Grief + Hope

“Grief + Hope”

April 20, 2025 Cobleskill United Methodist Church

Pastor Anna Blinn Cole

Luke 24:1-12

Easter Sunday

Luke 24:1-12

The Resurrection of Jesus

24But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they 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.

This has been a windy week.  Our new Easter banner out by the corner blew off so many times that we decided to take it down for all of Wednesday and try again on Thursday.  And yet this morning when I poked my head out the door at 5:30am the air felt calm and 40 degrees almost felt balmy compared to Easter sunrise last year in the 20s.  

It didn’t take more than 5 seconds, though, standing up on the hill in the cemetery to realize that what can be calm air can quickly turn gusty.  And then calm again and then gusty. What’s the saying in upstate NY?  Don’t like the weather?  Wait 5 minutes and it will change. 

The air this week and its shifts from gustiness to stillness reminded me of two extremes.  And how we long for stillness and the comfort it brings and yet we also have gusts that disturb and shake us, literally, sometimes. 

This Lent we’ve been talking about different extremes.  Different ends of the spectrum that we might sometimes call opposite.  But as we take a closer look through Jesus’ eyes, we find that what may have been opposites in our view are actually part of a spectrum where there is room for both/and instead of either/or.  The wind this week made me laugh because there was very little middle ground, it was either blowing you over or it was calm and sunny.  

Today we’re looking at the spectrum between grief and hope.  Somedays it feels like there is no middle ground.  Grief on this end- blowing us over or hope on this end- allowing us to stand.  

Other days, though, we find ourselves somewhere in between.  When we’ve known grief in our life, it never completely leaves us, and yet we find reasons to go on.  I’ve seen a visual representation of this.  Grief is a round shape that covers everything else.  And slowly, as time passes, a circle around grief grows.  Grief appears to be getting smaller but in fact, it is us who grow around our grief.  Our capacity to hold it grows and our lives grow.  The grief itself is still there, and actually still the same size and same heaviness.  It’s us who grow around our grief.

Hope and grief can be opposite ends of the spectrum, but they don’t have to be. And we hear that in scripture, too.

I’m pretty sure I’ve said this before, but each of the four gospels present the story of Jesus with different details.  As though the same event is seen from different perspectives and interpreted in different ways.  The resurrection of Jesus is no different.  This year for Easter we hear Luke’s version.  I love how we can explore the story through different angles.  Here are some things I noticed about the story today: 

1.  In Luke’s gospel it is grieving women who discover Jesus has been resurrected.  This is actually the only detail about the resurrection that is found in all four gospels.  It is the grieving women who have come to anoint Jesus’ body who observe the resurrection first and then report back to the other disciples.  I like to think about how this made it the women who were the very first preachers of the good news of Jesus… ever.  

2. The second detail to notice is that it is only in Luke’s gospel that the women see angels at the tomb but not… Jesus.  They see an empty tomb.  It’s the angels that tell them the news.  But they do not actually see Jesus on that morning.  Instead, the angels announce the resurrection by asking the women to remember who Jesus was and what he had taught them.  Instead of having Jesus in front of their eyes, they are asked to believe in the impossibility of his resurrection because they remember that this is who Jesus always promised to be.  The one who rises above the very worst thing and overcomes it with love.

3. The last detail I found interesting in Luke’s gospel, is that the women go back and tell the disciples, men (I dare say…) … who don’t believe the women.  They call their story “nonsense” or some translations say an “idle tale.”  One of them, though, Peter stands up and runs in the direction of the tomb.    

If you’ve been around a small child much in your life you probably know how one of the best things in the world is to have the attention of an adult.  I still remember the days when I would hear over and over again, “Mama, watch me.”  Or “Mama, look at this!”   It doesn’t really matter what you are doing as the adult, if there is something a child needs you to see they will let you know RIGHT AWAY and they will often not give up until you stop what you’re doing and look.  Children have incredible persistence.    

