Monday, April 5, 2010

Easter Sermon, Rock Springs, Wy First Congregational UCC

I took out the last names of people in this sermon as a privacy curetesy.

Where Are You Jesus?
By Rev. Steven R. Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY
Easter Sunday April 4, 2010
Based on Luke 24:1-12


The question for today is, “Where are you Jesus?” As Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary mother of James and some other women came to the place where they had placed the dead body of Jesus just a couple of days before, they discovered that the grave had been disturbed; that the stone had been rolled away and upon looking inside the tomb found it empty! The very first thoughts that had to come to their minds would almost certainly be, “Where is Jesus?” “What has happened to his body?” One can almost imagine Mary Magdalene in her grief cry out, “Where Are You Jesus?”
Isn’t this the same cry we make when we come face to face with those “empty tombs” of our lives: the losses and disappointments, the heartbreaks and failures, the tragic deaths and prolonged illnesses, the loneliness and despair (UCC commentary) that we at varying points in our lives encounter? Do we not cry out, “Where are you Jesus?” Those tombs are our “Friday” lives, and Jesus shares them with us. But Jesus also shares Sunday, and resurrection, new life and new hope, with us as well. (UCC commentary)
In the Isaiah reading for this Easter Sunday, God promises to do something new and really, really big: to “create a new heaven and a new earth” (65:17) With this promise, we can look to “the deepest meanings of the resurrection story to have to do with new creation” No matter what things look like now, no matter what suffering and strife may be before us and in our midst, no matter what the powers that be or the cynics of this world may say, this Easter morning says, Wait. Stop. That we are part of something greater than ourselves, and our lives are lived in a new age of hope, even in the midst of suffering. (UCC Commentary)
“Where are you Jesus?” As the women stood before the empty tomb, they were perplexed and suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them and asked them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” vs 5 Is this not how we are, when we are standing before our empty tomb experience, that of being perplexed? The question of “why do we look for the living among the dead” is truly a classic question to us! We often go around living our lives, looking for what is “life giving” in those places or in objects or in someone who does not provide what is “life giving”; so coined the phrase, “Looking for love in all the wrong places!”
It is at the empty tomb that these women begin to learn what they have been taught during Jesus’ life as these men in dazzling clothes remind them, “Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Their lessons begin with “remembering”, because this amazing moment actually makes great sense if they remember all that Jesus said and did, and connect what he said and did with what they see before them, their “experience.” Author, Paul Scott Wilson, claims that the raising of Jesus authenticated his teachings and his deeds, and that our study and remembering of them, in the light of our own experience and that of the community, leads us to deeper faith: “As a church we do not ask people to believe in something they cannot experience; rather, we offer them in work, sacrament, and other means an encounter with God, who comes to them not as information or abstract ideas but as an event that is personal.”(Lectionary Commentary)
This morning is the Culmination of the past week’s events. Events that started with the waving of Palms last Sunday, as we celebrated the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, where we see Jesus being greeted into the Holy City as a King. Then during the week, we came together and celebrated the Passover meal, where Jesus instituted what we now call “communion”, where we remember through the breaking of bread and the pouring and drinking of the wine, his life that he gave for us. On Good Friday, we read how Jesus was handed over to those who were afraid of his message of “love and reconciliation” and was put to death and laid in the tomb. Today, we are confronted with the “empty tomb” and the message it has for us.
The “empty tomb”, the Easter message is God’s adverb to the world; the adverb of “Anyway”. Where those who think they have power to stop the work of God, by putting to death the one who carried God’s message of “We belong to God and are not under the power, the control, the selfish desires of those who believe they have dominion over this world.” But rather God says through the empty tomb, “you may have killed my son, but! God has left the world asking the question, “Where Are You Jesus?”
I came across a poem last Fall, when I was working on the memorial service for John McFadden, written by Kent Keith titled “Anyway” that speaks to the message of the empty tomb. It says, for example, “People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Love them anyway! The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway! Honesty makes you vulnerable. Be honest anyway! What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway! People really need help but may attack you if you help them. Help them anyway! If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway!”
When you look up the meaning of this inspiring little adverb, “anyway,” in the dictionary you will see it means: “nevertheless,” “regardless”. The powers that be, killed Jesus, the sin of the world cut him down; nevertheless, God raised Jesus up. God raised Jesus up anyway. Hatred and fear and violence thundered on Friday, but God had the last word, “anyway”, on Sunday because God loved the world too much to take away our hope or to bring to an end the beautiful new creation that God had promised long ago. UCC commentary
This past Thursday we came together in a community celebration of Passover where we read the Haggadah under the guidance of Ed xxxxxx. For those of you who may not know Ed or his lovely wife Liesel xxxxxxx, they are by birth Jews. As Lynn xxxxx and I were helping Liesel on Thursday morning, set up for the Passover meal, Liesel commented to me, “Steven, would you think that I as a child growing up in Nazi Germany would have ever thought that as a Jew, I would be able to celebrate my religion in a Christian church like we are going to be doing this evening?”
“Where are you Jesus?” I will tell you where Jesus is this morning: He is in you and me; Jesus is in people like the xxxxxxx; Jesus is here this morning as we come to the communion table; Jesus is in differing faiths coming together in Love and remembering God and of how God walks in every aspect of our life. “Where are you Jesus?” He is not in the tomb, dead, but alive, living through all who work toward the good that God hopes for; Jesus is living and working in a new heaven and a new earth! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

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