EASTER SERMON BY PASTOR BARBARA
“I HAVE SEEN THE LORD”
April 16, 2006
Scripture: Acts10:34-43, John 20:1-18
What a wonderful day! Easter morning is here. For me it is a time of great joy and celebration, even though I was not so sure about that as I stood on Bear Hill at 6 am with the temperature still below freezing! I certainly needed something to warm me up. One of the ways to warm up is with laughter so I thought I would share with you some bulletin bloopers to warm you up for this special sermon. By the way I have been told that all of these statements actually appeared in someone’s bulletin: Here goes: Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help. / Join us for conversation after the services; prayer and medication to follow./ Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church./ Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones./ and the last one: For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
Each of our four gospels has an Easter story. I have chosen the one in John as I want to talk with you about Mary Magdalene. We are told that while it was still dark, Mary went to the tomb. We know that Mary was very close to Jesus; Luke says that Jesus had exorcised seven demons from her; later patristic—male dominated—stories developed that she was a prostitute but there is no evidence for that theory—possibly she had a bad reputation simply because she was without a husband. She was definitely portrayed as someone on the outside, yet she was a trusted friend of Jesus, a person of great faith and loyalty. I can imagine that she had been grieving immensely at the loss of her friend and teacher. She probably hadn’t slept much since Friday. As soon as she could after the Sabbath she hurried to the tomb. She looked inside and saw that the body was gone. Assuming that thieves had stolen the body of her Lord, she quickly ran and told Peter and the beloved disciple. They ran to the tomb and also saw that it was empty and then the men went back to their homes. Mary Magdalene stood outside the tomb crying. She was so sad and disoriented that she did not recognize Jesus at first, even when he spoke to her. When he speaks her name she calls him Rabbouni and out of great joy lunges to embrace him. The part of the story that I don’t like is that he says, “Don’t hold on to me.” I wish there had been a long tearful yet joyful embrace. Instead Jesus tells her to go tell the news that he is alive and will soon return to his Father, his God and our God. What this means to me is that we can’t stay in the past, wishing that what’s happened hadn’t happened but we must go on with our life.
Lots of folks want to prove or disprove that the resurrection happened. There were no witnesses to the resurrection itself. As Barbara Brown Taylor says, “The resurrection is the one and only event in Jesus’ life that was entirely between him and God…No one on earth can say what happened inside that tomb, because no one was there. They all arrived after the fact….but as it turned out that did not matter because the empty tomb was not the point. Jesus had outgrown the tomb. The risen one had people to see and things to do.” Taylor continues to point out that he appeared not once but four more times to his friends and disciples in the Gospel of John and every time he appeared to them, they became stronger, kinder, wiser, more daring. When Mary recognized Jesus is when the miracle really happened. “I have seen the Lord”. This is the miracle—that Mary and we can encounter the Christ, the living God. We too can say “I have seen the Lord.” Biblical scholar Sarah Dylan Brewer says this about the resurrection, “Our vision changes. When we take in the new life Christ offers, we can see Christ’s presence everywhere—in Creation and the creativity that is God’s gift, in the eyes of a child, in the heart of an enemy. In injustices and wounds, we see opportunities to participate in the risen Christ’s healing and redemption of the world….We learn to see others as people God loves….As we see those whom we saw as unlovable, we experience the unreserved graciousness with which Christ loves us.”
For me Easter is all about a God whose love lives and overcomes death. We live in a world of great trouble, a world that is filled with wars, hatred, domination systems, greed, oppression and violence. I believe that so many human beings do not feel they are good enough, not really sufficient for living life; instead folks are insecure and that drives them to grab more power, more admiration, and more possessions so that they will feel they are enough. Unless we have a spiritual practice that keeps us deeply connected to this God of love and life, we will continue to feel alienated and not good enough. I don’t believe this spiritual practice has to be a Christian practice. It could be Buddhist or something else. We Christians claim Jesus as our path to God. Other people claim other paths or gates which are right for them. I believe the God of all our great religions is a God of love, a God that overcomes death. Love is what lives. Love is the source of life. The central Easter message is that love has the power to raise new life. It is because God loves all of us so much that Easter happened. When we find a way to stay deeply connected to God in prayer and to others in a beloved community, then we will realize how deeply loved we are and that we each are sufficient, that we each have a special mission in this world. The story of Peter that we heard today from the Acts of the Apostles makes clear that Jesus’ message is for all peoples, not just the nation of Israel. Peter says that it is now clear to him that God shows no partiality. Ethnic background, race, culture, socio-economic status, and the rest simply have no part to play; there are no external prerequisites for becoming a Christian because God is impartial! It reminds me of the United Church of Christ’s “God is Still Speaking” publicity—we accept everyone—whoever they are and wherever they are on their life’s journey. There are absolutely no requirements for membership in the Church, the body of Christ, except that you love God and your neighbor, confess Jesus Christ as your leader and do your best to follow the teachings of Jesus. As v. 35 in the Acts reading says, "In every nation (or 'ethnic group') any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him" (Acts 10:35).
