It was not so very different on that first Easter morning long ago. Mark tells us how the women came to the garden early on that Sunday morning following the crucifixion and burial of Jesus, and how, to their shock and amazement, they are told that Jesus has been raised from death and is once more abroad in the land – and that they will see him. Mark tells us how they reacted to the news of the resurrection: “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

Mark has just spent 16 chapters of this, the first gospel to be written down, preparing us for the startling news of Jesus’ resurrection. He has told us, in a nutshell, it is as if there is not a moment to waste and he simply must pass on to us this amazing Good News that God not only exists, but is passionate to save us, to heal us, to make us whole. He has told us about Jesus, and how this man embodied God himself within him, about how Jesus both preached a message that the kingdom of God was breaking in all around us, and was himself the first evidence of this. He has told us even that his way was a way of service and suffering, but that he would be raised from death by God. All this he has told us – but the followers of Jesus, including the women who run to the tomb that first Easter morning, they have lived this. They had walked with Jesus, sat at his feet and been taught by him, had seen his power, had even participated in his power and ministry.

And yet, Mark tells us, when Easter arrives, when resurrection happens, they flee. Turn-tail, skedaddle, scram, vamoose.

Mark leaves us, the readers of his Gospel, the members of the church, all of us gathered here today, not with a triumphant affirmation, not with “Christ is risen!” – we know that – no, he leaves us with a question: “Shall we flee the resurrection?”

Shall we do better than those women at the tomb long ago? If Jesus had one message for his followers, and for us, it was this: “Follow me.” So shall we follow, or shall we flee? Jesus says to us today, “Don’t run from me – follow me.”

I think we find all sorts of ways to flee the resurrection, to avoid embracing this stunning good news of new and abundant life that Christ freely makes available to us. One of the ways we do this, strangely enough, is to take the good news of the resurrection, and its message that God will not let death have the final word, and we take this truth and define it as the limit of the good news of resurrection, the sum total of the power of God to take our lives and transform them. We tell ourselves that resurrection is something that is only concerned with what happens to us after we die, and therefore has nothing to do with how we live. We say that resurrection has power for our souls, but not for our bodies, our every day lives and challenges, our wallets and our time.

Clarence Jordan puts it this way: “God raised Jesus, not as an invitation to us to come to heaven when we die, but as a declaration that God has now established permanent, eternal residence on earth. The resurrection places Jesus on this side of the grave – here and now – in the midst of life. He is not standing on the shores of eternity beckoning us to join him there. He is standing beside us, strengthening us in this life.” (From The Substance of Faith, cited in Congregational Life Seasons of the Spirit, p. 100, 2006).

We live, indeed, as if we have learned nothing from Jesus’ tale of the greedy farmer. This farmer, we are told at the outset of the parable, is wealthy. He should have not a care in the world, he should enjoy life in all its rich potential. And yet for him it is just the opposite. He is presented with an opportunity – a terrific crop – and yet he can only see this as a problem, a problem of how to store it away. In a tight-knit agrarian society where the problem of one is the problem of all, there are at hand many who in the normal course of things would be quick to offer their counsel and share their thoughts on what to do, but the greedy farmer acts alone in isolation – the only conversations he has are with himself. The solution he arrives at can be described in just four short words: “It’s all about me.” I’ll tear down my barns, I’ll build bigger ones, I’ll gather in my grains and my goods, and I’ll say to myself, “Self, you’ve done well.”

Think on how it could have been different. He could have rejoiced with his neighbors in the bumper crop bestowed on him by God; he could have welcomed them into a conversation about what to do with this opportunity; he could have realized that there was a ready place for the storage of this abundance right at hand – in the mouths of those who hungered in the community. He was, in fact, a prisoner of his wealth, ruled by anxiety over the future, dominated by greed which sought to control that future through hoarding in the present.

I’ll wager that none of us here today are “greedy farmers”, and yet I expect that many of us know the same anxiety over the future, are captive to the same limiting sense of the self as autonomous and disconnected from the wider community, and worry that it is up to us alone to make our security. On Easter Jesus calls to us, urging us to come out of our tombs of fear and anxiety, calling us not to flee, but to follow him, to share with him a life based on the abundance of God, a life lived in covenant with one another, and characterized by generosity towards each other.

Easter is here, Christ has risen, the power of the resurrection is yours for the taking here and now. People who choose to run to resurrection, not away from it, they live in a whole new world, a world where death has no more power – as Paul the Apostle put it, no more sting. Death has no more power when this life is over and gone, and, just as importantly, death has no more power in the midst of this life we now enjoy.

We are freed to live the life that is good, not just chase after “the good life.”

We can fight the good fight against all the powers and principalities that oppress and degrade, that discriminate and destroy, because we know that we fight on the side that shall prevail.

We can hope, bravely holding a candle against the darkness that would surround us, knowing the God’s love is bigger than anything the world might throw against us.

Easter is here. Resurrection awaits. Shall we, like those women at the tomb, like the little girl at the mall, like the greedy farmer, shall we turn and flee? Or shall we embrace that power, shall we allow it to change our lives, shall we turn to Jesus, and follow, and live, truly live?