - and I certainly don’t want to offend anyone here who has done just that - but it’s the idea that death is nothing at all, I take issue with.

Those of you here who have suffered the death of someone close to you will know that life can never be the same again. For many, the death of a loved one brings with it the greatest pain that they will ever feel.

It can release many other emotions too: loneliness, anger, fear of being left alone, guilt, hurt, despair. A death might drag up unfinished business from the past or leave us grieving for things we never had time to say.

The pain might become less sharp over the years, but if we have truly loved the person who has died, we will continue to miss them and life will never be quite the same.

Bearing all that in mind, I cannot agree that death is nothing.
• Death is separation from those we love.
• Death in the human sphere is the end.
• Death is an ending. Even Jesus wept at the grave of his friend Lazarus.

And that’s how it would have seemed to those women who went early to the tomb on Sunday morning that first Easter.

They had seen the one they loved die on a cross in terrible pain. They would have been aware that he had had enemies. They may well have felt let down, deserted, fearful, sad and despairing. Or they may still have been at the stage of an awful numbness, a not-quite believing what had happened stage.

But without a doubt, they were expecting to go to the tomb and find a body. We’re told they are taking spices with them for the body.

Instead they come across something they hadn’t expected at all: the stone has been rolled away and there is no sign of a body.

God surprises them. God has done the unexpected. God has raised to life the one that they had seen dying with their own eyes.

And God still surprises us today. That is at the heart of the Easter story. God raised Jesus to life for ever. So 20 centuries later, God can continue to surprise us through Jesus because he is alive.

If death is nothing, then there is no room for God to work in the world. It was victory over sin and death that God won in Jesus on the cross. That implies that death was something to be concerned about.

God continues to surprise us today. God’s surprises are the things of life. The two men in dazzling clothes ask the women why they are looking for the living among the dead. That’s a question for us too, to open our eyes and see God’s life around us, to open our eyes and with them see that the tomb is empty and that Christ lives.

The women needed to see the empty tomb before that believed. But they were willing to let go of their pre-conceived notions of what should be in order to let God surprise them.
Often we fail to see God in the world around because we’ve shut our eyes to the unexpected.

When the women raced back and told the other apostles their news, they were met with disbelief, from all except Peter. This message that Christ was risen seemed so unlikely to them that it was dismissed as an idle tale.

But Peter, always impetuous, accepted their word enough to go and look for himself. I wonder how he felt at that moment, knowing that he had let Jesus down so badly only a couple of days earlier. Even so, this was such an amazing surprise, the thought that Jesus might be alive, took over so completely that he put aside any worries about his denial.

God surprised the women in a stupendous way. God surprised Peter that he went home amazed.
 
Let us allow God to surprise us too, in the dazzling dance of the sun’s morning rays, in the first shoots of life we see in the garden, in the faces of the people we meet.

Let us allow God to surprise us through the beauty of creation, through the glimpses of goodness in the midst of a selfish world, in our hearts and homes.

Let us lay aside ideas of what should be and what we expect so that we can open our eyes to the God who is alive and see his glory in the world around.

Let us allow the risen Christ to bring us forgiveness, to heal our hurts and to enter our closed hearts.

Not because death is nothing, but because death is something that is conquered by the love of God for each one of us.

May God surprise our hearts this Easter with his ever-flowing love and forgiveness, and may we then respond to the call not only to come and see but also to go and tell.

May our lives so bubble over with Easter life that others will be drawn to the risen Christ. Amen.