Holy Comedy (For Easter)

Holy Comedy

Luke 24:1-12

A mother called her son on Sunday morning to make sure he got out of bed and was ready for Church.
“I’m not going,” he replied.
“Yes you are going, so get out of that bed!” his mother demanded.
“Give me ONE good reason why I should go,” said her son.
“I’ll give you THREE good reasons … One, I’m your mother, and I say you’re going. Two, you’re 40 years old, so you’re old enough to know better … and three, which is the most important, you’re the Pastor of the church.”

Today, my sermon title is holy comedy. When we think of comedy today, we often think of something that makes us laugh, such as stand-up comedy, sitcoms, or funny movies. But in its classical definition, a comedy is something much deeper. It is a story that begins in confusion or sorrow but ends in clarity and joy, a narrative where the characters triumph over adversity and reach a successful conclusion. By this definition, the Easter story is the greatest comedy ever told in human history.

Consider how the story begins. The disciples had witnessed their teacher, their friend, their Messiah, brutally executed on a cross. Their hopes were crushed. The future they had imagined—a future where Jesus would establish God’s kingdom on earth—seemed to have died with him. The women approached the tomb early that morning not with anticipation, but with grief. They carried spices to anoint a dead body, not gifts to celebrate a living Lord. But then—the plot twist that would change human history forever.

The stone is rolled away. The tomb is empty. And messengers in dazzling clothes appear with the most astonishing news: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!”

Imagine the emotional whiplash of that moment. From the depths of grief to confusion to the first tentative shoots of an impossible hope. This is the turning point in our divine comedy, the moment when the trajectory of the story fundamentally changes.

At first, no one believes the women. Luke tells us their words seemed like “nonsense” to the apostles. The Greek word here is “leros,” from which we get our word “delirious.” The men thought these women were speaking crazy talk. Peter (and one more according to John) runs to investigate—and even he leaves merely wondering, not yet believing.

But this initial disbelief is part of what makes the comedy so profound. Easter doesn’t ask us to deny the reality of suffering and death. It acknowledges their sting, their apparent finality. And then it declares: this is not the end of the story.

The resurrection of Jesus is God’s definitive statement that death, pain, and sin do not have the final word in our world. It is the ultimate triumph over the ultimate adversity. Jesus didn’t just survive death—he conquered it, transformed it, and in doing so, changed everything.

In our own lives, we know what it’s like to stand at the mouth of an empty tomb, bewildered by unexpected loss or change. We know what it’s like to carry spices of mourning, prepared to face the finality of death. And into these moments, Easter speaks a word of holy comedy: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

God is constantly inviting us to see beyond the apparent tragedies of our lives to the comedy that is unfolding—the divine story of triumph over adversity that culminates in resurrection. The comedy isn’t that suffering isn’t real; it’s that suffering isn’t final.

This Easter, let us be people who live in the light of this holy comedy. Let us be people who know that graves become gateways, endings become beginnings, and death itself becomes the doorway to life. Let us be people who, like the women at the tomb, run to tell others this seemingly nonsensical good news: He is not dead. He is risen. Amen.