Easter Sunday.

Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I used to get a catalog from a firm called “Church Ad Project”. This firm produced funny or clever advertisement posters for churches. You could order the posters and add your congregation’s name at the bottom.

Two of the posters I remember have to do with Easter. One was an old woodcarving image of Jesus rising from the tomb, full of motion and with garments billowing. The caption read, “Jesus didn’t rise from the dead to hunt Easter eggs.”

The other poster showed a typical toy Easter bunny, made out of some fluffy pink fabric, with long floppy ears and holding a basket with candy eggs. For this image, the caption read, “Has your idea as to what Easter is about gotten a little fuzzy?”

These two posters point to the fact that the there are lot of wonderful traditions surrounding the Easter festival, but that not all people observing them actually know what we celebrate at Easter. A lot of children hunt Easter eggs, and a lot of grown-ups hide them, who don’t know why eggs are connected with Easter. Chocolate, bunnies, lamb roast, new spring hats, lilies – they all surround the core message of Easter. To those who have never been told that core message, all these things can make the meaning of Easter fuzzy.

This kind of fuzziness can lead sceptics to make snide comments. One colleague recently had an avowed atheist tell him that Easter was nothing but “the Zombie Apocalypse starring Jesus”. With the popularity of zombies and the walking dead on television and movie screens, this interpretation is not surprising.

It does, however, misunderstand what Easter is all about. Easter is not telling us that Jesus came back to his old life, like zombies do, and he definitely didn’t come back to life in order to haunt or kill people.

Quite the contrary, Jesus rose to new life, to a new beginning, to a new way of living before God in the power of the Holy Spirit. And Jesus rose to be present with his followers, not to hurt or frighten them, but to heal and comfort and strengthen and motivate and inspire them.

Pastor Mark Davis wrote in an editorial that all the trappings of Easter, all the food and flowers and traditions, are meant to point to the core belief of our faith: That sadly, life is tragic, but not ultimately so.

Jesus died tragically, a victim of ill-meaning religious fervor and totalitarian politics and a corrupt justice system.

Tragedies like that are still going on. Many books and reports have recently revealed just how imbalanced our justice system is when it comes to the incarceration of black people or poor people. Asian-Americans are being accosted on the streets and in their workplaces because ill-informed people blame them for the coronavirus. Women who suffered sexual assault are treated with the suspicion that in some way they “had been asking for it”. Muslims are suspected of being terrorists. Gay men are labeled as pedophiles so that it might feel okay to hate them. Totalitarian governments are ruthless towards peaceful protesters, like we currently see in Hongkong and Myanmar and Russia.

Yes, we are only too familiar with such stories of injustice and abuse and tragedy.

The good news of Easter is that Jesus didn’t stay dead, didn’t stay a victim. His disciples saw him after Easter, ate with him, and experienced his presence in powerful ways. So powerful was Jesus’ presence with them that they burst into the world with faith and joy, willing to risk their own lives for the sake of blessing their neighbors with the love of Jesus.

The disciples experienced, and then spread word about, the fact that yes, tragic things happen, but that they don’t have the last word. Jesus is present in the midst of sorrow and pain and will help us.

As Isaiah so powerfully describes, God is present and wipes away our tears and invites us to his table of grace. Awful events happen to us and to people we love, but thanks to Easter we now know two things:

Sad times are not God-less times,

And: Sad times won’t have the last word.

On Easter morning, Jesus overcame the power of sin and death and evil. Eventually, by his grace, those powers will also be overcome in our lives. Until we arrive at that moment, Jesus’ love holds us close and gives us hope and strength.

A week ago, I stumbled upon an article describing a site I had never heard of before. In the Baltic country Lithuania, north of the town Siauliai, is a place called “The Hill of Crosses”. In your bulletin, you can see an image of this place. If you google it, you can find many more. The hill is covered with crosses made of wood or metal or stone. There are over 100,000 of them.

