I Can Smell the Lilies

Sermon for Easter Sunday, April 17, 2022

Luke 24:1-12

¹On the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. ²They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³but when they went in, they did not find the body. ⁴While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. ⁵The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. ⁶Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, ⁷that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” ⁸Then they remembered his words, ⁹and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. ¹⁰Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. ¹¹But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. ¹²But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed, alleluia!

Dear friends, grace to you peace this Easter day, from the God of love through Christ, whose resurrection defeats the power of death forever.  Amen.

Many years ago, Easter Sunday came unusually early in the year – the opposite of this year, when it’s almost as late as it can be.  That early-Easter year presented a challenge we hadn’t expected – there wasn’t an Easter lily plant for miles around that was anything close to in bloom, just 6 days before Easter.

So we rounded up as many plants in bud as we could find that Monday in Holy Week, brought them all into the conference room, and ramped up the heat.  We locked the doors so no one could disturb this last-ditch effort to somehow have a few lilies in bloom for Easter Sunday.

My dear friend and colleague Pastor Dave Nagler and I were preparing to lead Good Friday worship.  We stood in the entryway at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Encinitas, California, about ten feet away from that conference room.  Suddenly I realized what I was smelling, and turned to Dave. “I can smell the lilies,” I told him.

Our first reaction was gratitude that our crazy experiment had worked.

But with a little more time, we realized that the Spirit was speaking that night, not me.

For when we stand in the middle of the grief of Good Friday, we can smell the lilies.  Or the freesia, or the hyacinths, or whatever lovely scent you like that doesn’t set off your allergies.

We can smell the sweet, sweet smell of death being put away forever.

We read these stories, year after year, with the vantage point of 20/20 hindsight.  We know what happens next.  We know how the story – well, doesn’t end.

And so WE can smell the lilies.

But Jesus’ followers that morning could not.  No matter how closely they may have listened to Jesus, they had all apparently missed “and rise again.”

In all fairness, they’d seen enough of what the Powers-That-Be were capable of, when challenged.  None of Jesus’ followers were interested in continuing down THAT road.

And so we see in both the disciples and the women, two very common behaviors when one is grieving.  For some people, they cope with grief by staying closed up and away from other people.  This is the disciples; they stay together but locked away from the world.  They probably share stories that begin “remember when Jesus did…” and keep an anxious eye out the window.

Others deal with their grief by finding something to do.  This is the women in the story.  They go about the work of female relatives of the deceased, bringing the mixture of spices and aloe to the grave to do the final work of preparing Jesus’ body for burial.

But none of these behaviors prepared anyone for what they encountered that morning.

The gospel writer notes that the women were “perplexed.”  I don’t know about you, but that seems a REALLY mild word for what they likely were feeling!  I mean, can you IMAGINE??  Especially with all that has happened in the last few days.  I don’t think they were perplexed, I think they were on the first syllables of “OH MY…” and then the two men in dazzling clothes appear.

(Maybe that’s when they all think that they really ought to try to get some more sleep.  I don’t know.)

Let’s add all this up.  Jesus has been killed by the state and the religious authorities.  Everyone thinks “game over.”  The guys who’d been seen with him the last three years were in hiding, because they know they’re next.  The women didn’t matter in society so they continued doing the manual labor they always did.

And that’s when the news is told that CHANGES ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING.

Because these men (we can safely assume they are angels) ask the women this great question:  “why do you look for the living among the dead?”

Why do you look for the living among the dead.

It’s a question of cosmic dimension, limitless answers, and timeless relevance.

It is the echo down through the centuries of the prophet Isaiah’s account of God’s words: “see, I am doing a new thing!  Do you not perceive it?”

And every year when we tell the stories of Easter again, that divine statement continues to hold deep and lasting relevance.  “See, I am doing a new thing.  Do you not perceive it?”

I am still speaking, says the Creator of the Universe.  Can you not hear it?

My Spirit is moving in this place, says Yahweh.  Do you not feel it?

I am continuing to make all things new, says our loving God.  Do you not believe it?

Can you smell the lilies?

Dear friends, it is that sweet aroma of the power of death being put away forever.  Of our thinking we will never be good enough for God – to be put away forever. 

And of our being freed in Christ’s sacrificial love to love one another, even if – PARTICULARLY if – the rest of the world thinks we are fools.

When you lean into that freedom, when you love your neighbor without any expectation, without any limits – then you are TRULY free.

Jesus’ simple message of love was as radical in 33 AD as it is today.  But if the last two years, in a global pandemic, has helped us see anything, it’s that love is the way.  The ONLY way.

Loving one another.  Loving our neighbor.  Loving – ourselves.

This is the peaceable reign of God.  Where all are welcomed and set free to love.

It begins here, and now, with you and me.

And it begins again tomorrow.  And the day after that.

Because this world, this life is never without its difficulties.  God knows that – because God in Christ came to earth and pitched God’s tent among us and walked and lived among us.  And continues to walk with us, and rejoice with us, and mourn with us, and just get through the day with us.

And stays by our side through it all – because Christ has defeated death.

As the traditional refrain goes: All of us go down to the dust; but even at the grave we make our song: alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

So why indeed DO we look for the living among the dead?

For Christ is risen – just as he told us.

Take a deep breath, friends.

And you’ll be able to smell those lilies too.

Amen.