For my part, over the years, a lot of the time I’ll say “I’m watching” by turning around and glancing.  Because over the years I’ve learned that a lot of the time the thing that so urgently needs to be seen is the fact that the pancake is shaped like a hot air balloon.  Or that the bell on her tricycle works, today, too!  Just like all the other days that went before today.  Wow, I say, half-paying attention yet trying to give the impression of full attention.  

But occasionally these requests will happen at a time when you’re doing something important, like washing the dishes so you can get everyone to bed on time or rushing to the car so you can go somewhere important on time, or doing things for work, because, you know, it’s your job.  And sometimes you’ll be in the middle of one of these things and a child will say, “look at that!” or “watch this” and we will instinctively give that half-attention pretending to be a full attention glance only to realize what the child is doing or what the child is looking at is actually truly amazing.  I remember this happening so many different springs when the thing that so desperately needed to be seen was the first glorious daffodil that had bloomed in our yard.  Or the once during church my much younger child had drawn a picture of an oil jar in the sanctuary as something she wanted to give to Jesus.  We can get stuck in a rut where we stop having wonder and awe because we think we’ve seen it all.  

Every Easter, I have to imagine God up there, or wherever God is, yelling down to us, “hey, are you watching… hm? Are you watching yet?  Hey, look over here.  Cause you really should be.  Stop what you’re doing because this is gonna be awesome.  Just like a child who’s seen an eagle in the sky.  Or the first daffodil of spring.  But even better. 

This must have been what the women felt when they came running back to the disciples.  “Look, look! You guys have to see this!”  Maybe the disciples felt like they’d seen it all at this point already.  Maybe it was because it was “just the women” talking.  Maybe it was because they were distracted by their grief.  Whatever the reason, the disciples blow it off.  Just an idle tale.  

Except for one.  Peter rises up.  Peter senses that something more important is on the line.  He runs to the tomb and he sees for himself that it is truly empty.  This is no idle tale.  Peter and the women remembered that the Jesus they loved was the Jesus who could not be stopped by death.  

Too much of the time we take the resurrection for granted.  It’s not necessarily that we think it’s an idle tale, but that we pay attention with that kind of half attention pretending to be full attention.  We show up and we go through the motions. God says, “look, look, look!” and we say, “Yeah, God, ‘I’m watching.’”  But really, we take the resurrection for granted.  It plays second fiddle to the Easter Bunny or the family dinner.  It blends into the background of things that matter in our lives.  

But what if it didn’t?  What if the urgency of looking at this sacred story with fresh eyes in 2025 meant something radically life-changing?  What if it is this story that teaches us each year in a fresh way what it means for grief and hope to co-exist?  What if it is the women who, in their grief, believe that something impossible could be true without even seeing the proof.  What if it's Peter who didn’t let his grief keep him from running after what it was that he knew he wanted to see. What if the urgent message God wants us to hear this year is that what the world thinks is impossible could be possible, our hope can come out of our grief, if we pay attention.  If we believe in the possibility enough to rise up from the place we’ve gone to hide and we chase what we know and want to be true.  What if the message is that love wins.  That love always wins.

Don’t let this moment pass you by when you can choose to pay full attention.  Resurrection is about believing in hope even when you haven’t yet seen the proof.  Resurrection is about God meeting us in our grief and showing us how to imagine that we will grow, still.  God is calling us, maybe even in the wind, to look.  To watch.  To pay attention.  To believe.  To rise up.  To love anyway.  And may we listen.  Amen.

Here now this call to confession:

The Gospel of Luke says: “It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told the apostles [of the resurrection]. But these words seemed to the disciples an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb."1

Forgive us, God,

when good news lands in our lap and we refuse to believe it.

Forgive us, God,

when grief and fear crowd out any room in our hearts for hope.

Forgive us, God,

when we dismiss the stories of others and minimize the voices of our neighbors.

In a world that teeters between grief and hope, show us how to be like Peter.

Show us how to hold onto hope.

Show us how to run toward you. Amen.

Happy Easter,

Pastor Anna