Easter Sunday Sermon

I little late with this.

Blessed Easter!

+INI+

Alleluia! Christ is risen.
He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

This morning we proclaim the end of one story and the beginning of another. Christ is risen, come back to us – but that is the end of one story and the beginning of another.

Think of Mary Magdalene, there in the garden. Think of her progress through the three stages of Resurrection.

First – she is blinded by grief

Three days ago her beloved friend and teacher was torn from her life by mob violence and corrupt authority. She stood on Calvary and watched him die a hideous and shameful death. She had loved him in great measure because of the way he’d loved her.

And that morning – as she walked through the awakening city. Everything seemed as if nothing had happened. Why did the world insist on going around? The finality of the thud of the rock rolling in place to close the tomb was still echoing in her mind as she came to the garden that morning.

Because if there is anything you can count on is that the dead stay dead.

Mary is blinded by her grief

·      Even after she finds the tomb empty and even as she confesses her confusion to the angels, her grief blinds her.

·      Even as Jesus appears, her grief blinds her, and she can’t recognize him.

·      It is only when Jesus calls her by name that she understands that he’s done what he promised.

Stage 2: Hope fanned to flame.

We are told that Jesus had driven 7 demons from Mary. That is a lot of demons! This is a woman with a story!

But in Jesus she had found hope. Hope that her life could be different, hope that in this community of Jesus’ Followers she was not an outcast.

When she came to the garden that morning that fiery hope was a small dying ember, but at the sound of her name, what had been smoldering burst back into flame.

What joy in that moment! Life seemed to have suddenly returned to normal in that moment.

But it had not; for the next thing Jesus says to her tells her that something new was happen.

“Do not hold on to me,” he says. “I cannot stay here with you, but I will still be with you.”

There is a new future in store! And Mary is the start of it.

Mary’s risen lord says to her, “Go and tell the others.”

And this is the 3^rd Stage of Resurrection – “Go and tell others.”

Mary is the first apostle, the apostles to the Apostles – the first in a long line of relay runners with the news that death itself has died.

She takes the news back to the Jesus’s followers, blinded by grief, hiding in fear

She tells them the News – the Good News! And lives began to change.

This is the Third Stage of resurrection – to go out and tell all around us of life that not even death can defeat us.

Paul says something along these lines:

“So since you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”

What Paul is saying is this. Resurrection – Jesus, yours and mine  – is not something that happened once years ago as a one-off exception. And it is not something that will happen only on some future day.

No –resurrection life is ours - today.

It is revealed in this – we trust the promise that our ultimate destiny is eternal life in Christ.

In faith our sinful nature is replaced with Jesus’ nature as the beloved Son of God.

Here is what this means.

These “stages” are not a straight path. We go ‘round and ‘round touching these bases.

Because there is plenty of death in the world, plenty that grieves us and would break our hearts and destroy our hope.

And yet...

If you can’t see the power of the resurrection alive in the world today, don’t believe it! And if you look with the eyes of faith you will see it.

·      The husband who comes to himself and returns home to the wife he has wronged – and is forgiven.

·      The addict to drug or drink or violence who – with the help of many friends – takes the first step away from death, who turns around to life. 

·      The person who decides to forgive some wrong, instead of clinging to their right of retribution.

·      The community grief stricken in the aftermath of violence that commits to making a better future for its children.

·      And much more.

  Easter is the day to wake up from grief and loss.

            Wake up to God’s future!

Today is the day to be defined by our future, not by our past, but by God’s preferred and promised future.

That is the reality of our post Easter “Already and not yet” world. Resurrection goes on all around us. Can we be free from our grief to see it?

Like Mary we sent out to tell the world that death does not get the last word over us.

For new life abound! And Jesus has the future under control.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!