Brief synopsis of the readings: As is the custom during the Easter season, our first reading doesn’t come from the Old Testament but from the Acts of the Apostles (written by Luke, describing the first events after Jesus’ resurrection). Here we read in the 10th chapter how Peter was invited to the home of Cornelius and spoke to that household. Peter recounted for those gathered how God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and how Jesus was executed but rose from the dead on the third day. Those who saw Jesus were commissioned to preach that Jesus was appointed by God to judge the living and the dead and that all who believe will be forgiven of sins. John’s Gospel recounts how Mary Magdala came to Jesus’ tomb before dawn on the first day of the week. There she saw the stone removed and ran to get Peter and John and told them that someone had stolen Jesus’ body. They ran back to the tomb and on entering it they saw the burial cloths there. John (here called “the disciple whom Jesus loved”) then recognized what had happened. “For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.”

Let the word go forth from this time and place that a man has come back from the dead after being publicly executed and laid in the tomb for three days. That’s how it happened, but that’s how all historical events begin. Something happens at a point in space and time, and word goes out from there. In the next six weeks we’ll read about the earliest days of the Christian community. We’ll read how word of Jesus’ resurrection spread from Jerusalem through Judea. This word will eventually spread throughout the Roman Empire, then to modern day Europe and Asia, and finally to the entire world. It will happen over years, then decades, then centuries. We are celebrating Easter today because of countless people over countless miles, proclaiming a message that we take for granted only because it was too unbelievable for those first witnesses.

As I said last week, Jesus wasn’t the only person to return from the dead. Two weeks ago we read about Jesus raising Lazarus and I referenced how Mark and Luke discuss the daughter of Jarius who came back from the dead. And if you were paying attention last week to the short version of Matthew’s Gospel you would have read chapter 27, verse 53: “Many bodies of saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After Jesus’ resurrection they came forth from their tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many.”

But Jesus’ resurrection was different. It wasn’t JAM (just another miracle), it was the focal point of our history. We even mark the current year after this event. At the core of our beliefs is the recognition that this resurrection gives us, all of us, a path to eternal life. But it raises a question that has fascinated us ever since: who did Jesus rise to save? In many ways the answer to that question has shown us the best and the worst of us. Sometimes our answer has been expansive and generous, and sometimes we’ve decided to make it rare and exclusionary.

It’s well understood among most scholars that Jesus’ earliest disciples didn’t think much about who was saved because they got the time line wrong. When Jesus promised to return they assumed it would be soon, certainly in their lifetimes. But as time passed they began to recognize that Jesus’ call in Matthew to “go out to all nations and baptize all peoples” meant there was work to be done. I’m certainly not going to give the entire timeline of Christian evangelization but I will say Paul’s call to move beyond just the Jews at the time began a worldwide campaign.

Throughout our history many have assumed that salvation was reserved for those who learned of Jesus and accepted his message. “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?” For much of our history and in much of our world we only knew either other Christians or potential Christians and it made things simple for us.

But what of people who weren’t Christian and didn’t want to be? Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, etc. It became harder and harder to relegate them to those excluded from God’s plan of salvation when they became our neighbors, friends and in laws.

I like the idea that most of us have abandoned the idea of knowing who God includes and excludes and instead we defer to God’s generosity. I think most of us hope that when Jesus rose from the dead he included all of humanity. Given this I have to admit a chuckle over an episode of the sitcom “Young Sheldon.” If you’re not familiar it’s about a preteen boy genius who lives in East Texas to a devoutly Baptist family. In a discussion with the pastor Sheldon imagined a planet somewhere in the universe that was inhabited by a race of purple octopus. He asked: “What if an octopus Adam and Eve brought sin to their world? Would they need to be saved by a human Jesus or an octopus Jesus?” Unfortunately the pastor felt he needed to give an authoritative answer and told Sheldon that Jesus would appear to them in the form of an octopus to save their “eight legged souls.” I chuckle because I would have suggested that we should rely on God’s mercy and generosity.

Throughout our history countless Christians have asked the question: “What must I do to be saved?” And it not so much that Scripture doesn’t give us an answer so much as Scripture gives us too many answers. Ephesians 2:8 says “I repeat, it is owing to his favor that salvation is yours through faith. This is not your own doing, it is God’s gift.” Matthew 25:31ff describes Jesus promising salvation to those who feed the hungry, welcome the stranger and clothed the naked and condemnation to those who don’t. In John 13:8 Jesus tells Peter that unless he (Jesus) washes his (Peter’s) feet “you will have no share in my heritage.” If we limit our worldview of salvation to “just us” we set ourselves up for a future of confusing rules and predictions. On the other hand an expansive, inclusive view allows us to see the best of our resurrected world.

And so this morning we stand at the empty tomb and look not only to the sky but to each other. If incredible events point to incredible realities let us believe in a God and a salvation that includes all of us. And let us continue to carry on from that place and time beyond where we are now, even to distant planets with our eight armed brothers and sisters.