Michael Leunig is one of the gentle saints of our day, whose cartoons make us smile and touch something deep within us. One of his cartoons is called, "A Herbal remedy for life ache." He shows a fellow, bent over and sad. The caption reads, "You suffer from life ache. Your whole life is sore. It hurts when you move. Take a. patch of grass, two green trees. Lie under one tree, and contemplate the other one. Life ache can't be cured, but you can manage the symptoms."

This morning we take time to contemplate another tree. the empty cross, sometimes called the tree of Calvary, to contemplate an event that comforts the life ache within us.

When Mary went to the tomb on that first Easter's dawn, she felt an ache in her heart. The one whom she had followed, the one who had given her a new life and talked about love and joy and justice, had been arrested and put to death. His body rested in the tomb over the Sabbath, and she came early the next day to mourn. She didn't come with any hope that morning. And when she saw that the stone had been rolled away, she was afraid. Grave robbers were common in those days, and she wondered if someone had come and moved Jesus' body.

So she went and told Peter and the beloved disciple, and they ran to the tomb to see for themselves. Peter, always a bit impulsive, went into the tomb first. There they found the linen wrappings for the body, and the head cloth, carefully rolled up. That made them wonder; grave robbers wouldn't take the time to tidy up afterwards.

It was the beloved disciple who put it all together. He remembered how Jesus had told them that he would die, but after three days would be restored to them.
The beloved disciple saw the empty tomb and he believed.

But not everyone comes to faith so easily; we all have our different angles of encountering Jesus.
For Mary, it was different. The empty tomb meant fear for her, as she stood weeping outside. The sight of two angels in the tomb didn't seem to register, as she repeated her plaintive words, "They have taken away my Lord. and I don't know where they have laid him.
And even the sight of Jesus himself didn't break her out of the numbed shock that people feel when they first are mourning.

Only when Jesus called her by name, "Mary," did she awaken to who it was she was talking to. Jesus didn't speak with her long; he told her to go and tell the disciples what had happened. So Mary was the first witness to the resurrection, part of the close circle of Jesus' followers to whom he appeared after his death.

We see that people come to faith differently. Some seem to believe effortlessly, like the beloved disciple; they have the gift of faith. Others (like Mary) need an experience of some kind; an encounter that brings them face-to-face with the divine. And still others, like Thomas the disciple, (whom we'll look at next Sunday) need to have hard evidence before they believe.

But the real question isn't so much HOW we come to faith, but, IF we come to believe in Christ's resurrection, what difference does it make for us?
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First, I think it means that Easter becomes more than just a holiday weekend, more than just a traditional family time. My best memories of Easter are as a child, looking for eggs in the house, and knowing as I got older, that my brother and I needed to look in the planter that was way up high on a centre island between the kitchen and the lounge room. The best eggs were always there. (I hadn't yet connected the eggs being up high with the fact that my father is very tall!)

Another special memory is of going to church in new Easter dress, with white gloves and a hat (in the days when we still wore hats), and hearing my father, who was the bass soloist with the choir, sing, "I know that my Redeemer liveth."

But Easter is more than just the memories. By faith, it comes to mean that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will never be able to put it out

There are times in our lives when the darkness seems strong when you see your own mother who cared for you as a child now needing your care to be fed and looked after; when your own health lets you down and things you took for granted, like breathing easily or legs that would hold you up, don't come automatically anymore. There are times when work is hard to come by and we wonder what we have to contribute, or times when work is frustrating and we feel that life is slipping away.

The faith of Easter is that because Jesus has risen. new life is possible. I'd have to say that Easter is nowhere more dramatic than in the northern plains states where I grew up. There, the land lies frozen, sometimes several feet down, under deep snow for months of the winter. To look at the landscape, you would say that it was dead, and hard and cold. Bleak. No sign of life at all, or that life would ever return. (And you wonder why people would live in such a place!)

But about this time of the year, the snow begins to melt, and at last, in the flowerbeds up by the warmth of the houses, you begin to see little green shoots appear. They are the crocuses, braving the cold to show their yellow and purple flowers, the first sign of spring and Easter.

Easter comes like that, new life when all seemed cold. It comes as a reminder that death will not have the final word.

Easter comes, as it did for Mary weeping beside the tomb, with the promise that when we feel most alone, the Lord is there at our side, though we may not see or recognise him.
When we stand at the end of a relationship, feeling the pain of human brokenness that we hurt each other even without meaning to, God is there beside us to bring that peace that passes all human understanding.

And God is there in the people around us. We find him at those times when we expect the- worst from someone, and fear their rejection only to be given a word of grace.
Sometimes we catch a glimpse of our Lord in someone who has his father's eyes of compassion and gentleness. At times; he is there in a little child, whose unknowing smile is the most beautiful moment in our day.

The singer Joan Osborne had a popular song recently that asks, "What if God Were One of Us?, just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home." Sometimes God is there in the sad face of a stranger who looks like life has been hard. Easter reminds us that God is one of us, he is at our side even now.
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And Easter tells us that love is stronger than death, that we can look forward to a time beyond time of joyful reunion with-our loved ones who have gone on before. We are promised that our Lord takes them even to himself. As he told the thief on the cross, "today, you will be with me in paradise."

This past week, I came across a book by a Scottish preacher, Arthur John Gossip (a rather burdensome name for a preacher). As I opened the book, I saw a page of dedication that I'd never noticed before.
It said simply, "To my beloved wife, my daily companion still." A beautiful dedication. But if you read on, you find that his wife had already died when he wrote those words. "To my beloved wife, my daily companion still."

Underneath these words, he had written a quotation from the Scriptures, "How can I thank God enough for you? Night and day I pray with eager longing that I may see your face. With his own hand may God our Father and Jesus our Lord direct my way to you."

Because he felt her presence with him even beyond death, Arthur John Gossip was able to go on with his work of finding the life and the poetry of the Scriptures.

Easter tells us that love is stronger than death, that death will have no dominion. Because Christ lives, we are promised a day when there will be neither crying, nor sorrow, nor pain anymore, for the former things will have passed away.

Easter promises that God's kingdom will come when the lion will lie down with the lamb, when the nations will not learn war any more.
We are thankful this Easter day for signs that the conflict in Papua New Guinea is easing, for continuing peace talks in the Middle East and other glimpses of Christ's kingdom among us. Yet there are still so many places where that kingdom has not yet come--so many places where we are only half way home.
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The struggle over land rights becomes more complex and more entrenched as time goes on. Tragedies like the mass suicide in California provide am almost daily shock horror on the news. And. the countries of the world are faced with so many inequities; some live in fear of crime, some are unable to speak freely, some live with hunger that saps their strength for living.

We know the litany. Yet as all appears dark, we see the first, faint light of Easter's dawn, with shining hope that God's kingdom will come at last, and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

So this day we remember with joy that Christ is risen, the light that shines in our darkness, the companion at our side in trying times, the Lord who leads us on into the future that he has prepared for us.

And so we work and wait for the dawn when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God, and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.

Let us pray:
Lord Christ, you have gone before us even to death to show us the way home. May the joy of Easter burn undimmed in our hearts, leading us on to love you and your world. We ask it in the strong name of Jesus, the Risen Lord. Amen

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