Easter Sunday morning is a good day for a preacher to look out over the congregation and wonder what it is that has drawn these people here because surely if I can figure out what has gotten you out of bed and brought you to church then I can be confident that all of you will return. Right? Hmmm But then is that really what we are about today? Today is by far the day when the most people who are drawn to Christian faith show up in church. What is it that makes us do that? Maybe you know the answer and maybe not.
Is it because you are always here on Sunday morning?Is it because there is something difficult going on in your life and you feel a need to be reassured of God’s love for youIs it because you have been told all your life that if you do not go to church at least on Christmas and Easter that you will surely go straight to Hell and so you get up and come out of obedience to some distant ethereal father figure.Is it because you got up this morning and felt a strange warming in your heart that you had not felt in many years, but which you knew to be God’s call to you to come.
You know each of these reasons is – at least in my opinion a good and valid reason for coming. I especially like the one about obedience as that is the one I always used on my children.
Maybe you are not really sure why you made the effort to get out of a perfectly good bed this morning, rushed to get everyone ready, left a long lingering breakfast, skipped the NYT puzzles, and headed out to church. I am not always sure why I come either but what I do know is this. Easter is about far more than habit, obedience, or the promise of life eternal up in the clouds.
Easter presents
us with a whole new reality of what the world is like. Easter pulls us out and up because it is the
most amazing proclamation of all time.
It is at once mysterious and utterly transparent. The Gospel lessons leave no doubt in the
reality of the crucifixion, the death of Jesus and of the empty tomb. The Easter lessons do not really need a
commentary by any preacher. It is the
story of new life in Christ that we come to hear on Easter morning
But if we end it
there then I believe with all my heart that we will have missed the boat because
Easter is not about one day out of the year.
Easter is about one day after another – about day in and day out living
into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is who we are – it is our nature – it is
our baptism – it is our life.
It is my
experience in life that God is most known in the silence of a walk in the
woods, in the home where children run around in their diapers playing with Mom
and Dad who must work every day but Sunday just to feed and house the
family. God is found on the golf course
with friends, God is found in the work of one who must go to care for an aging
relative each morning. God is found wherever we open ourselves up enough to be
aware of God’s presence in our lives.
And each one of these ways in which we grow to know God better is both
valid and vital in our lives – I know this because I have known God in these
places too. Who am I to hinder God when
God meets you or me outside the walls of this church?
But there is
another equally valid truth. We also
meet God here. God invites us here to be in community, to
learn and to grow together. Scripture
tells us that the women who ran from the tomb in awe and amazement and fear of
the reality of God’s action in raising Jesus from the dead, grew to be powerful
voices of the Good News, they came to be disciples who carried the Word to
others in proclamation and deed. They
were able to do so because the Spirit moved through that early community of
believers and gave them a passion, an urgency, and a hope that God was indeed
supreme over the forces of evil and death in the world and that they were
empowered to be the emissaries of that Good News.
In our epistle Peter says: “I truly
understand that whoever you are, wherever you come from, whatever your life has
been like… God is your creator, God
loves you, and God wants your love in return.”
In the end he spoke truth to the power magnates and he welcomed children
and women and tax collectors and lepers to his circle of friends. He taught about forgiving others as God
forgives us and he healed those who were sick
That’s not the whole story though. Peter gave a wonderful sermon, but it was
after the sermon was preached that the real change happened. The Holy Spirit moved among those folks and
all who saw it were amazed. Through the
willingness of Peter to tell these people, whom he had never met, about his
experience of knowing Jesus, they too came to know Jesus in a very special and
personal way – and their lives were changed too.
God’s Spirit is
moving mightily among the people of St Patrick’s. I see it in the work of those who give their
time to work in the garden or prepare coffee hour or make our worship space
beautiful, or create knitted tree ornaments for Christmas, fill the blessing
box, clean the bathrooms, protest on the street for those who are afraid or
unable to do so. Sing, preach, set the
Table, visit the sick, all the things…..
And goodness knows there is so much more…. I see God’s Spirit come alive in the faces of
those who have been hurt by our society or even by our friends and family and
find a home in this place – I see it in the face of those who seek to know
deeply the forgiveness and the acceptance of God.
For sure you do
not have to be in this space to be in the presence of God, but it can be a
powerful experience of God’s action in this world. Each time you come and kneel before this
altar you are supporting those who support you and you are filled with the
power of the Holy Spirit through the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. That is an
experience like none other in this world.
The resurrection
that we proclaim today throws open the doors of Love and Grace to all who seek
to know God or to be known by God.
This is the day
that we, as a community of faith, proclaim our hope in eternal life because
this is the day that God proclaims that we are all God’s chosen, God’s beloved,
God’s desired. This is the day for us to
go from this place and to ask ourselves:
What door is God opening for me?
What new experience does God have in store
for me?
Who is God asking me to stand beside?
How can I be helpful in finding new and
different ways for all of God’s beloved to find a home at this altar?
Each and every
Sunday is an opportunity to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. It is my desire – my hope – that each one of
us will celebrate that Good News each and every day not only with our lips but
in our lives, giving up ourselves – our souls and bodies - to God’s service in
the world. Let the church say AMEN
