This morning the tomb is empty.  We tell each other the story of the resurrection. We also tell many other stories. You could say that we are telling stories about storytellers. This is important because we’d be nowhere without storytellers. Our whole faith and everything important we believe – we know all this because someone told us the story.

         There are always certain elements to a good story. There is always a challenge to the protagonist that upsets the status quo. There is a choice that the hero makes that shows his or her true values. Finally there is an outcome that moves the story to a conclusion. In God’s story, we are always brought back to a place of blessing and new life. Sometimes it seems a long way off. Sometimes it seems impossible. But God always finds a way.

          We’ve all come here today in the midst of our own stories. We all have chapters in our lives where God has done something unexpected. What was your story? What great challenge did you have to face? What choices did you make along the way that made a difference? How did your story change you? How did your story bring you here today?

         Peter was challenged to share God’s message to gentiles. I realize that this seems silly now, but it was an unimaginable barrier to Peter. He had a recurring dream of God inviting him to eat all sorts of ritually unclean foods. In the end God commanded him to not reject anything God declared clean or holy. Peter made the choice to visit a stranger and to share the good news even though he didn’t know what would happen. To everyone’s surprise, the gathered people all welcomed God’s good news and they believed and were transformed. It was the first step towards welcoming the likes of you and me into God’s new world.

         The apostle Paul writes about the testimony of many witnesses. The choice of many people to share what they knew is the foundation of what you and I believe today. Paul reminds us that each generation has to pass on their faith to the next. We can’t set up some sort of program that will preserve the church forever. We have to share what we’ve seen. We have to share what we’ve learned. The next generation will have to do the same. God is always at work. We’re not passing down heirlooms. We’re passing down our lives.

         On the first Easter morning, Mary is given some hard challenges. She is grieving for her dead teacher. She goes to the tomb early in the morning, hoping to finish preparing the body of Jesus. She does not know what she will find. She doesn’t know if she’ll be able to do what she intends. She is making a brave choice because the other followers of Jesus are hiding in fear. They fear (perhaps rightly) that if they publically declare their connection to Jesus they might end up with the same punishment of death.

         When she finds the tomb empty, she tells the other disciples. Peter and John run in and out, but May stays by the tomb and asks what happened. She is confused and sees angels and someone she thinks is the gardener. When he says her name, she knows that it is Jesus. Because she chose to be brave, Mary is the first witness to the resurrection.

         The empty tomb is the surprise ending to the Easter story. It is still empty. We are still witnesses of the empty tomb. We are still challenged to share what we have seen. Will we have the courage to speak about the God we have met along the way? Will we have the courage to speak of our faith in a world of skepticism? Will we have courage to be generous in world of anxiety? Will we have the courage to love in a world trapped in fear?

         We are witnesses of these things. The story of the first resurrection has been handed down to us by generations of Mary’s before us. We are also witnesses to the things that God has spoken to us and the things that God has done in us. We have lived through many challenges. We have made many difficult choices. Sometimes we have chosen well and sometimes poorly. Yet God is always at work in us. God is always loving us. The outcome is the unfolding story about how God is saving us.

         No expects the tomb to be empty. We all have our plans for God. We think we know just how God should help us. It rarely turns out that way. Our plans all fail and we despair. The empty tomb is a surprise. God does the unexpected. When we let God work in us the outcome is new life.

         When we tell the story, maybe there is more going on than the effect we have on the one who is listening. In the telling, we are changed. We discover the love of God in the plot we didn’t see at first. We realize how much we depend on God. We see that God has blessed us despite ourselves. We have added nothing to the riches we have been given.

         Even so, we are invited to enter into God’s story. God would make us characters in a new narrative. With all our failures and limitations, we are the followers who have been chosen to share the treasure we have discovered. We are the witnesses beside the empty tomb. That empty tomb may be for us an escape from addiction – a recovery from an illness – a lifetime of service to our family or our community. Somehow God has inspired us to get to this point in our lives. We wouldn’t have made it here without God.

This is our Easter. This is what we must find the courage to proclaim.

          Tonight we remember stories. We remind ourselves of how God worked in the lives of people in the past. We remember times that looked desperate. We remember how fortunes changed for God’s people in ways that they never suspected. There was a great natural disaster and God saved people and animals in a great ship, an ark. There was once a time when people were enslaved and God drew them out into freedom and crushed their oppressors. There was a time when people were scattered and their future – their nation and their faith – looked all but dead. God gives a vision of a new people being created out of the death of the old.

         We also remember our first story. We remember the story of the resurrection. This is a difficult story. Christmas is easier for us. Our yuletide stories are all about gifts and the transformative power of generosity. It’s very human. We can see how others appreciate the gifts we offer. We can feel how generosity transforms us. When we give ourselves the freedom to act, we can understand what God does in giving us Jesus and we can imagine how we might copy God.

         Easter is a little distant. The story of holy week is much more somber. We don’t rush to embrace the suffering of Jesus. It’s difficult to comprehend the depth of Jesus’ sacrifice for us. We can barely describe what the resurrection means. Our finest theological statements about Easter sound like good guesses. The story ends with an empty tomb. There is nothing to copy. There is no way to recreate the feelings and hand them to someone else.

         We have joy. We have a sense that we are loved. There is an assurance that, since God has broken the power of our worst enemy, the rest will work out. Whatever challenges we face, the most difficult challenge has been met and God has prevailed.

         If there is any common theme in all these vigil stories, it is how God has brought people to a new place, a better place, the place God desired from the start. I think we struggle because we are always trying to get back to where we were. God wants to bring us the place we need to be.

