Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Matthew 28:1-10

Alleluia! Christ is risen.
Christ is risen, indeed. Alleluia!

With all the turmoil at the airport recently—and a trip to New York for a funeral—I found myself asking the question: How early is early enough? I usually leave the house two hours before my flight. Enough time to get through security, get coffee, and do a little people-watching—my favorite spiritual discipline.

But my body remembered another time, not too long after I moved here, when I walked in and saw huge crowds. The North security lanes were under construction. The line stretched north… then curled back south… then wrapped north again. It was like a liturgical procession designed by someone who had lost all hope.

I tried to step into the line—only to discover I had stepped into a gap. False belonging. The mirage of progress.I learned the word, “budge,” which in a situation like that apparently is an identity: a “budger.”

At one point, I saw the end. Locked eyes with it. And just as I sped up—people flooded in ahead of me. It moved farther away the faster I walked. The clock ticking. The body tightening. The bargaining with God: “If I make this flight, I will become a better pastor.”And then—the realization. I was in the wrong line. I have TSA PreCheck. I had been pre-approved for salvation… and I was standing in the line of despair.

But I didn’t move.

What if the other line was worse?
What if I lost my place?
What if it was the right line and the people around me were wrong?

So I stayed. I made my flight—but just barely.

A few months later, I flew again. You would think I would learn. Nope. Same two hours. Same chaos. Same crowd. But this time—there were people holding signs: End of Line Here. Clear. Visible. And there—like a vision of heaven—was the PreCheck symbol. “You, sir… you have already been cleared.” I stepped into that line.

Now, I don’t know if I got through faster. But something changed. I was calm.I was cheerful.
I became—God help us—an evangelist for good signage. Because when you know where you stand, it’s possible for even the chaos to feel differently. Thank God for a clear sign that the end of the line was not going to be proverbial “end of the line.”

Which, as it turns out, is a really hard thing to believe. It’s why Matthew tells his version of the resurrection so dramatically: earthquakes, lightning flashes, a descending angel perched on top of the stone as if it were a folding chair on the parade route, big strong soldiers on the ground like those fainting goats from Tik Tok videos. The women gob smacked as they held their jars of now-unnecessary spices.

Matthew knows how sketchy this is. Dead people do not rise. Empires do not lose. Missions like Jesus’, with all its compassion and kindness, are for snowflakes. Love is nice but not in the real world. There’s always a clear end of the line, and there are always those who deserve to be at the end. Like the women.

Yet every single story places them at the tomb, the end of the line, and it is their voices that lead to today, the first preachers, even though no one got an accurate list of their names. “He is risen.” He is not where you thought he would be. Jesus is never where the empire, the Pontius Pilates, or the ones who draw the lines want him to be.

We tend to think resurrection is something waiting for us at the end of the line. Someday. After death. After everything falls apart. When we’re not afraid anymore. Or become the people everyone around us thinks we are. Or make the perfect lamb cake with a buttercream frosting that looks just like the wool on a baby lamb. (But I project…)

To everyone one of us who has not arrived, who isn’t sure about what’s next, who knows more about being last than first, or must ice a cake this afternoon, the ones who just can’t seem to stop being afraid, Jesus says, “Greetings.”

The word in Greek does have an elevated meaning to it: reverence, joy, awe. Apparently, Jesus can wait to see the guys. But he’s overjoyed to see these women.  He can’t wait. The Risen One was raised by them! Hail! Wow! Yay! The word he uses is connected to grace, charity, love, delight, wonder, awe. Jesus cherished these women.

I remember a therapist long ago telling a friend, “Everyone deserves to be cherished.” That phrase has lived in me like a seed, a promise that I’ve held onto in tougher times, and a mission for what we offer to those we meet along the way.

Everyone deserves to be cherished. Not put up with, or tolerated, or noticed, or even forgiven or respected or properly honored. Cherished. There is a tender kindness, a deep delight, a joyful prayer for thriving, good, powerful life in such a greeting.

Had I thought of this earlier in Lent, I would have ordered signs for this morning. We would hold them up as you began to line up for communion. Right behind the bread, held up next to the wine, waving with joy near the juice.

The end of the line. Which is, of course, where we begin.

At communion, we will want to say, “Greetings, you are so loved; so cherished.” But we’ll say, “The body of Christ given for you.”

It’s really all the same. The end of the line HERE.

Alleluia. Christ is risen!

Christ is risen, indeed. Alleluia!