Listen to Worship Service

Easter

The Good News Written

Psalm 118.1, 17

¹O give thanks to God who is good. God’s steadfast love endures forever! ¹⁷I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Holy One.

Odes of Solomon, Ode 17.1-4, 7-9

I was crowned by my God and my crown is Life! I was justified by my God, for my wholeness is incorruptible. I have been freed from vanities and I am not condemned. My chains were cut off and I received the face and likeness of a new person. I walked with God and was kept safe. And the one who knew and exalted me is the Most High. The Compassionate One kindly glorified me… and I opened doors which had been closed.

The wisdom of Sara Moores Campbell

In this season where light and dark balance the day, we seek balance for ourselves. Grateful for the darkness that has nourished us, we push away the stone and invite the light to awaken us to the possibilities within us and among us — possibilities for new life in ourselves and in our world.

Luke 24.1-4a, 10-12 (NRSV)

¹But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. ²They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³but when they went in, they did not find the body. ⁴While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. ⁵The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” ¹⁰Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. ¹¹But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. ¹²But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

The Good News Proclaimed

Preached by the Reverend Doctor Durrell Watkins at the Sunshine Cathedral on Easter, Sunday, April 4, 2010.

Here we are to hear the familiar Easter narrative. In the words of Groucho Marx, “If you’ve heard this story before, don’t stop me because I’d like to hear it again.”

First let me say, as I’ve said many times: Who you are is a child of God made in the image of God filled with the spirit of God and you are part of the creation that God calls very good. The grace and the dignity and the beauty that you are cannot be destroyed; the divine light that is your truth cannot be dimmed. So we take great courage and profound hope in knowing that winter will be followed by spring, that when we fail or fall the angels of God’s presence are there to lift us up, that even the darkest night will be followed by the dawn. There’s got to be a morning after!

Dr. Norman Vincent Peale once said about Easter, “Time and again I have seen the power of [Resurrection]… enfold and awaken… people who suffer from lost love, lost faith, lost hope — who then rebound, victorious and whole, from their dark night of the soul. When that happens, when the spirit of Easter really touches them, they too come back from the dead.”

Isn’t that our gospel message?
Imagine a person who lives his life so powerfully that it touches the so-called unlovable people with God’s own love, demonstrating that God’s kin-dom of justice and indomitable hope is present to them here and now, it is at hand!

Imagine people’s lives being changed because of such a dynamic person. Thieves, prostitutes, eunuchs, Samaritans, Canaanites, Roman soldiers, revolutionaries, women, children, rich people and poor people, people who are spiritually wounded, mentally ill, and physically infirm are all people with whom he spends time. Most of these are people his community have judged harshly and excluded, and yet this person knows from his own experience of being conceived in the body of an unwed mother and being born temporarily homeless in a barn what it is like to be marginalized and disadvantaged; and so he eats with these people, speaks with these people, will be seen in public with these people… and they experience profound wholeness (salvation some might say) as a result of his commitment to justice-love, that kin-dom of God that is present, at hand, within.

Imagine his popularity among the peasant class growing and him becoming something of a celebrity on the healing and teaching circuit. People feel good about themselves when they hear him, and don’t we all need some of that?
Imagine him making a pilgrimage to the big city.
Imagine locals hearing that he is near the city gates… they’ve heard that his inclusive, radical, empowering message can change lives, can help people confront and defeat their own personal demons, can even help people feel happier and more fully alive.
Imagine them flocking to see this dynamic teacher and healer; imagine them waving palm branches, a symbol of military victory, and shouting words from ancient hymns at him: “Hosanna! God save us! And God bless this one who comes in God’s name!”
Imagine the authorities noticing that his nobody from nowhere is able to draw and excite sizeable crowds.

Imagine our protagonist going to the Temple, and finding it not to be the place of human inspiration and affirmation and celebration that it is meant to be, but something that has become part of and a protector of the status quo. Imagine him going berserk and causing a huge scene in the Temple, turning over tables and shouting. Imagine the authorities now saying, “This man not only draws and excites crowds, he has the nerve to walk into public places and cause a scene… and some people even admire him for it. If this man wanted to foment a rebellion, he might pull it off. He’s got to go.”

