I love living here in Davis. It’s one of the most beautiful places on Earth. The people here are friendly and supportive. The weather here can be unpredictable, but that’s part of the charm. Where else do you get the wonders of winter in May or June?

But along with its charms, like most everyplace else, Davis does carry with it some drawbacks. We are quite isolated here. It’s a 30 minute to hour drive to any other town of appreciable size. It can get lonely, and it has for yours truly in the almost eight years now that I’ve served as your pastor.

Thankfully, the wonders of technology have come through with a solution to that particular problem. The internet has given me salve for my loneliness. Many of you know that my lovely bride, with whom, in 5 short weeks, I will celebrate our first anniversary, was introduced to me through the eHarmony website. At least twice a week, and sometimes more, I log on to the internet to play games with my friends from college. And then there’s my latest obsession, once again thanks to my wife: Facebook.

Facebook is a networking website which allows people to meet and connect with other people from all over the world. For me, it may as well be named “Reunion,” because what I’ve been using it for is to connect and reconnect with people I don’t see very often or haven’t seen in many a year. My mother, my in-laws, my sister, two aunts, many cousins, an ex-girlfriend (maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that one), a number of you here at St. John’s, and nearly all my old buddies from high school, some of whom I’ve not spoken to since graduation, are all on there. And it’s been a great joy to reforge those old bonds with these people who were and are still important to me.

Throughout the course of our lives, we encounter hundreds, if not thousands, of other souls. Some of these make no effect upon our lives at all, but others leave their mark. Very few of us do not at some point ask the question “Whatever happened to so-and-so?” Sometimes we are given the opportunity to answer that question. A website like Facebook, a school or family reunion, a chance encounter while out shopping, but sometimes we get no such opportunity. Sometimes those we love are beyond our reach, for they have passed on from this life.

I think many, if not most of us, would like that opportunity to once again see and speak to those we have lost to the grip of death. To say “I love you” one more time. To offer our thanks for their support, for what they have taught us, for the influences they had on our choices. To share a joke or hear an old story that we’ve already heard a thousand times, but is somehow different, more special, when it comes from their lips. Each one of us has someone, perhaps many someones, like that in our lives. A father, a mother, a friend, a beloved, a child.

Death is such an evil in part because of how it silences their voices and ours.

It is easy for us to understand what must be going through Mary Magdelene’s mind as she stands outside the tomb on that Easter morning. Her heart is consumed with grief; her mind filled with questions. “What if…” and “If only…” Regrets over things left unsaid. Laments for lost opportunities. All the same things we go through when we stand by the grave of one we love.

But God has a surprise for her…and for us.

The one Mary loves, the one she has lost, is not dead. He was, but now he has risen. The impossible has come true. The one she thought lost forever has come back to her. He is risen!

But the miracle of this day so long ago is not for her alone. For Jesus was no ordinary man. He was God incarnate, the Messiah foretold of old, the perfectly obedient sacrifice that has taken our place on the cross of death. By his actions, he has destroyed the power of death not just for himself, but for all.

Mary is reunited with the one she loves. And so shall we. For the gift that Christ’s death and resurrection offers is offered to all. Death ceases to be the evil it once was and becomes instead a mere temporary parting. “Good-bye” becomes “until next time.”

All the opportunities we wished we could have with those we have lost, Christ gives back to us in his death and resurrection this day. For one day, thanks to him, there will come a day when there will be no more good-byes, no more tears, no more regrets. Things left unsaid will have their saying. Stories will be told again. Laughs shared. Love will blossom anew. And all these things will never again have an ending. For life eternal has been given to all of God’s children because of Jesus Christ.

God loves his children, loves his creation. And because of that love he breaks the power of death on this day, gives us back the reunion we never thought we could have with those who have passed on. What a glorious day it will be when the resurrection of this Easter Sunday comes to us. When all of our partings come to an end. When Christ comes to us, welcomes us fully into his kingdom, and then says to us “Remember so-and-so? There over there.”

For my part, I look forward to that great and glorious day. For that chance to see my grandfather again. To see lost friends again. To see the folks I have said good-bye to in this community. The resurrection is real and it is ours. There will be no more good-byes. Not for us, and not for anyone. God be praised. Christ is risen!!!

Amen.