         A while back, we were using a process called public narrative to tell our stories. Each of our stories contains a challenge, a choice and an outcome. I offer you the opportunity to think about your own stories. Think of a time when God has acted powerfully in your life.

         Without sharing your story with all of us, consider the outcome. I would guess that for most of you, whatever struggle or challenge you faced; when God worked powerfully in your life, the outcome was that God brought you to a new place. I would even guess that the new place to which God brought you was an unexpected place. God brought you to a place of unexpected blessing. Whatever you asked of God, God brought you the place you needed to be – even if it wasn’t the place you expected.

         I don’t know your stories. You may have had a very different outcome. I would like to remind us of how many of our stories are like our other resurrections stories. We go through tough times and we see no relief. We struggle and fight and it only seems to get worse. Sometimes, when God acts, we are surprised. Something changes. Something serendipitous, lucky, miraculous, turns the course of events in a new way and our world is changed. We can only marvel and give thanks. We find ourselves with a new job, greater health, a new family. We don’t deserve it and here it is.

         We find ourselves looking for explanations for the empty tomb. There are none. God doesn’t ask for our advice on how to save the world. God just does it. We are left with the blessing and the gift of sharing the blessing. Unlike Christmas, we can’t copy God’s gift by buying something at the store. We are given the privilege of sharing the resurrection we know. Of course, we share the story of the resurrection of Jesus. And we are also called to be eyewitnesses to how God has worked in us. We are given the work of sharing what we personally know of the resurrection – how God has worked in our lives.

         We don’t really need candy or eggs. We don’t need to rush to Walgreens or send out cards. We only have to share good news. We get to share how God has loved us.

          A few weeks ago, Bishop Ahrens shared an African proverb:

         “If you want to go fast, go alone.

         If you want to go far, go together.”

When the two disciples traveled to Emmaus, they didn’t know what was happening. They couldn’t make sense of al that they had seen. They didn’t know what would become of them. The great gift of the story is how they traveled from a place of fear and confusion and found a place of joy. Even though they returned to Jerusalem, they had traveled a great distance. With the help of Jesus, they got there together. They got there by telling their story.

         Over the past few months we have been telling stories to each other. We have been engaged from time to time in the practice of public narrative. Remember that there are three parts to a good story. There is a challenge, there is a choice and there is an outcome. By forming the episodes of our lives into stories, we begin to discern how we act; we can discern why we act and what is important to us. Stories cannot be told alone. By speaking and listening together, we learn from each other. We begin to recognize the things that are important to our whole community.

         The two disciples told their story to Jesus. Ironically, they recounted the story of Jesus to Jesus without recognizing him. They told how Jesus had a challenge – he was arrested and condemned to death. He had a choice – he could have gotten out of it by bowing to the authorities. The outcome? – they were a little confused about that. The telling of this story is also wrapped in their own story. The disciples have a challenge – to tell their story to a mysterious traveler. They have a choice – to keep up the conversation and invite him to eat with them. Their story has an outcome. They see Jesus as he breaks the bread. They discern the meaning of their own story in their conversation with Jesus. They are changed. They return to Jerusalem and the cycle continues, right up to this present moment as we hear and respond to the Easter story.

         What is our challenge? What are our choices? What will be the outcome? We are walking on that road to Emmaus today. As we hear the good news our hearts burn within us. We see Jesus in the broken bread we share. We have our own story to share as we travel. We need to discover our own story and tell it in this place at this moment.

         We might say that our challenge is a broken boiler and a broken organ. Our choice is whether or not we are willing to pay to fix these things. Maybe the outcome is a happy and contented church with everything beautiful again and in order. There’s nothing wrong with that story. We might very well live to see that story told. But I think we have another story.

         The world we knew and the church we knew will never be the same again. God’s love for us, and the story of the resurrection will always remain the same, but we have to continually rediscover how to proclaim this story in our time. Whenever we start to complain about how people aren’t like they used to be, it’s a sign that we have to tell the story again in a new way.

         Jesus is walking beside us, asking us what’s on our mind. Maybe we can tell Jesus about how we have followed faithfully, but the world around us has changed. People don’t seem to treasure our traditions the way that they used to. People don’t seem as reliable. We can’t seem to find enough money or hands or interest to keep up all the things we love. Maybe we’ll find the outcome as we have conversation with Jesus. Maybe he will open our minds to the truth in scripture and show how the resurrection is still going on. Maybe when we come to the table and take the broken bread we will recognize Jesus and find the strength to travel to a new place and see ourselves in a new way.

         We will gather resources to fix our old broken building. We know that it’s not enough. We need to transform this community into something that reaches the world around us. We need to find a way to tell good news to people who need to hear it, but don’t think to come inside our door. We need to discern the traditions that sustain us, and to find the courage to let go of the things that hold us back. We need to learn to share our stories – both by speaking and listening so that we can see the presence of God among us.

         Finally, we need to give up the idea that church is all about us. True, God will comfort us in our pain and heal us in our brokenness. God wants to restore us to go back into the world to do our work. The church is not about our comfort and ease and nothing else. The church exists to proclaim God’s good news. God gives it to us freely, and we are to share it and spend all of God’s gifts with generosity. In following God we may have to give away some things that are dear to us. But as we open ourselves and listen to the story that God tells, we will find new purpose and new strength for that journey.

         I invite us all to the practice of speaking and listening – to one another and to God, as God reveals to us the way that we should go.