Jesus was dead.

On Friday, Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Mary the mother of James had watched as Jesus was led away to die. They could tell he was already weakened. The blows of Pilate’s soldiers had taken their toll.

Still they watched as he was crucified, nailed to a cross like the common criminals hanging beside him. They watched as he struggled for breath—the weight of his body suffocating itself. They watched as his face was contorted in pain as he struggled to lift his body on pierced and broken feet.

They watched as he breathed his last, as the crowded who’d gathered to ogle as if this were some sporting event went home.

And later that day, they watched as a righteous man, a man named Joseph, took Jesus’ body from the cross, wrapped it in linen and placed it in a tomb.

Through eyes filled with tears, these women watched, and then they went home.

But on Sunday morning, they were back. Still raw with grief, still choking back tears at the sound of his name, they came to do what the situation and Sabbath law had prohibited. They came to mourn and prepare Jesus’ body for burial.

But on Sunday morning, Jesus wasn’t there. The tomb was empty. And scriptures say that the women were perplexed, but that has to be far too tame a word for what they thought and felt. I suspect they were devastated. After all the indignities that Jesus had faced, here was the final one--his body taken. The pain of loss, the grief they felt, had to have been overwhelming as they stood there at the tomb.

Yet what happened next was even more curious—two angels appear. We have been trained to think good things happen when angels appear. For those who watch Disney, you know that when Christopher Lloyd appears in the outfield the struggling home team is bound to win. For those who prefer network fare, you know that when Roma Downey and Della Reese arrive, everything’s going to be all right—hearts are going to be healed, comfort brought, hope restored.

But not here—not yet. Mary, Joanna and marry get angels with attitude. They encounter two heavenly beings with chutzpa. "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" the angels ask. But it is not really a question. They rebuke these women who have come to grieve, who’ve come to give Jesus a proper burial, who’ve come to say their final goodbye. The angels chided the most faithful of Jesus’ friends.

Why? The answer is simple. Because in their grief, the women had forgotten all that Jesus had told them. "Remember," the angel says, "Remember how he told you in Galilee that he would be handed over to sinners, be crucified and on the third day rise again.

"Remember," they said. "Remember what Jesus promised."

And the women did. They remember all that Jesus had said. They remembered that he was to live again. They remembered that indeed he was to die but that he was to be raised. And they found hope. The empty tomb meant Jesus had risen.

Of course, we find ourselves in a different place today. We come today not in grief but in joy. We come not to mourn but to celebrate. Yet the message is the same: "Remember—Jesus Christ is risen."

No matter what trauma or grief we face, we are called to remember that Jesus is Risen. We are called to remember that because he lives, evil has been overcome. Because he lives, death has been defeated. Because he lives, we have life abundant and eternal. Because he lives, we live. When we remember that, we too find hope.

She was a college student—young, full of energy, her future unfolding before her. That is, until a car accident ended her all too brief life.

A few days later, students and faculty gathered in the campus chapel. They were there to remember her life and mourn her death. But this was no "memorial service," no mere remembrance of a loved one, no eulogizing what an angel she was, no platitudes about her living on in us. This was worship. When the choir sang, they sang of a Risen Savior. When the scriptures were read they recalled a Risen Lord. When the preacher preached, she proclaimed a Christ who was an alive. That day in that place, a group of sad and mournful people remembered more than their student and friend. They remembered that Christ is risen. And there they found hope.

The room was small, as hospital rooms often are. On the bed, he lay, tubes helping him to breathe. He’d not spoken for a while, not even responding to his family’s gentle words. All those who came could do was sit by his bed, hold his hand, caress his brow--and wait.

But that evening a church group came down the hall. You see, it was almost Christmas and they had come to sing. As they moved along they filled the hall with carols--"O Holy Night," "Little Town of Bethlehem," "Silent Night." And then they went into his room and began to sing: "Go tell it on the mountain. Go tell it on the mountain. Go tell it on the mountain. Jesus Christ is born." And the man whose body had been silent for days began to move his lips, to mouth the words of that great hymn.

And he remembered. There in the abyss between life and death, he remembered that Christ is risen. And in that truth, he found hope.

For four excruciatingly long years, Christian Reger survived brutal imprisonment in the notorious Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. His life there was hell, and yet later, after the war, he returned to the place of his torture, the place of his nightmares, and served as the chaplain of the Protestant Chapel on the grounds of Dachau. When asked to explain how he could do such a thing, he said that Nietzsche said a man can undergo torture if he knows the ‘why’ of his life, his reason for being. But that when he was at Dachau he learned something far greater. He had learned not the why of his life, but the who. He had learned that Christ is risen and that was enough to see him through his imprisonment and enough to see him through his life. Remembering
Christ is risen, he found hope.

He was a drunk and had been for nearly four decades. But one day he was staggering by a tailor shop when a little boy caught his eye. The lad had his nose pressed against the window. Inside the shop, set up for Easter, was a model of Jerusalem, the holy city. As the old man looked on, the boy began to point out the sites he’d learned in Sunday School.

"That’s the Temple," he said. "Jesus taught there, and one day he chased out all the people who were cheating others. And over there, that’s the pool of Siloam. There was a man there who had been sick for 38 years, but Jesus healed him. He told him to get up, that he was all better."

The little boy pointed to the Upper Room: "That’s where Jesus had the Last Supper with his disciples. He gave them Holy Communion there. Jesus is still with us when we eat it."

A small bit of hope flickered in the weary old heart. "Could the Healer still be with us?" he wondered.

Then the boy turned his attention to the high priest’s house and the fortress. He told the man how Jesus was taken from the Garden of Gethsemane, abused, convicted, forced to carry his cross up the hill to Calvary. "That’s where Jesus died," the little boy said.

And with those words, the old man began to walk away--the small flicker of hope now gone. "How could one who could help and heal be rejected and killed?" he thought as we moved down the sidewalk.

But as he thought, the sounds of little steps running up behind him interrupted. He felt a gentle touch to his sleeve. When he turned he found the little boy standing behind, his face all aglow.

"Hey, mister," he said, "he rose again."

And there on the sidewalk an old drunk remembered. Pulled from the recesses of him mind, he heard the words spoken in church on an Easter Sunday more than a half-century before: "Christ is risen! He is risen indeed." And he found hope.

The angel’s message is simple: It is "remember."

When a loved one dies, remember: Christ is risen.

When illness grabs hold of you and won’t let go, remember: Christ is risen.

When evil surrounds you and the powers of darkness overwhelm you, remember: Christ is risen.

And because he is, there is hope!