Dear Sisters and Brothers,
“Go and tell”…
If the women who visited the tomb on that first Easter morning had not obeyed that directive, it could be that the
rest of the world would have never learned that God had defeated death and darkness through Jesus Christ. The
world might never have heard that God will not be confined by the limitations that worldly powers seek to
enforce through violence, torture, and death. We might not know that there is something greater beyond this
brief earthly life that awaits us all. We might all be left living in fear and desperation, convinced that violent
might does make right after all, and that he who dies with the most toys really is the winner.
If those female evangelists had decided to play it safe and not tell anyone what they had seen and heard, the
greatest story ever told might never have been told, it might have stopped right there with them. Fortunately for
us all they were brave and dedicated followers of Jesus; and committed themselves to spreading the word that he
lives.
Over 2,000 years later it is easy for us to lean on our oars a bit – confident that others before us have obeyed the
commandment to “go and tell”. We don’t feel the urgency and excitement that the women felt outside that empty
tomb, we believe somehow that everyone has already heard the news. (Or, perhaps, we don’t like the way that
we have seen others evangelize and so we shy away from it ourselves…)
God still needs earthly messengers to spread the word that Christ is alive and at work out and among us. We are
still asked to spread the good news about the ways that we have witnessed Jesus and active in our midst. It is not
enough that we hand people a bible and tell them to read the old, old story; we must be willing and able to add
new chapters that include our personal experiences of the ways that the risen Savior has worked in and
through our own lives. God still needs eye-witnesses who will eagerly share the news that not even death was
able to stop the Love and Truth that God shared with the world in Jesus Christ. If we don’t like the way that
others choose to tell the story, it is doubly important that we actively tell it as we would have it be heard.
This Easter, as we marvel and celebrate the empty tomb, may we each be re-inspired to do our part in the
ongoing spread of the news that our Lord and Savior lives and goes before us our into the world before us asking
us all to join him in the healing and reconciling work of bringing about the peaceable realm that God would have
us all live in.
Peace,
Pastor Layne