Easter Sunday sermon

Easter Sunday 12 April 2009

It was a fall Sunday morning at the early liturgy in a different place and time. The person sitting in the front pew was someone who had talked with me a few days earlier about the difficulties and heartbreaks in his life. For over an hour, as he talked, he had wept openly, so difficult for him, and I did my best to console him even as I listened. For all the heartbreaks, betrayals and disappointments in his life, I tried to say that his life wasn’t a disaster, it wasn’t a failure, that life would come out of death, that as difficult as it was for him to let go of parts of his past, he had to in order to find new life. His boat was sinking and he needed to throw some unhealthy relationships and habits overboard in order to survive. It had been one of those wrenching conversations that leave both persons — speaker and listener — utterly drained. When I saw his face at the morning eucharist, I did something unexpected. Even though it was in the fall, I wanted to communicate to him once again that out of sadness comes hope; out of death comes life. So, after doing the customary salutation, ‘Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit…’ I added, ‘Alleluia! Christ is risen.’ He responded with the perhaps confused congregation, though it didn’t miss a beat in its response, ‘The Lord is risen, indeed! Alleluia!’ From the way he said it, I had the sense he understood, through the words of the liturgy and despite his grief, what I had tried to say earlier on.

You and I are resurrection people, not Good Friday people. There are times in our lives, for sure, when we feel as though Good Friday will take over them. But as we stand here this morning and profess our faith in the risen Christ, so we believe that out of the deaths in our lives will come new life.

Roberta Bondi, in her Memories of God: Theological Reflections on a Life, writes about how in her late forties, she was extremely depressed. She felt like a failure as a wife, a mother, a teacher, a friend, niece, historian, and teacher. All she could think of were her unmet obligations, the people she had hurt, the suffering she had done and even the dirty house. She finally dragged herself to her favourite chair in her study and cried out to God her failures, saying that there must be something in Christianity she had missed.

Then, out of the depths of her soul, she remembered a line from the Roman Catholic eucharistic prayers for Easter: ‘The joy of the Resurrection renews the whole world.’ Every cell in her body responded, and she knew that statement was true. And then it all began to make sense for her. She writes:

‘”The joy of the Resurrection renews the whole world,” I repeated to myself in wonder.… Of course! There was, indeed, something I had missed about Christianity, and now all of a sudden I could see what it was. It was the Resurrection! How could I have been a church historian and a person of prayer who loved God and still not know that the most fundamental Christian reality is not the suffering of the cross but the life it brings? Of course, Jesus did not die to bring death to the world, but to establish the life God intended for us from the beginning. It was so very obvious. The foundation of the universe for which God made us, to which God draws us, and in which God keeps us in not death, but joy.… Truly, Jesus had not died to show me I must earn my right to be loved, nor been crucified so that I would take onto my own shoulders infinite responsibility for the pain of the world. Jesus had died for the New Creation, for the joy of the resurrection of the whole world.’ (1)

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The joy of the Resurrection renews the whole world. Mary Magdalene, who went to the garden that first morning, had no idea that the joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. She only knew that she needed to tend to the last rites for her master’s corpse. She went with oils, and her love for this itinerant teacher who walked the roads of Galilee and Judea for three years. She went, because women were the ones who usually prepared bodies for burial. She went, most of all, because she believed in what her teacher, Jesus, had to say. Of all the prophets, he taught about God’s love and actually demonstrated this love. He listened to her, he believed her, and he respected her.

The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. Mary still didn’t understand that when she talked with the man at the tomb. Thinking him to be the gardener, she pleaded with him to tell her what the authorities had done with her master’s body. Only when he called her by name, did she recognise him to be Jesus. Even as he told her to let go of him, he also told her to spread the good news that he had risen, that the resurrection had happened. And, so, Mary Magdalene, the marginalised, became resurrected, too — the first apostle, even to the apostles.

The joy of the resurrection renews the whole world. That is why we have gathered here this morning. We come with our own heartbreaks, our own sense of failures, our own brokenness and our own deaths. They are part of who we are but they are not the whole picture. Never.

The good news in all of us this is that especially on Easter, we proclaim that forgiveness and new life are offered to all of us — whether we are Peter who denies Jesus three times or even Judas who betrays Jesus unto death. Jesus died, that we might live. As Paul writes, ‘If Christ had not died, our faith would be in vain.’ But Christ died to forgive us all. All are forgiven, all are made new. The joy of the resurrection renews the world — everyone.

What does this mean, this forgiveness? As William Sloane Coffin wrote in his book Letters to a Young Doubter, ‘It means that with the zeal of gratitude we can too can become ten times the people we are. It means that instead of trying to prove ourselves endlessly, we can express ourselves as fearless, vulnerable, dedicated, joyous followers of our risen Lord.… God has done God’s part: resurrection has overcome crucifixion, forgiveness, sin….’ (2)

Where are the places in your lives today that need resurrection? What are the relationships that need resurrection? What are the concerns that need resurrection? With the knowledge of God’s forgiveness, how can you live fearlessly, vulnerably, dedicated and joyous? Where can you find new freedom that comes from this resurrection? Where will you find renewal?

Even if you are like Mary, standing peering into the empty tomb this morning, remember that she was greeted by her master and saviour. So are we this Easter morning.

The joy of this resurrection renews the whole world and it will renew us, too. One of our Easter hymns (190) says, ‘Life is yours for ever, Mary, for your light is come once more and the strength of death is broken; now your songs of joy outpour. Ended now the night of sorrow, love has brought the blessed morrow. Let your alleluias rise.’

While we may live in a Good Friday world, may our heart’s first inclination be always to proclaim, ‘Alleluia, Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!’

END NOTES
(1) Roberta C. Bondi, Memories of God: Theological Reflections on Life (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), 170, 172.
(2) William Sloane Coffin, Letters to a Young Doubter (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), 174. 179.