Easter - Sermon

Embodying the Resurrection

            We live in a world where people believe and they don’t believe.  Some people don’t believe the earth is round or they don’t believe people have actually walked on the moon.  Some people believe in aliens and some believe in ghosts.  Some people believe dinosaurs once existed while other people believe the world is only about 6,000 years old.  Some people believe and some people don’t.  Life is filled with ideas, concepts, values, rules, social norms, and we either believe or we don’t.  What do you believe in?  Here’s one:    Snails have 14,000 teeth and some can even kill you!  What do you think?  Do you believe it or not? 

            Do you believe in friendship and love?  Do you believe in forgiveness and renewal?  Do you believe in fresh starts, a new day, being a part of God’s new creation?  Do you believe in God?  Because this Easter story is not an easy story to believe in.  In fact, when the handful of women returned to the others and told them that the tomb was empty, that Jesus was not there, and that two men told them not to look for the living amongst the dead, that he had risen just as he said he would, they did not believe.  They just thought the women were sharing an idle tale. 

            Personally, I do not believe in the Easter story of the empty tomb and the risen Lord just because it is written in the Bible.  Rather, I believe in the Easter story only through embodying the resurrection in my faith journey.  If I had been in that room with the others and heard what the women shared, I would have thought the grief these women had gone through definitely had gone to their heads.  But, I do think I would have been like Peter, I think I would want to go and check out their story for myself.  That is of course, if it was safe.  I’m a bit of a safety freak.  I’m not sure I would have gone if I thought maybe there would be soldiers or guards that might arrest me, but I would want to go, I would want to go and see for myself, just because that is my nature. 

            Some stories of faith are not so much to believed but rather to be experienced, to be embodied, to be lived out.  Jesus had an impact on people.  He called twelve men to be his disciples but many more men and women joined together to be a part of his community.  He was not about doing his ministry alone, it was relational, it involved deep friendships, it involved sacrifice and love.  The disciples dropped everything to follow this teacher, this rabbi, this man that they believed was the Messiah.  And over the course of three years, they witnessed healings and miracles, they heard stories of God’s deep love for God’s people and they saw Jesus interacting with outcastes and sinners and people that others despised.  He did not follow the rules of his faith, and by doing so, he connected with so many that felt they had been exiled from the faith, and even worse, exiled from God. 

            Jesus sought to shed the dead skin of his faith tradition and allow a fresh and new way to be God’s people to be born in the world and people flocked to him.  They were hungry and thirsty for a God that loved them, that accepted them for who they were, not as others told them they should be.  But power does not like change and those that have power will do what they have to in order to stop change.  Jesus was all powerful, but he referred to himself as a servant.  And sadly, because he changed people’s lives for the better, he was stopped.  Except he wasn’t.  In the idle tale of the resurrection, God refuses to take no for an answer.  God refuses to be stopped.  God refuses to let oppression and injustice and greed and self-centered interests have the last word.   And that is where I have seen the power of the resurrection in my own life. 

            If we look at history of the past two thousand years, we can see how humanity seems to come two steps forward and then perhaps three steps back and then four steps forward and a step back.  We don’t move in a linear motion towards healing and wholeness in this world, but if we look, if we pay attention, if we allow our inner spiritual selves the space to embrace our scriptures, we can see the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God in our midst.  We can encounter the risen Christ for ourselves.  Have you seen the Lord? 

The first time I saw the Lord was up in rural Maine working on a trailer home for a family.  We went in community, as a work group from our church, and we arrived with love, love for people we had never met but we knew deserved better housing than what they had.  So we gave of what we had, our time, our energy, our dedication to create a dryer, warmer, safer place to live.  And by embodying Jesus’ teachings, by putting faith into action, I learned that the Bible is just flat if you keep it on the page.  But when you live it, when it put it into action, it is transformative. 

            I’ve seen the risen Lord in the Dominican Republic as we helped build a health office adjacent to a church.  I’ve seen the risen Lord on the border of Mexico as we built cinderblock homes in the slums.  I’ve seen the risen Lord in Kenya as schools and health centers are built and supported by the church to ensure that the forgotten ones are educated and healed.  I’ve seen the risen Lord even here in NJ, as men find recovery through Market Street Mission in Morristown.   There are dead places everywhere, places where life is not able or allowed to thrive in the way that it is intended and it is in those places that resurrection is waiting to be born.  Life can come out of death.  I’ve seen it in Camden, NJ with a school program called Urban promise.  We witnessed it this past summer in Philadelphia through Broad Street Ministry and we will participate in it this next summer right here in Morris County.  God is the power that births new things in the world.  God is the power that brings agencies like Homeless Solutions and Family Promise into being. 

For those that don’t believe, they might say, yes, there are compassionate people out there.  But for those that have embodied the resurrection, that act in their faith, it is so much more than being a compassionate person, it is sacred work.  It is participation in the resurrection.  We worship on Sunday because we are Easter people.  We don’t believe in the resurrection, we are to be the resurrection.  What do you believe?  Do you believe in friendship and love?  Do you believe in forgiveness and renewal?  Do you believe in fresh starts, a new day, being a part of God’s new creation?  This is who we are, an Easter people, building friendships based in God’s love.  Seeking forgiveness when needed and participating in God’s new creation.  We don’t always have to believe, but in faith, we take what may seem like an idle tale and when we see it for ourselves, experience it for ourselves, we know we have encountered the sacred, the transformative work of God.  Christ is risen!  For I have seen the risen Lord at work in this world.  Don’t believe the story, embrace the story, embody the story, participate in the resurrection as we are called to be participants in God’s new creation.   Amen.