A sermon given by the Reverend Sarah Grondin at St. Jude’s Oakville, at the Easter Vigil, Saturday, April 19, 2025.
I speak to you in the name of our loving, liberating, and life-giving God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I’d like you to raise your hand if you’ve ever heard of something called “Lent Madness.”
If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a spoof on March Madness, and instead of college basketball teams facing off, it’s a bracket-style holy smack-down between 32 Saints, and only one can be crowned the winner of the Golden Halo.
This year’s winner was Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. I was particularly excited about this win in light of our gospel reading tonight from Luke. What’s Zechariah got to do with Luke’s telling of that first Easter morning? Not a whole lot directly, but Luke’s gospel is bookended by stories of women witnessing to and sharing the glory of God, only to have their words dismissed as “woman’s talk.”
Let’s start at the beginning…. in chapter one of Luke's gospel, we have Mary’s Magnificat, perhaps one of the most powerful pieces in all of scripture. Mary sings of God's greatness and mercy, emphasizing God’s actions on behalf of the humble and the lowly, and his faithfulness through his promise to Abraham and his descendants.
And who’s the audience of this incredible witness to God’s glory? Only Elizabeth, and the children they carried within their wombs.
Shortly after this, when it comes time to name John, the people wanted to name him Zechariah after his father, but Elizabeth says that his name is John. Predictably, her words are dismissed, and everyone turns to Zechariah to know the name of the child, even though at the time he was unable to speak.
Mary’s Magnificat is proclaimed in the privacy of Elizabeth’s home and shared between two women, and when Elizabeth announces her son’s name is John, she is questioned and disregarded.
Zechariah, on the other hand, who had been rendered mute by God for failure to trust in his word, is relieved of his affliction when he demonstrates his obedience to God by writing on a tablet, “His name is John,” confirming what Elizabeth has already told those gathered. But now the people believe and accept it, and we’re told they were all amazed.
Zechariah then breaks forth into his song of prophecy and praise, which is uttered in the midst of those crowded around at the temple, and we’re told that those who heard it were afraid for surely the hand of the Lord was upon John.
Voices dismissed. Voices lifted up.
If we look at the end of Luke now, our Gospel reading today comes from the final chapter of Luke. We have the women arriving first at the scene of Jesus’ tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. They knew what they were there to do. They were there to do the woman's work of anointing Jesus's body for burial.
And why should they have expected anything different on that early morning? After all, dead people stay dead and the women surely knew what dead looked like.
So, when the women looked in the tomb and saw that Jesus's body wasn’t there, it’s understandable that they would be confused and afraid. But the angels tell them to remember the words that Jesus said to them, and suddenly in that moment they do remember. They remember Jesus telling them that “The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.”
And in that moment their fear turns to nervous excitement as they rush from the tomb back to the disciples, because what they’ve just seen can’t be comprehended, but must be shared!
The women tell the apostles about what happened at the tomb and how it’s empty. And just like Elizabeth was dismissed when she tried to tell those gathered around that her son's name was John, the women who tell the apostles the good news are dismissed as well.
But not only do the apostles reject the resurrection message, they reject the women outright, they decide that they’re “talking nonsense” and they refuse to even consider the possibility of what they’ve just heard. What the women have to say is so astounding… dead men, after all, stay dead… that the apostles simply write them off as babbling nonsense.
Voices dismissed. Voices lifted up.
This bookending of marginalized voices being dismissed, highlights Luke’s upside-down gospel narrative. Luke is clear that those on the margins—far from the named authorities and those with official roles—are the ones most intimately aware of the good news.
In these two particular stories that role is held by women… but the same holds true for all marginalized groups: the elderly, children, people with disabilities, people with brown or black skin, people who aren’t cisgender or heterosexual, the poor… and the list goes on and on. The voices of all these marginalized groups are dismissed and those with power and privilege are raised up even more.
The group of disciples were given the same opportunity to remember what Jesus had told them as the women were given at the tomb…and though the women had the benefit of the angel messengers, the Holy Spirit was also at work in them as they spoke to the disciples: the truth is the truth, no matter who says it.
Things are looking pretty grim at this point… The one they called Lord and Master has been crucified. Jesus has died and now his body is missing, the women who race to share the glory of God with the apostles are dismissed, and after going and checking the tomb with own eyes Peter still wanders away scratching his head.
That doesn’t sound much like Good News to me. It sounds like a whole lot of disappointments.
But Luke isn’t finished with us, he doesn’t leave us there. His upside-down gospel narrative invites us to look closer. Luke is teaching us an important lesson here…it doesn’t matter if the good news the women bring to the disciples is dismissed, it doesn’t matter if they believe them or not, because Christ is risen from the dead!
On the days where we’re plagued with doubt, on the days where we feel defeated, on the days when what we say is dismissed as crazy talk, and on the days we just can’t make sense of it all, or of anything!, Christ is still risen!
When the photocopier needs to be thrown out the window, when the preacher has a cold, or the flowers aren’t quite right, or someone sings off key… Easter morning still happens…Christ is still risen!
Because the truth is the truth no matter who says it or believes it, and love will not be defeated, even by death.
Luke’s account of the resurrection challenges us to look deep inside, to discern our hearts and minds willingness (or lack thereof) to receive the truth when it comes from those on the margins, from those who are looked down on, those who are viewed as being “less-than.”
The message of the gospel can be hard to hear for those of us on the side of power and status…it can be hard to hear because it presents us with a challenge to abandon our old ways of being and doing…and it can be hard to hear because sometimes, just the like the group of apostles, we’re not willing to listen to the Good News being shared with us because we don’t like the source of the message.
But my friends, the truth is the truth no matter who says it… and the truth is the truth whether we believe it or not. The truth of the Easter story is that Christ is risen, and even though those who share the message of God’s glory may face opposition in this world, and may find their voices dismissed while other more powerful voices are lifted up, the love that hung on that cross cannot be snuffed out, even by death.
If we’re willing to open our ears and our hearts to the Good News that the women offer us in today’s gospel, then we too will share forever in the love that conquers death.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
Amen.
