Christ is risen! Easter Sunday 31 March 2013

[Due to circumstances beyond my control - like the nastiest cold I've had in years - I haven't uploaded my sermons lately. In any event, here is my Easter Message.]

"Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.”

• When Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the other women came to the tomb on that first day of the week, what were they expecting?
• I think we can be sure that they were expecting what is usually found in cemeteries and tombs – that is, the dead. We can believe that they expected to find the dead body of their crucified teacher. They were expecting to use the spices they had to properly bury the body. It could not have been done on Friday because the Sabbath had begun and such work was not allowed.
• What they were not expecting was to find the stone rolled away and the tomb open. They were not expecting to find the tomb empty except for the burial cloths. They were not expecting to be told that ”He is not here, but has risen.”
• The women had expectations that were quickly changed and that change confused and frightened them. What they saw and experienced confused and terrified them so much that they hid their faces against the earth. Still they left the tomb and returned to where the disciples had gathered.
• None of the disciples expected this either. They would not believe the women. Peter had to go and see for himself and he was “amazed” according to Luke.
• Peter want to believe, but is confused. He is always one for big words and big gestures. So he runs to the tomb to see for himself what the women told him – that his friend and teacher, Jesus, was not in the tomb, but was raised and is gone from the tomb.
• The events of Easter combined with the days before are amazing and everyone involved appears to be unable to understand what has gone on.
• What do we expect from Easter? Where to we expect to find Christ? Do we search for the living among the dead? Do we relegate our faith to funerals? Why do we lean on our faith only in the times of greatest mystery, like birth and death? It's true that those events are the times and places where mystery touches our daily live most. But there are other mysteries. It might be a good practise to seek for the living God among the living. It is in the living – the events of what we call our daily lives – where the living Jesus may be found.
• We spend maybe an hour a week in formal worship and maybe some time each day in personal prayer and devotions. What about the rest of the time in our week? All that time we spend doing for ourselves and for others we may think of as “less than godly”, but is it really? If we look at how our days and our weeks are divided and we trust that God is present in all the portions of our days and weeks, then God is present and waiting to be seen in what fills our time. Not that it's easy! Still it is possible to find the living Jesus in those things that make up our lives and make our lives worth living... and in finding him, give thanks.
• We should seek the Living One among the living rather than the dead. The face of Christ can be found in the people around us. He can be found in our fellow Christians whom we can turn to for support and to whom we offer support. Often our needs are filled by the Jesus who looks like someone else.
• He can be found in those around us who are suffering or in need for it is in serving the poor that we serve the poor Christ who had nowhere to lay his head. As the poem says, often goes Christ in a stranger's guise.
• He can be found in those who are troubled for it is there that we know Jesus' own troubled heart in Gethsemane.
• It doesn't matter what the person's age, gender, or situation. If our hearts are attuned to grace, we will see Christ there.
• In another way, we find and know the living Jesus in the Word proclaimed and in the water of Baptism and in the Word-made-flesh in the breaking of the bread. Here we are supported in our life by Jesus' life in the Word, in the water, the bread, and the wine. Even if it is only a few minutes a day and an hour or so a week, the face of the living Jesus is there to be found.
• So then, we know Jesus resurrected and among the living, when it comes time to face death - whether our own or another's – we will know that death is defeated and as Paul wrote: “as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.”
• As we are all here today, so is Jesus – in the Word, in the broken bread and shared cup, in the community, and in ourselves as people of faith. As we leave here, we not only take the living Jesus with us, we encounter him where ever we go.
• It would be a great joy to see Jesus face-to-face and to walk with him, in conversation or in silence. My faith tells me that will happen one day. But 'til then, we can know him still, and anticipate our own resurrection with him.
• The mysterious men in the tomb asked the women why they sought the living among the dead. And their question holds for us, too. Where there is life, there you can find the living Jesus. In him, even the dead who have died in faith are not dead in him.
• And neither are we.
• Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed!) And because he lives, we shall live as well.