A Sermon from Falmouth Congregational Church…

A Sermon offered by the Rev. Ian F. “Jack” Steeves in the public worship service (11:00 a.m.) of the Falmouth Congregational Church United Church of Christ in Falmouth, Maine on Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010. The scripture readings were Luke 24:1-12 and John 20:1-18.

“…He saw and believed….” (John 20:8).

“Good News for All”

Jesus’ resurrection is the central mystery of our Christian faith. More than a truth we “accept in faith,” it is a mystery we live. Because he is raised, Jesus imparts to us the power of his Spirit. Faith leads us to touch others with the Spirit of this mystery.

Easter is a time when the loss of theological innocence is felt very keenly by many people within the Christian church together with a large number of those outside as well. Resurrection is a difficult word and idea, is it not?

Skepticism is not always a bad thing. Easter raises questions and honest questions are good. But, Easter holds answers, too, and we live by its faith. Here is one answer. We sang it at the beginning of this morning’s worship: “Love’s redeeming work is done….” It is a most radical proclamation.

Brothers and sisters: that is why we are here! Love has completed its task, done its thing. I really mean it; that is why we are here!

Have you ever wondered where you would be if you were not alive? If you did not exist, and never had, where would you be, right now? Our very existence springs forth, dare I say, “rises” from the love of God. Our being is called forth from nothingness by the wondrous love of God our Creator. We are here, from out of no where, by the grace and the love and the power of God.

This morning, there are those who say, and say seriously, that the resurrection of Jesus is ludicrous and cannot be taken seriously.

They say, “Foolish Pastor and Congregation, Jesus did not rise from the dead.”

They are absolutely and emphatically “correct”!  Jesus did not rise! God raised him! It is a most radical proclamation. I want you to think about the implications.

You see, if the life of Jesus stressed anything, before Good Friday, it was a total, absolute dependence on God. The resurrection does not testify to the power of Jesus. It is a testimony, and what a witness it is, to the power of God. The resurrection is God’s “Yes!” to the model of living and even more, to the model of God, the image of God, that Jesus professed. The religious and civil powers of the world had crucified Jesus, but God said, “You have absolutely no power over this life, I do.”

What came together, but was  not witnessed by any human eye, in the earliest hours of Easter morning, was the definitive answer to the question the Bible, and human history, had been addressing in one way or another from the beginning, literally “in the beginning…,” Genesis 1:1, and continued to address throughout the entire Old Testament and the Gospels. Who is God?

Enter into human history, the one and only one who can answer our question. God loving humans so much God becomes one, as a seemingly powerless child who grows among the common folk and shows signs of brilliance in the law of love and justice, whose presence swayed grown men to drop their nets and grown women to leave home. They followed him, who taught the crowds about God, and taught them to care for their neighbor, and that their neighbor included all human beings, and, therefore, excluded no one. All people means all people, every last one of them.

More, this One of God taught the crowds to approach God as a loving parent and not as an angry, capricious deity. He said, “Abba,” and we say, “Daddy!”

Jesus was serious that “Abba” is a God who lifts up the powerless, who makes the last first and the first last and the powers of this world have never been comfortable with being “last.”

Jesus was arrested, and beaten, and executed. He was sacrificed as a troublemaker and a problem. They knew how to eliminate problems. Jesus died in only a matter of a few hours and he would forever stay dead just like every other human being that had gone before him.

Jesus died dead. Dead is dead. But, God is God. And, God was not about to let the powers of this earth have the last word. Jesus did not rise. He was raised back to life on that first Easter morning.

Easter is all about the power of God. Easter is God saying, “It is not over until I have my say.” Easter is the proclamation that God is the God Jesus proclaimed. Alleluia!

The Methodist hymn writer Charles Wesley was correct: “Death in vain forbids him rise.”

I am told, there is a rite or practice among some Latin American congregations who, on All Souls Day, in Autumn of each year, call out the names of church members who have died, in the last twelve months, some violently. As each name is read the congregation vigorously exclaims “Presente!” It is a sign that the congregation refuses to accept death as the last, or the final, or the defining word about any of them. Those who have died are declared “present” to the living community through God’s gift of life that triumphs even over death.

God forbids death to speak the final word. God’s presentation of the risen Christ is God’s response to the life of love and service Jesus modeled, and would have us live eternally.

Our participation in the resurrection mystery frees us from our closed tombs; it opens us up to some real living. The resurrection can be approached as act of magic or as an “idle tale,” or as life and new life itself. The resurrection is not an abstract truth of our faith. It is a mystery enfleshed in each of us. Remove the stone so the risen Christ can show himself to our contemporaries through us.

Easter is the first day of the new age in which we are living, an age that has begun but has not come in its fullness. True, the people still suffer. Still, the people war. Still, our hearts are torn and our health worries us, our loved ones age and die and our doubts trouble us within ourselves. But, “Jesus lives, and Jesus is Lord.” And, the little defiant conjunction, “but,” carries us through every suffering, ever loss, every Friday experience, and every cynical, hopeless, harsh evaluation of the present state of things, knowing that the God of life will have the last word and have it, forever. That is Good News for All!