Nobody knows exactly what started this hill of crosses. It became significant, however, in the year 1831. At the time, Lithuania was occupied by the Russian Empire. In 1831, Lithuania rebelled and tried to throw off the oppressors. Unfortunately, they failed. Many people died in the fight. Relatives were unable to bury the bodies. To honor them in some way, they placed crosses on this hill. Hundreds of crosses ended up scattered across the hill. After a second unsuccessful rebellion 30 years later, the number rose to about 9,000.

At the end of World War I, Lithuania gained independence. The hill of crosses became a site where citizens prayed for peace and for loved ones lost in the war.

In 1944 the Soviet Union occupied the nation. Religion became oppressed. Going to the hill and planting crosses and praying became acts of peaceful resistance against the communist government.

The Communists were well aware of that and tried repeatedly to demolish the hill. Three times, in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, they came will bulldozers and obliterated the crosses. Wooden ones they burned, metal ones they used for scrap metal, and stone ones they used for building projects. They erected a fence around the hill. They dug a ditch around it. Going there and erecting crosses became a punishable crime.

And still, ever new crosses appeared. Under the cover of darkness, the faithful would sneak to the hill and establish the markers of their faith. In spite of the threat of arrest, they undertook the dangerous journey to the hill and acted in peaceful defiance born out of faith.

In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed. Lithuania was free once again. In remembrance of the victims of the totalitarian regime and in gratitude for the newfound freedom, many more crosses appeared on the hill. That year alone, their number swelled to roughly 55,000. Today, there are more than 100,000, some say 200,000 of them.

Some crosses are many feet high, other only a few inches. Some are artfully rendered, some are plain. But all of them witness to the faith that God hears prayers, and that God is a God of freedom, and that God cares about the pain of all people, and that Gott takes an interest in the lives of his children, and that God forgives sins and offers new beginnings, and that Gott participates in all milestones in the lives of the faithful.

Year after year, Lithuanians come to the hill to erect their crosses. They do it when a loved one has died. They do it to plea for help or healing. They do it when they have a child or start a marriage. In times of sorrow and heart-ache as well as in times of joy and hope, the faithful make their way to the hill to pray before the crosses there or to bring their own.

The Easter story is powerfully illustrated in this hill of crosses.

The women come to the tomb early in the morning, full of grief over the death of Jesus. The cross looms large in their lives. Yet the tomb is empty, and angels tell them that Jesus has risen and will meet them soon. Confused and terrified, they leave.

Every time I read this story, I am reminded of one of the prayers we use at funeral services: “Help us, Lord, in the midst of things we do not understand.” The women at that time do not understand. But they will later, because they will meet Jesus and be comforted and uplifted by his presence.

When I look at the image of the crosses on that hill in Lithuania, I imagine that each one of them stands for something the person didn’t understand. “Help me, Lord, in the midst of things I cannot understand.”

Look at the picture. Among all the crosses, you can see the figure of Jesus, holding out his arms in loving welcome. Jesus is there, among all the crosses. Jesus is there, among all the things we cannot understand. Jesus is there, and with his help, we will make it, and sin and death will not have the last word.

With Jesus’ help, the person who has tried to overcome addiction numerous times and failed, will gain new strength and experience life as worthy enough to try one more time. Resurrection power.

With Jesus’ help, the member of the LGTBQ community experiencing ridicule and taunting, will find caring people who surround them and assure them that things will get better for sure. Resurrection power.

With Jesus’ help, the woman emerging from an abusive relationship will slowly but surely learn to believe in herself again and to trust others again, and will find a new, supportive partner. Resurrection power.

With Jesus’ help, those suffering from isolation and depression, especially during this pandemic, will find hope in vaccines and caring neighbors and the light at the end of this tunnel. Resurrection power.

Resurrection stories are happening all around us. All the wonderful trappings of Easter are meant to point us to them, in order that our faith might be strengthened and our hope renewed and our joy increased.

Because, as Pastor Davis writes in his editorial, Easter is not about the walking dead, but about those who walk in newness of life found in the risen Lord. For alleluia – Christ is risen.

He is risen indeed. Alleluia!