Easter Sunday

Acts 10:34-43
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

1 Corinthians 15:19-26
John 20:1-18 

          Unlike the momentous events of more recent times, the resurrection of Jesus is largely a mystery.  There were no video cameras to capture the action live, no reporters on the scene.  The accounts of it begin when a handful of people, mourning the death of someone dear to them discover that things are not as they seemed to be.  It is not objective, provable fact, but it is profoundly true.  Its reality is in our experience of its meaning, the conviction we sense deep within ourselves.

          Jesus’ resurrection reveals that we can know God most clearly and completely when everything we had hoped for and worked for has failed completely.  God is with us always, present and self-revealing.  But when our own efforts are successful and the world treats us kindly, it’s difficult to see beyond pride and a sense of accomplishment and realize that God is there all the time.

          Jesus’ death brought together the worst aspects of human behavior.  It was a terrible injustice, a misuse of power brought about among an oppressed people.  The gospels tell us that Jesus’ enemies treated him with terrible cruelty and that his friends responded to his plight with cowardice and disloyalty.  They tell us that he had worked for some years trying to help people understand a better way to be and to live.  He revealed that new way for them through his own behavior by acting in generosity, authenticity, honesty, friendship and love.  The people he met, and even those who traveled with him took what he had to give them but only occasionally did they really seem to understand what he was trying to teach them.   And those who did get a glimpse of his true meaning had difficulty applying it consistently to their own lives.  They lived in a harsh and unjust world with few comforts.  How could their behavior possibly change the world?

          Jesus was charged with crimes he did not commit.  He was executed because people who appeared to be more powerful than him wanted him out of the way.  A world that operated according to the principles he taught had no room for the misuse of power on which their lives and authority were built.  In the end, he knew how he would die.  The stories we have of him describe him gathering his friends together one last time to try to help them understand and then going out with them to face the pain that lies ahead.  When the time comes, they all run away and leave him alone to face the accusations, to die in pain as a criminal, a failure for all to see. 

          What no one understood was how deeply God was interwoven into this experience of terrible failure.  Until Jesus’ grieving friends return from wherever their fear has driven them, prepared to face the aftermath of the events they did not have the courage to witness, they do not understand the most important thing about the events of those three days.  They do not understand until that morning that God has been there all the time, living through the worst horror they could imagine.  It is God who had called them away from their life’s work to walk together for those few short years of teaching, preaching and healing.  God had gathered with them on that final night to pour himself out for them and command them to do the same in remembrance.  God had stood silent in the face of unjust accusations and watched as the last friend ran away in terror.

          And then God prevailed over it all; life, hope and love conquer cruelty, injustice and fear.  In the resurrection God who lived as one of us shows us that our worst failures and fears, our greatest suffering and the things about ourselves that we most despise are not greater than God’s love nor will they ever separate humanity from that love.  

          As Christians we are a people of resurrection.  If until now you understood Christianity as being a set of rules you have to follow, or a set of beliefs you were required to claim, or a calculus of rewards and punishments, Easter is your invitation to a change of mind.  Resurrection is what defines us as Christians and it is about the unfailing love of God for all creation.  It is God saying to humanity, nothing you can do will end my love for you.  That unfailing love shapes our individual lives.  It forms us as community and distinguishes the way we encounter the world.  Resurrection inspires us to live lives of thanksgiving and generosity.  God’s love offered to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is a gift so rich we need never feel that we do not have enough to share.  Resurrection leads us to model God’s love.  It calls us to build communities of welcome and affirmation that reflect, however imperfectly, God’s mercy and forgiveness offered to all humanity.  We believe that lives and relationships that are broken can be healed because we, ourselves, know that healing.  We seek to build a world on the principles of love and true justice.  We believe that one day God will bring that world into being.

          When you leave here today, carry with you this celebration of resurrection and let God’s love fill you with joy and new life.  Alleluia, Christ is risen.