“AN EMPTY TOMB, A YELLOW SHIRT AND APPLESAUCE IN HEAVEN”

MATTHEW 28:1-10

28:1  After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

2  And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.

3  His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.

4  For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.

5  But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.

6  He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.

7  Then go quickly and tell his disciples, 'He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.' This is my message for you."

8  So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

9  Suddenly Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him.

10  Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

I don’t know when it’s going to happen.  I don’t know how it’s going to happen.  I just know that it is going to happen.  It’s going to happen to me and like it or not it’s going to happen to you too.   Sooner or later, our time of this earth is going to come to an end. You see it really is true.  As someone once said, no one is going to get out of this world alive.

Hopefully that fateful day won’t come anytime soon.  If it’s something that worries you though I have some statistics that might ease your mind a little.  According to research compiled by the insurance industry this is what we know:

The first thing you need to do is stay away from cars. 

20% of all fatal accidents occur when you’re riding in a car.

You should also spend as little time as possible at home. 

17% of all fatal accidents occur while you’re in the safety of your own home.

You should also cut back on often you walk and where you walk.

Unfortunately, pedestrians are the victims in 14% of all the fatal accidents in this country.

If you’re smart you also stay away from planes, trains and boats.

Those forms of transportation account for 16% of all the fatal accidents in this country.

That leaves 33% of the fatalities that still haven’t been accounted for. 

Of those 33%, 32% of them occur in hospitals.

So, whatever you do, if you have to go to a hospital keep both eyes open.

Now, there is some good news in all of this.  The good news is that only .001% of all fatal accidents occur when you’re in church.  What that means of course is that one of the safest places for you to be at any given moment is exactly where you are right now.  Kind of makes you hope the sermon this morning is a long one so you can stay and be safe, doesn’t it?

Once again, I don’t know when or how it’s going to happen.  I do know that I’ve been thinking about it a lot more since I got that terrible phone call two years ago.   Many of you know about the phone call.  When I answered the phone I discovered that it was my brother calling to tell me that our mother had been killed in a snowmobiling accident up in Canada. 

When you get a phone call like that it changes your life forever.  When you come face to face with death like that it also forces you to decide if you’re going to be a Good Friday person or an Easter person.  Which one are you?

Before you answer that question, let’s take another look at what happened shortly after Jesus rose from the dead. We know that a few of the women went to the tomb that morning.  We also know that the disciples didn’t go to the tomb that morning. John tells us in his gospel that the disciples off in a room somewhere hiding behind locked doors.  They were afraid they were going to be arrested too. They were also feeling a little sorry for themselves.  What were they going to do now that Jesus was gone?  They had left everything to follow him.  They thought that Jesus was going to lead them to glory against the Romans.  Now it looked like they were going to have to go back to the Sea of Galilee and spend hour after hour catching and cleaning all those slimy, smelly fish.

At that point the disciples were Good Friday people.  They were caught in the clutches of doubt and despair.  They were caught in the clutches of sorrow and self-pity.  The women weren’t like that at all.  It’s true that the women went to the tomb that morning with heavy hearts.  It’s also true though that they went to the tomb with an assortment of spices.  Why?  Because they wanted to anoint the body of their beloved Jesus.

When they got there the stone rolled away. Who moved it?  They didn’t know.   When they got there the tomb was empty. Where did the body go?  They didn’t know. They didn’t understand what it all meant until the angel told them the wonderful news.  “Do not be afraid;” the angel said. “I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples…” 

That wonderful news filled their hearts with joy and they did exactly what the angel told them to do.  They ran to tell the disciples that Jesus had risen from the dead.  They didn’t get very far though before they saw the risen Jesus and that, of course, only filled their hearts with even more joy.

All of this is what it means to be an Easter person. 

The women could have stayed with the disciples and done a little woe is me routine but they didn’t.

Instead they went to the tomb which shows you that even in the face of death an Easter person doesn’t stop living.

The women also went to the tombs with that assortment of spices.

They did that because they wanted to anoint the body of their beloved Jesus.

What that shows you is that even in the face of death an Easter doesn’t stop loving.

Finally, because they went to the tomb the women saw the risen Jesus and their hearts were filled with joy.  What that shows you is that even in the face of death an Easter person doesn’t stop laughing and rejoicing in all of God’s blessings.

If you want to be an Easter person though you have to go to the tomb.  You have to go to the tomb again and again.  Only then will you know in your heart that the promise that Jesus made before he went to the Cross is true.  Jesus said, “Because I live you will live also.”  Only then will you be able even in the face of death to keep on living and laughing and loving.

