Imagine being the employee of the French bank Credit Lyonnais who was in charge of opening up. It was still dark last Monday morning when he arrived at the Paris bank right near the Louvre. Taking out the keys and opening up the bank’s exterior door. Turning on the lights. Going through the routine. Walking around getting things prepared for another business day when he noticed that the vault door was wide open. All the safety deposit boxes were empty. The vault was empty. $50 million worth of money and jewelry…gone. Stolen. It must have seemed surreal. Unbelievable. Hard to comprehend. Stunning. Shocking. Disturbing. It has been called the “crime of the century” and the gang that did it is being called “the Termites” because they dug through yards and yards of dirt and 31 inches of concrete. Left behind was a tunnel that had taken weeks to drill. The gang had spent a leisurely 48 hours inside the vault before leaving. Police continue to investigate.

The crime copied a robbery committed in Nice some 30 years ago by the mysterious Albert Raggieri. He, too, tunneled into a bank vault, emptied it but he left painted on the wall the words ‘without hatred, without violence, without weapons.’ Raggieri was apprehended and brought to trial but he escaped by jumping out a court house window and speeding away on a motorcycle.

In our scripture this morning in the gospel of John, we hear a different story – different yet similar in some respects. A single person – Mary Magdalene – makes her way to the tomb of Jesus in order to can pay her respects to him and continue her grieving. It’s the morning after the Sabbath yet still dark. Arriving at the scene, Mary is startled to see that the rock that had sealed the tomb has been rolled away. She walks in and sees that the contents of the tomb were all gone: the lifeless body of Jesus of Nazareth no longer there. It must have seemed surreal. Unbelievable. Hard to comprehend. Stunning. Shocking. Disturbing. No tunnel where an ancient gang of Termites might have tunneled in. No empty deposit boxes. Just two angels, a gardener and an empty tomb. The mystery of the millennia. In the eyes of the Law, three criminals had been tried. Three criminals had been crucified. Three criminals had died. Yet it appears that one may have escaped after all. Without hatred. Without violence. Without weapons. Listen.

John 20:1-18

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him." So Peter and the other disciple went forth, and they were going to the tomb. The two were running together ; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first ; and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in. And so Simon Peter also came, following him, and entered the tomb ; and he saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. So the disciples went away again to their own homes. But Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping ; and so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb ; and she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying. And they said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping ?" She said to them, "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping ? Whom are you seeking ?" Supposing Him to be the gardener, she said to Him, "Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary !" She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, "Rabboni !" (which means, Teacher ). Jesus said to her, "Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father ; but go to My brethren and say to them, 'I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.' " Mary Magdalene came, announcing to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord," and that He had said these things to her.

This is the Word of God for the People of God.

Thanks be to God.

You know the story: by Monday the reality had set in. Jesus was officially, certifiably, dead. Dead and buried in the tomb. The teacher was dead and so was “the movement,” that wonderfully vibrant and new take on the Law and how to have a relationship with God. His teachings. His miracles. His sermons. His ministry was over. And the hope that it had raised…the hope that seemed so real just days ago as he entered the city of Jerusalem to the cries of Hosanna and the palm-strewn streets. Well…that was but a distant memory. The Empire won. You can’t fight city hall. You can’t buck the system. He went from being a nuisance to being a threat and the powers took him out. The situation was hopeless.

We would understand if Mary felt that way on that bleak Monday morning. In fact, it’s an act of courage that she even got out of bed – that she would venture forth to go pay her respects to Jesus. So much of the challenge of life is just dragging yourself out of bed and showing up even when you don’t feel like it. Because life can be so very discouraging.

The comedian Fred Allen was once walking on a movie lot when he saw a newspaper boy about to get run over by a freight truck. Allen very heroically dove in front of the truck knocking the young man to one side and almost certainly saving his life. Allen helped the boy up and said, ‘What’s the matter, kid. Don’t you want to grow up and have troubles?’

It does seem that when you grow up in this life you get troubles. We get the big build up the big parade into the city with all of the heightened expectation only to have the whole movement thrown on to the city dump in Golgotha. It seems that the reality never quite sustains the promise. We survey the history of civilizations and what do we see but crumbling empires and failed utopias? So people lose hope.

It’s as if Mary approaches the tomb with the cosmic “I told you so” ringing in her ears. With the death of Jesus the entire movement and the message was most certainly over.

Yet a ray of uncertainty that it was not over yet.

But then the certainty of failure gave way to confusion. The darkness was beginning to lighten. The stone was rolled back. It was frightening. We don’t blame Mary that she ran back to tell Peter and the other disciple what she had found. There had been a strange comfort in at least knowing how it had all ended but now this confused everything. Mary assumed that the body of Jesus had been stolen and this added insult to the grief. The other disciple outruns Peter and makes it to the tomb first. He looks in but waits for Peter to arrive and go in before him. I don’t know if that was a pecking order thing. Respect for the big fisherman. The rock. The first among the equals. That the other disciple deferred to Peter. Maybe the beloved disciple was just out of breath and he just waved Peter in.

