Easter Day

              April 8, 2007

     The old fellow always showed up at the country church on Easter.  Following this particular Easter service, the preacher was standing at the entrance, shaking hands as usual.  The old fellow thanked the preacher for an inspiring sermon.  The preacher couldn’t resist and said, “Brother, you need to join the Army of the Lord!”

     The fellow said, “I’m already in the Army of the Lord, Preacher.”

     The preacher asked, “Then how come I only see you here on Easter?”

     The old fellow whispered, “I’m in the secret service.”

     Even if you are in the secret service we are glad to have you here today.  If someone invites you to join the Army of the Lord, you have my permission to remind them that you serve already.

     Tuck McGuire, a classmate of mine from Thompson Valley Elementary, liked to tell about the time after the egg hunt one Easter Sunday that he decided to pull a prank.  He went to the chicken coop and replaced every one of the eggs under the setting hens with a brightly colored one.  Later, he said, the old rooster walked in, saw all the dyed eggs of various colors and stormed outside and beat up the peacock.  I always had my doubts about that story.

     The Gospel for this Easter Sunday begins at a grave.  It is the borrowed grave where a rabbi had been placed.  Like Blanche Dubois in Tennessee William’s, A Streetcar Named Desire, he had to depend on “the kindnesses of strangers.”  Joseph of Arimethea offered his family tomb as the final resting place for this good man.  Think for a moment about those first followers.  They had sat through an awful Saturday.  Their teacher, their rabbi, their dear friend had been killed.  Perhaps they would be next.  They had loved him.  They had left everything and followed him for about three years.  They had come to see God’s love in him and in what he taught them.  He had called out the very best in them.  They were able to do things and think things they didn’t believe they could do or think.  They had sensed possibilities for their lives like never before and felt a new purpose in life.  They had witnessed his gentle touch as he reached out to the diseased and hurting.  They had learned to reach out more compassionately.  They had been there as he took what people willingly gave and made it feed thousands.  They had sat at his feet as he opened the scriptures to them in a new and exciting way.  They had been with him just three nights ago when he took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them with new Passover words, “this is my body broken for you…do this in remembrance of me.” 

     They had received the cup of blessing from his hands, “this is my blood poured out for you…do this, often, in remembrance of me.”  Each one of them, male and female, understood in a new way that nothing could separate them from the love of God.  Never before had they been so filled with the nourishing presence of God.  They had joined the parade into Jerusalem and had fully expected him to be crowned King.  But, instead, he had been falsely accused, tried in the religious and civil courts, been found guilty, tortured, crucified, and executed in the most brutal way.  Now, as if all that wasn’t enough, Mary of Magdela, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and some of the other women returned from the tomb, where they had gone to finish the ritual anointing, and reported that the body was gone.

     We have heard it said, perhaps even said it to someone, “May he rest in peace.”  Well, for the first followers, the horror was that he couldn’t even rest in death.  That’s what they thought, anyway.  What now?  What could they make of this report about an empty tomb and a missing body?  We must remember that for those first followers the empty tomb and the missing body were not bits of good news.  It was horrible news, because they just knew that the grave had been robbed and the body stolen.  All this happened while it was still dark.  When would the light of day dawn?

     And then the morning came.  And it came in a glorious way.  Somehow the pieces began to fit and make sense.  Somehow the presence of God was all around them again.  The presence of the risen Lord was all around them and inside them.  They began to see this as something more than just an event.  It became a symbol for them.  God was saying that he created us out of his great love and is always present with resurrection power.  It is that power that brings life out of death, joy out of sorrow, and healing out of sickness and disease.

     Easter is God’s message to us that suffering does not have to be without meaning.  Easter is God’s message that death is not the final chapter, but a new beginning.  The new song begins because of Easter.

     Not too long after coming to St. John’s we had taken some of the Easter lilies from a service just like this and planted them in the flower bed, near the bird bath, just outside the front door.  We had snipped off the flowers after they had wilted and turned brown.  We were told that they might bloom again the following year.  April had fewer showers and the summer was hot and dry.  Fall came and we geared up for another year.  On a Sunday morning in mid-September I received a phone call around 6 am, telling me of the sudden death of my younger sister in Florida.  The next few days were alternately filled with tears and hugs and remembering family stories. 

     Gayle was a great teacher, school administrator, friend and sister.  We drove back home to Mockingbird Circle from the funeral and pulled into the driveway.  Almost at the same time, Shirley and I gasped.  There, next to the bird bath, just outside the front door, stood three Easter lilies in full bloom.  They became known as Gayle’s lilies.

     We all have our moments of sitting beside graves; stunned and wounded to the core of our being.  It is difficult to feel anything at such times.  We may feel guilty for being angry with God or fate or life.  If we can find some way to force our hearts to stay open, if we can somehow remain teachable, the Truth will come.  We will know the presence of the risen Lord even if we do not understand fully.  We will learn in such moments that it is okay that we do not understand it, if we are willing to stand under it.  We mortals will not grasp the full meaning of God’s activity in this world.  We are given some hints of what it’s like.  Easter is the biggest hint of all. 

     It is the reality of Easter that reveals the extent of the love of God.  God gave the Son to the world and, even when the world rejected him, God did not reject us.  The Son died on the cross, bearing our sins, so that the way back into the presence of God is made possible again.  We couldn’t do it for ourselves.  God took that action.  It is a gift this day; for you, for me, and for the world.

     The very best proof of the truth of all this is the fact that you are here today.  Even those in the Secret Service add their grain to the grain we each bring.  That makes up the boulder of the faith that leads us to say, “Alleluia!  Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!”  Amen