A Sermon from Falmouth Congregational Church…

A Sermon offered by the Rev. Ian F. “Jack” Steeves in the public worship service (9:00 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.

“Easter, Just another Easter”

Today, countless preachers are stepping into their respective pulpits in churches all around the world, trying to say a new word about the ever ancient, and yet ever new word of God, about God’s “yes” to Jesus and God’s “no” to the powers that killed Jesus but failed in the end – a failed conspiracy, one might call it.

The story of Easter is difficult for the skeptic and the believer alike, but I still love the story as it is told in the gospels.  Each is different, and yet each adds something unique to the overall Easter narrative. Mystery and wonder are part of the story and a kind of wordlessness among the sparse details offered. We are given “just the facts.” There is an Empty Tomb which by its very emptiness suggests a startling fullness. We are told the story to help us believe the truth of Easter without necessarily accepting or even knowing every detail of the Easter event. The gospels seem to suggest our question at Easter should not be, did this or that really happen, but “what does it mean?”

One might ask the preachers, “How does something that happened so long ago matter to me today, especially with everything I’m going through right here and right now? What does this have to do with me and my life, and my problems?”

The trouble with Easter is the hard realities that get in the way: the long nights of worry and pain, the threats to our security and our safety, at home and abroad, and bitterness that wells up inside our closest relationships; and all have a life of their own. If you judge modern life by media news and much of contemporary literature, you and I might conclude that life has more pain than pleasure in it. Chance conversations reinforce that conclusion: people talk endlessly about their troubles and woes, and we talk about ours, with little or no mention being made of their (our) joys. Are there none? It is easier to talk about sad things than about happy things, or so it often seems. Someone has said “Sadness lingers but joy is so fleeting.” That is the problem at the heart of our Easter, just another Easter celebration. It will all be ‘the same, old same’ on Monday.

We do not have the right words, in sufficient numbers, to express our joy adequately. Is that because we do not expect much joy in life and, therefore, we have not bothered to invent the words to express it? Or, is it because joy is an emotion that goes beyond mere words?

So, what makes us joyful this morning? What are we celebrating? The joy that tugs at our spirits flows from an event of now ancient history. Jesus won a victory, but we are not so selfless as to lose ourselves completely in the joy of another person.

The gospel writers tell us that Jesus did not die for only an instant; he died dead for three, long days. I really do not know what that could mean. But then, I have yet to “die my death.” I can only guess that part of “dying” has to be asking the question, “Has it been worth it?”

For Jesus, everything had gone wrong. Even the ones who loved him, loved him so imperfectly that they fled at the first sign of danger. Was it worth it – his life, his work, his love of God, his passion for imperfect human beings?

I am always suspicious of the easy answers, but I do not know how he could have come back – could have once again been as real to them as their next breaths – if the answer had been “NO! it was not worth it!” And maybe, more importantly, I do not think his disciples could have lived with his memory and carried around and down to the present day if the answer had been “No, it was not worth it!”

It is ludicrous to think that what makes Christians Christians, past and present, is the intellectual acceptance of certain propositions. Rather, it is the embracing of a vision and a way of living and dying that is worth bothering with. The gospels bear witness to the fact that a group of beaten, dejected men and women were somehow, in some way, transformed by something into bold proclaimers of precisely this vision. It opened their eyes to see Jesus’ life and death as a victory and not a defeat. It showed them that the power of love can not be overcome. Resurrection is the story of that love being poured out into the world.

Unless the vision still worked, unless the reality of the Resurrection was still alive and well, Christianity would have died out long ago. The fact that it did not shows that the love and the joy and the hope and the peace that those first disciples felt had been unleashed into and on to the world is a force still very much to be reckoned with. If we find the whole idea mind-blowingly special and splendid, and what we need, then that is bound to overflow into our lives, and we are going to be walking, talking, living and loving advertisements for Resurrection life here and now.

I believe that our risen Christ stands as an eternal witness, as much to the truth of Easter and the power of God as to the fact that we are loved beyond all measure and beyond all our understanding. Someday, maybe when we ourselves “die our deaths,” that will become clear to us; and we will truly rejoice – not because we have loved but because we have first been loved.

We have only one life. Resurrection means that death is not a period but a comma, perhaps just a brief pause that we might make sense out of life. We too easily presume that death is the major fact of life, the great leveler that finally invalidates all we do.

Here this morning, however, we dare proclaim a different reality. Jesus’ resurrection proves that life is the major fact of existence. In Jesus, our lives are uninterrupted continuums. Death and resurrection are equally real, human experiences in our endless life process.

To the first disciples, women and men, Christ was more than a memory welling up with the collective consciousness and more than a strong cause for hope, justice and peace. To them, he was a living presence that continued to shape their lives and demand their hope within community. This hope emanated in the lives of followers for generations every time they remembered him.

They saw him in the beauty of daily life. His appearances were met with skepticism, astonishment, joy, gratitude and always in the midst of life. Resurrection power was the gift of persistent, undying love, ever stronger than death. True, it did not wipe out the brokenness of life. There were still tears and the Roman Empire remained, factions rose up within and beyond the faith community, political repression, violence and pain continued to be part of human existence. It all sounds so human and so contemporary.

In our questing faith community, we are called to grapple with the reality and the meaning even as we celebrate the event itself.

Today, we experience the risen Christ as power beyond our own, as joy deeper than despair and as the promise of life that can invigorate that which is broken in the world. I have see the risen Christ in the love we have for each other and in the animating love God has for all of Creation. Today, we break through the ugliness of hate, we loose the shackles of unnecessary conformity to embrace the inherent beauty of human life fully alive. We let go of cynicism to embrace hope and renew our passion for all that is still possible. We receive the Christ as the life-giving presence of God for the world and we recognize him in one another.

That gives a different dimension to life, a thrilling new thrust that puts death in its proper, true and subordinate place. It is a heady idea. It flashes all about us this morning. This is not a morning for just speaking of joy, but of singing it. This is the morning to dare new visions because all of the old are dead. But Jesus lives – Alleluia! And we, we are at peace, as Jesus said to his friends over and over again after his resurrection. Peace be to you this Easter morning! Christ is risen! He is here and, he goes before us into the world. Follow him into all of life and there you will see him.