Anyway, after surveying the empty tomb, neither of them knew what to make of it…so they left. Truth is, no one is ever really ready for the revelation of Easter. It is by definition a total surprise.

Yesterday morning I was in my car stopped at the intersection McKinney and St. Paul. There was some sort of bicycle race going on and the police held us at bay while the cyclists sped by. So I watched them glide by in their spandex outfits and their water bottles and helmets when one cyclist got caught between the streetcar tracks and went down hard. Kur-rash! Then a second one did the exact same thing. They weren’t hurt. But they were sure confused. One moment they were gliding along according to plan. The next moment they are sitting in the middle of the street staring at a spinning bike wheel and taking inventory of body parts and bruises. Ouch! Talking to the two policemen who were checking on them to make sure they were all right.

This was Mary’s predicament. One moment she was dutifully headed to honor the tomb of Jesus the next moment her certain world has crashed and she’s talking to two angels. Who were checking on her asking her why she was crying. So she articulates the theft…the crime: ‘because they have taken away the body of my Lord and I don’t know where they have laid him!’ Then she turns and sees what appears to be the gardener. Has the same discussion with him. Cognition. This is what she thinks. The body has been stolen and there are two strangers and a gardener in the tomb.

But then she turned again.

A stunning turnaround. An amazing turn of events. When Jesus called her by name. She turned. Strepho. To turn. Again. And now she thinks and sees again. Re-cognition. Recognition. Rabboni! (which means teacher.) And it changed her life. It changed everybody’s life. It’s such a stunning turnaround that it’s hard to describe. Why did it change everything? Why is it that things could never go back to being the same?

One of the best descriptions to this type of life altering epiphany is to be found in a novel by Dashiell Hammett called The Maltese Falcon (though you won’t find it in the movie). Detective Sam Spade has been retained to locate a Tacoma, Washington woman’s husband who has been missing for five years. The grieving widow thought she saw her missing husband in a crowded airport in Spokane. Spade travels to Spokane and does indeed identify the man as the missing husband. When confronted, the man explained that he had been going about his normal walk to his downtown Tacoma office when a steel beam being hauled up a nearby construction site fell some 10 stories and struck the sidewalk right in front of him. A chip of smashed sidewalk flew up and cut his cheek but he was not injured. But he was scared stiff. He felt like somebody had taken the lid off his life and let him look at the inner workings. Until then life had been a sane orderly logical affair. Now a falling beam had showed him that life was fundamentally none of these things. And it changed his life. He just couldn’t go back.

In similar fashion, an encounter with the risen Christ had totally changed Mary’s grasp of the nature of life and death. She had understood that might makes right and the empire always wins and the weak ones lose, but now God had vindicated Jesus and revealed a new power. God had revealed a new creation! After such an encounter, there could be no returning back to the old way. No wonder she clung to Jesus! God had totally reversed the old reality. It had been for Mary a stunning turn of events! Jesus was raised from the dead. And all with no hatred, no violence and no weapons.

In the Easter moment, God shows a trailer – a preview – of what we can expect later. John affirms the reality of the resurrection but directs people’s attention to something even more significant: God’s new creation. In this scheme, Jesus is a victor not a victim. And the long redemptive cleanup of Creation has begun. As N.T. Wright says, ‘Easter was the first day of God’s new week.’ And the present is all about building God’s future and so it is important.

But only important in light of the future to come. It’s not that we are saying to God that this life is not enough but rather that in Easter, God is telling us that there is more. More to come! So much of what we experience in this life is fleeting. We become suspicious that it will not last.

We have all hurt for Sandra Bullock as she went from her marvelous Kodak moment and affirmation of her marital joy at the Academy awards only to be blind sided with scandal only days later. Glory is fleeting but fortunately, so is suffering. Paul said ‘I consider that the sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing to the glory about to be revealed to us.’

So proceed accordingly. Care about this life but leave something left over for hope in the future. I think my grandson demonstrated it to us last week at our delightful Easter egg hunt. He had his brand new Easter basket and he had lots of plastic eggs but he only put one egg in the basket. The rest he kept on the ground. We tried to get him to put them all in but he refused. He quite literally didn’t put all of his eggs in one basket…and neither should we.

This mortal existence in this realm is important and worthy of investment but don’t put all of your eggs in this one transient basket. Not just because the world will break your heart. Not just because this eventually comes to an end. But because there’s so much more to come!

I believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and I believe in the power of Easter. It is the bedrock of my faith. Maybe because I need to know that all the disparities, all the absurdities, all the injustices will be corrected some day. Maybe I have seen the flaws of this life and need to believe that we are going on to perfection in Christ! ...with no hatred, no violence, no weapons… but in the meantime, we have work to do and the Risen Christ to proclaim. For it is on Easter Sunday that we recognize him best and for that I am most glad!

On Easter we see the resurrected Christ:

And yet, at moments when the mind was hot
With something fierier than joy or grief,
When each known spot was an eternal spot
And every leaf was an immortal leaf,
I think that I have seen you, not as one,

But clad in diverse semblances and powers,
Always the same, as light falls from the sun,
And always different, as the differing hours.

Amen.