That’s what a woman decided to do after her mother died.  She did it in a very unusual way.   She did it with a baggy yellow shirt.  It’s a wonderful story. The woman wrote thes words,  “The baggy yellow shirt had long sleeves, four extra -large pockets trimmed with black thread and snaps up the front.  It was faded from years of wear, but still in decent shape.  I found it in 1963 when I was home from college on Christmas break, rummaging through bags of clothes Mom intended to give away.  ‘You're not taking that old thing, are you?’  Mom said when she saw  me packing the yellow shirt.  ‘I wore that when I was pregnant with your brother in 1954!’  ‘It's just the thing to wear over clothes during art class, Mom.  Thanks!’  I slipped it into my suitcase before she could object.

“The yellow shirt became a part of my college wardrobe.  I loved it.  After graduation, I wore the shirt the day I moved into my new apartment and on Saturday mornings when I cleaned.  The next year, I married.  When I became pregnant, I wore the yellow shirt during big-belly days.  I missed Mom and the rest of my family, since we were in Colorado and they were in Illinois.  But that shirt helped.  I smiled, remembering that Mother had worn it when she was pregnant 15 years earlier.

That Christmas, mindful of the warm feelings the shirt had given me, I patched one elbow, wrapped it in holiday paper, and sent it to Mom.  When Mom wrote to thank me for her "real" gifts, she said the yellow shirt was lovely.

“The next year, my husband, daughter, and I stopped at Mom and Dad's to pick up some furniture.  Days later, when we uncrated the kitchen table, I noticed something yellow taped to the bottom.  The shirt!  And so the pattern was set.

“On our next visit home, I secretly placed the shirt under Mom and Dad's mattress.  I don't know how long it took for her to find it, but almost two years passed before I discovered it under the base of our living-room lamp.  The yellow shirt was just what I needed now while refinishing furniture.  The walnut stains added character.

“In 1975 my husband and I divorced.  With my three children, I prepared to move back to Illinois.  As I packed, a deep depression overtook me.  I wondered if I could make it on my own.  I wondered if I would find a job.  I paged through the Bible, looking for comfort.   In Ephesians, I read, (about putting on the armor of God to protect you.) I tried to picture myself wearing God's armor, but all I saw was the stained yellow shirt.  Slowly, it dawned on me.  Wasn't my mother's love a piece of God's armor?  My courage was renewed.

“Unpacking in our new home, I knew I had to get the shirt back to Mother.  The next time I visited her, I tucked it in her bottom dresser drawer.

“A year later I discovered the yellow shirt hidden in a rag bag in my cleaning closet.  Something new had been added.  Embroidered in bright green across the breast pocket were the words, ‘I BELONG TO PAT.’  Not to be outdone, I got out my own embroidery materials and added an apostrophe and seven more letters.  Now the shirt proudly proclaimed, ‘I BELONG TO PAT'S MOTHER.’ But it didn't stop there.  I zig-zagged all the frayed seams, then had a friend mail the shirt…to Mom from Arlington, VA. 

“Two years later, in 1978, I remarried…After the wedding, while my husband drove us to our honeymoon suite, I reached for a pillow in the car to rest my head.  It felt lumpy.  I unzipped the case and found, wrapped in wedding paper, the yellow shirt.  Inside a pocket was a note:  ‘Read John 14:27-29.  I love you both, Mother.’  That night I paged through the Bible in the hotel room and found the verses:  "I am leaving you with a gift:  peace of mind and heart…Remember what I told you:  I am going away but will come back to you again.  If you really love me, you will be happy for me.  For now I go to the Father who is greater than I am.’

“That shirt was Mother's final gift.  She had known for three months that she had terminal Lou Gehrig's disease.  Mother died the following year at age 57.

“I was tempted to send the yellow shirt with her to her grave.  But I"m glad I didn't, because it is a vivid reminder of the love-filled game she and I played for 16 years.  Besides, my older daughter is in college now, majoring in art.  And every art student needs a baggy yellow shirt with big pockets.”

When you are an Easter person you keep on living and loving laughing because you know that even though death is very real, God’s love is also very real.  That’s why I decided to eat my mother’s homemade applesauce.  We found the homemade applesauce in her freezer when we went to clean out her house after the accident. My sister brother and I each took some of the applesauce home with us. A few months later I took the last of the applesauce out of my freezer and started to eat it.  At first I felt like eating that applesauce was a little sinful.  Why?  Because I knew that when I finished that applesauce another part of my mother was going to be gone forever.  The part of her that was a great cook was going to be gone forever.  I decided to eat the applesauce though because I knew that it’s what my mother would have wanted me to do.  Besides, if I live myself faithfully as an Easter person I know that some day after I die I’ll see her again…and who knows….maybe there will even be some of her applesauce in heaven.  Amen.

Rev. Dr. Richard A. Hughes

Easter Sunday – April 8, 2007