Monday, April 3, 2023

Looking Ahead to April 9, 2023 -- Easter Sunday

For our Easter celebration this year we will hear the Resurrection Story as told by Matthew as well as some verses from Paul's letter to the Colossians. The passages are:

  • Colossians 3:1-4
  • Matthew 28:1-10


The Sermon title is What Are You Looking For?

Early Thoughts: What did they expect to find? Certainly not what they found, that much is clear.

What do we expect to find when we gather to hear the Easter story? Do we find it? Are we open to finding something different?

Each year, as I start to prepare for the Easter sermon, I make a conscious effort to put myself in a similar mindset to those first disciples. There is a danger in knowing the story too well, we can forget what gives it real power. Despite the fact that Jesus had, on more than one occasion, predicted his death and resurrection I see no evidence in the Gospel accounts that the disciples actually expected an empty tomb. Matthew tells us that Mary and Mary went to the tomb but does not tell us why. Were they, as other accounts tell us, taking spices to anoint the body? Were they wondering about the big rock and the guards that were protecting the tomb? Or were they simply doing what grieving people have done for millennia -- going to weep and say good bye?

In my minds eye the 2 Marys are walking with broken hearts and souls. This man they had followed, who had filled them with hope, who had loved them was dead. They knew it, they had watched him die. They knew where his body was because they were the only ones who had watched him laid in the tomb. All the others had fled, afraid perhaps that they might be the next ones on the cross, but Mary and Mary were there the whole time. Did their grief and commitment outweigh their own fear? I really think they expected to find things much as they had last seen them when the body was laid in the tomb.

Of course they found something totally different. The ground shakes and their world is changed. Interestingly, Matthew also tells of the earth shaking at the moment Jesus dies. Something momentous is happening in these moments.

There are two possible reactions to the great Good News shared by the angel. One is unbridled terror. One is great joy. (and the two are not mutually exclusive). Where the two women had come to weep and expected to find death they found LIFE. The Jesus story once again turns the world as we know it on its head. And the women go off to start to spread the news.

When has the earth been shaken and our world been changed, for good or for bad? [Remember Matthew has an earthquake both at the moment of death and the moment of resurrection.] Do we come to Easter morning looking for what we have always found, to hear a familiar story again? Do we come open to being surprised by the possibilities of resurrection? As people of faith we have all experienced many losses in life. As communities of faith many of us have a story of how things were once so much better and livelier, whereas now we mourn what has been lost. Sometimes we are afraid of what the future may bring after all the losses. Are we ready for resurrection, for life that conquers death?

One of the things I think we forget about the Easter story (possibly because we think we know it so well, possibly because it makes it simpler some how) is that resurrection is not resuscitation. Jesus resurrected is not the same as Jesus pre-cross. The world is changed, Jesus is changed, the relationship between Jesus and the disciples is changed. And in experiencing Easter the disciples are changed. Certainly the story of Christian faith is a story of life that wins but it is not a story of going back to how things were before. Resurrection, new life, means irrevocable change.

This Easter I encourage us to open ourselves to what changes resurrection might bring to our lives, both as individuals and as communities. AS we continue to recover from the years of pandemic (and sort out what living with COVID active in the world as an ongoing presence might mean) what does resurrection look like after those pandemic losses (remembering that we can't go back to how it was in 2019 again)? As many faith communities wrestle with changing congregational attendance and cash flow, what might a resurrected church look like (not the 1950's, 60's 70's or 80's)? What have we lost forever to make room for the resurrection life to bloom in its place?

What do you look for at Easter? Do you find it? What else might you find if you keep your eyes, ears, and soul open for God's surprises?
--Gord

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