Happy Easter!
Great Music.  Classic Hymns, Spring Flowers.  Maybe brunch, or a great Easter dinner at the folks.  I love Easter.  Even as a child,  I loved Easter more than Christmas (the reason is too complicated to share with you  today).  We're all here today to celebrate the resurrection of Christ.  Isn't it absolutely amazing that the story of the resurrection lives on in  people like you and me.  Today, all over the world, Christians are retelling the story that has changed the lives of believers since that first Easter.  Everyone coming to church today knows what the topic will be:  power that triumphs over death.
When Beethoven set the creed to the music of his "Mass in C",  he had the chorus and orchestra repeat the statement-each time more boldly then the time before-et exspecto, et exspecto, et exspecto resurrectionem."   "And I expect, and I expect, and I expect the resurrection!"  Isn't that a great statement:  I expect the resurrection!  When someone tells you that they don't believe in the resurrection, ask them if they can expect the resurrection. 
If you have recently lost someone you love then you'll hear the Easter story differently from someone whose life is rolling along sweetly.  If you favor a woman's version of a story over a man's, if you have trouble with  angels or insist that seeing is believing and hold that someone else's story can never be trusted, then you'll interpret the Easter story in different ways.  It is  such a powerful and mysterious story that it can be interpreted in thousands of ways… just as all four gospels tell the story with different threads.
Jesus is dead in a garden tomb.  There are women visitors in the pre-dawn dark, but the numbers and names vary in the gospels.  The tomb is open in all the gospels, but for different reasons.  Some versions have military guards, but others do not.  Some times they fall over and faint-very unsoldierly conduct.  Some times they get bribed to spread rumors.  In only one version, there is an earthquake.  In another, a gardener appears who turns out to be Jesus.
In all the stories, everyone is very confused, running about in the dark.  Strong words are used: terrified, dumbstruck, confused.  In all the versions,  the men have trouble believing the women.
Does all this make the story any less believable?  No, it increases the reality.  Think of any traumatic event in your life or in our times.  There are bound to be different versions of the event from everyone involved.  How will the war with Iraq be told?  The pro-war version will differ from the anti-war version.  Telling different version can be a bonus instead of a liability.
For the modern, science driven, secular mind, the resurrection is a hard story to get inside.  Take it at face value and it's outrageous, impossible, magical, unbelievable. The story is about a group of people who knew far more about Jesus than we ever can, who loved him to death, and were suddenly faced with having to know him all over again in a new way.  Can you imagine what the people involved in the story-guards, gardeners, early morning workers in Jerusalem-who saw something of all this confusion  and shouting would have said when they went home to their families that night, "you'll never believe what I ran into this morning down by the cemetery."
In 2003, we continue to  give ourselves over to the Easter story and allow it to live in us and transform us.  In a world where every thing seems to be going wrong, God continues to be at work and makes something very right… that is our Easter story… today, tomorrow and forever. 
Don't lower your expectations when you're in love with God.

Fr. Bill