Let’s look again at Mary Magdalene. She was such an unexpected person to be chosen to spread the news of Christ’s resurrection. Just hear the hope and excitement in her voice as she says, “I have seen the Lord!” For the followers of Christ, this message she brought turned the world upside down. She did not expect to be the bearer of this good news but when her Lord sent her, she said yes. She teaches us that no matter whom we are or what kind of life we have been dealt, we have hope because of God’s deep and unconditional love for us, the love so big that God came to live amongst us as Jesus. Our lives are constantly being made new. That’s what Easter is all about. Unconditional love, new life and saying yes to God’s call in our life. This seed of hope is planted in the soul of each human being. We don’t have to live a life of oppression, injustice, violence and war. When we look around at terrible situations in Iraq, in Israel/Palestine, in Darfur, Sudan, in Niger, just to name a few of the areas of conflict, we may think there is no earthly solution. Maybe there isn’t an earthly solution; however, there is the possibility of a Divinely inspired and led solution. At the Stop the Next War Now Peace Conference a couple of weeks ago, Michael True showed us one horrible situation after another that was resolved without violence: apartheid in South Africa, the bus boycott under the leadership of Martin Luther King, the People’s Revolt in the Philippines in 1986, the Berlin Wall in 1989 just to name a few. For me and others at this conference, these stories gave us tremendous hope.
The message I want to leave with you this Easter Sunday is that God loves us deeply and unconditionally; that God is in everyone we see; that there is hope; and that you my sisters and brothers are being called to transform yourselves and this world. God is calling us to follow Jesus, to be part of this New Life. All we have to do is to answer Yes, just as did Mary Magdalene. If we connect deeply with that divine love and share it with each other, we will truly celebrate Easter every day of our lives. Amen and Amen
April 16, 2006
Scripture: Acts10:34-43, John 20:1-18
What a wonderful day! Easter morning is here. For me it is a time of great joy and celebration, even though I was not so sure about that as I stood on Bear Hill at 6 am with the temperature still below freezing! I certainly needed something to warm me up. One of the ways to warm up is with laughter so I thought I would share with you some bulletin bloopers to warm you up for this special sermon. By the way I have been told that all of these statements actually appeared in someone’s bulletin: Here goes: Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help. / Join us for conversation after the services; prayer and medication to follow./ Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church./ Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones./ and the last one: For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
Each of our four gospels has an Easter story. I have chosen the one in John as I want to talk with you about Mary Magdalene. We are told that while it was still dark, Mary went to the tomb. We know that Mary was very close to Jesus; Luke says that Jesus had exorcised seven demons from her; later patristic—male dominated—stories developed that she was a prostitute but there is no evidence for that theory—possibly she had a bad reputation simply because she was without a husband. She was definitely portrayed as someone on the outside, yet she was a trusted friend of Jesus, a person of great faith and loyalty. I can imagine that she had been grieving immensely at the loss of her friend and teacher. She probably hadn’t slept much since Friday. As soon as she could after the Sabbath she hurried to the tomb. She looked inside and saw that the body was gone. Assuming that thieves had stolen the body of her Lord, she quickly ran and told Peter and the beloved disciple. They ran to the tomb and also saw that it was empty and then the men went back to their homes. Mary Magdalene stood outside the tomb crying. She was so sad and disoriented that she did not recognize Jesus at first, even when he spoke to her. When he speaks her name she calls him Rabbouni and out of great joy lunges to embrace him. The part of the story that I don’t like is that he says, “Don’t hold on to me.” I wish there had been a long tearful yet joyful embrace. Instead Jesus tells her to go tell the news that he is alive and will soon return to his Father, his God and our God. What this means to me is that we can’t stay in the past, wishing that what’s happened hadn’t happened but we must go on with our life.
Lots of folks want to prove or disprove that the resurrection happened. There were no witnesses to the resurrection itself. As Barbara Brown Taylor says, “The resurrection is the one and only event in Jesus’ life that was entirely between him and God…No one on earth can say what happened inside that tomb, because no one was there. They all arrived after the fact….but as it turned out that did not matter because the empty tomb was not the point. Jesus had outgrown the tomb. The risen one had people to see and things to do.” Taylor continues to point out that he appeared not once but four more times to his friends and disciples in the Gospel of John and every time he appeared to them, they became stronger, kinder, wiser, more daring. When Mary recognized Jesus is when the miracle really happened. “I have seen the Lord”. This is the miracle—that Mary and we can encounter the Christ, the living God. We too can say “I have seen the Lord.” Biblical scholar Sarah Dylan Brewer says this about the resurrection, “Our vision changes. When we take in the new life Christ offers, we can see Christ’s presence everywhere—in Creation and the creativity that is God’s gift, in the eyes of a child, in the heart of an enemy. In injustices and wounds, we see opportunities to participate in the risen Christ’s healing and redemption of the world….We learn to see others as people God loves….As we see those whom we saw as unlovable, we experience the unreserved graciousness with which Christ loves us.”
For me Easter is all about a God whose love lives and overcomes death. We live in a world of great trouble, a world that is filled with wars, hatred, domination systems, greed, oppression and violence. I believe that so many human beings do not feel they are good enough, not really sufficient for living life; instead folks are insecure and that drives them to grab more power, more admiration, and more possessions so that they will feel they are enough. Unless we have a spiritual practice that keeps us deeply connected to this God of love and life, we will continue to feel alienated and not good enough. I don’t believe this spiritual practice has to be a Christian practice. It could be Buddhist or something else. We Christians claim Jesus as our path to God. Other people claim other paths or gates which are right for them. I believe the God of all our great religions is a God of love, a God that overcomes death. Love is what lives. Love is the source of life. The central Easter message is that love has the power to raise new life. It is because God loves all of us so much that Easter happened. When we find a way to stay deeply connected to God in prayer and to others in a beloved community, then we will realize how deeply loved we are and that we each are sufficient, that we each have a special mission in this world. The story of Peter that we heard today from the Acts of the Apostles makes clear that Jesus’ message is for all peoples, not just the nation of Israel. Peter says that it is now clear to him that God shows no partiality. Ethnic background, race, culture, socio-economic status, and the rest simply have no part to play; there are no external prerequisites for becoming a Christian because God is impartial! It reminds me of the United Church of Christ’s “God is Still Speaking” publicity—we accept everyone—whoever they are and wherever they are on their life’s journey. There are absolutely no requirements for membership in the Church, the body of Christ, except that you love God and your neighbor, confess Jesus Christ as your leader and do your best to follow the teachings of Jesus. As v. 35 in the Acts reading says, "In every nation (or 'ethnic group') any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him" (Acts 10:35).
Let’s look again at Mary Magdalene. She was such an unexpected person to be chosen to spread the news of Christ’s resurrection. Just hear the hope and excitement in her voice as she says, “I have seen the Lord!” For the followers of Christ, this message she brought turned the world upside down. She did not expect to be the bearer of this good news but when her Lord sent her, she said yes. She teaches us that no matter whom we are or what kind of life we have been dealt, we have hope because of God’s deep and unconditional love for us, the love so big that God came to live amongst us as Jesus. Our lives are constantly being made new. That’s what Easter is all about. Unconditional love, new life and saying yes to God’s call in our life. This seed of hope is planted in the soul of each human being. We don’t have to live a life of oppression, injustice, violence and war. When we look around at terrible situations in Iraq, in Israel/Palestine, in Darfur, Sudan, in Niger, just to name a few of the areas of conflict, we may think there is no earthly solution. Maybe there isn’t an earthly solution; however, there is the possibility of a Divinely inspired and led solution. At the Stop the Next War Now Peace Conference a couple of weeks ago, Michael True showed us one horrible situation after another that was resolved without violence: apartheid in South Africa, the bus boycott under the leadership of Martin Luther King, the People’s Revolt in the Philippines in 1986, the Berlin Wall in 1989 just to name a few. For me and others at this conference, these stories gave us tremendous hope.
The message I want to leave with you this Easter Sunday is that God loves us deeply and unconditionally; that God is in everyone we see; that there is hope; and that you my sisters and brothers are being called to transform yourselves and this world. God is calling us to follow Jesus, to be part of this New Life. All we have to do is to answer Yes, just as did Mary Magdalene. If we connect deeply with that divine love and share it with each other, we will truly celebrate Easter every day of our lives. Amen and Amen
posted by Sermons given at Deering Community Church @ 10:37 AM
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