Imagine the keepers of power conspiring against this person who is a potential threat. Imagine them bribing one of his own disciples to betray him and to participate in his arrest on charges of sedition.

Imagine our hero being arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced, tortured, and executed.

Imagine all the people who had been empowered and uplifted by him; imagine how devastated, defeated, and afraid they must now feel.

Of course this heroic healer and teacher is Jesus. And we find ourselves at his graveside some 40 hours after he has been brutally killed by that monument to human cruelty, crucifixion. And that’s where we pick up today with the reading we heard from Luke’s gospel.

Women come to visit the graveside and mourn the loss of their dear friend. What they find is the stone has been rolled from the tomb, the tomb is vacant, and two strange men say that Jesus isn’t dead! What does it all mean?

Is it a hoax? Was it all a dream? Did Jesus somehow escape? Has his body been stolen? Are the men in dazzling clothes deceiving them?

Resurrection isn’t a neat and tidy, once and for all, matter of fact event. Not only is Jesus raised, but so are many questions. The women are terrified… not just uncomfortable, annoyed, disoriented, confused and certainly not initially elated… the women, Luke says clearly, are TERRIFIED. They don’t have answers… .they have an empty tomb, the word of two strangers, and a lot of questions. They are overwhelmed. They can’t even hold their heads up they are so afraid. The possibilities, the newness, the uncertainty, the what-ifs… their world has been shaken apart.

They finally compose themselves enough to tell Peter, who finds the women to be hysterical, grief stricken, and perhaps even a little crazy. He doubts their witness… just as Thomas doubts the experience of the other disciples in John’s gospel.

But for all the confusion, the unanswered questions, the pitfalls and the possibilities, what is clear is that Golgotha didn’t get the last word. Whatever else Easter tells us, the Resurrection stories make it clear that dignity won’t stay dead!

Jesus’ significance would not come to an end.
Jesus’ message of hope and radically inclusive justice-love would not be silenced.
The divine Life that expressed in, through, and as Jesus was not subject to Roman torture.

Bodies can be broken, but spirits are designed to soar.
The inward light, that of God in all people that we see so profoundly in the stories of Jesus’ life, will not, cannot be extinguished.
Come what may there’s got to be a morning after!

I know that there are people in this room who are mourning the loss of a relationship, the end of a friendship, the death of a loved one. Some may be hurting because of a job loss. Someone may be struggling to forgive a mistake. Someone is wondering “will I ever love again?” Someone is wondering if the doctor’s grim prognosis will come true, while others have been given hope by the doctor but are afraid to embrace that hope.

Oh my dear friends, we have had our terrifying moments in Golgotha’s cold shadow. And then, sometimes, just when we think we have at least made peace with it, there’s more change, more uncertainty, more gut wrenching fear and anguish. The stone has been moved, the tomb is inexplicably empty, what now? Haven’t we been through enough without this?!

But like the song says, “There’s got to be a morning after, if we can hold on through the night. We have a chance to find the sunshine; let’s keep on looking for the light.” Our sacred stories say that the dark night of Golgotha must be followed by the dawn of Easter. Disappointments happen, but so do the joys of second chances. More than something that did happen, Easter can be for us something that does happen. As Easter people, we live always in the hope of resurrection.

Don’t let Golgotha be your defining moment, and don’t be afraid of the empty tomb… we weren’t expecting a miracle, but sometimes in spite of ourselves we do see things from a different perspective, we do allow ourselves to see possibilities that we had previously overlooked and what we discover is that we have emerged from the soul-killing lie of the closet into the light of truth and empowerment.

Sometimes, the stone is rolled back and we emerge from the predictions of doom and despair into the light of indomitable hope and a sincere trust that in life, in death, in life-beyond death there is a universal and eternal love that will NEVER let us go.

Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise… my Savior and my God. (Psalm 42.11)
Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy (Psalm 126.5)
Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30.5)
O Give thanks to God who is Good! God’s steadfast love endures forever. (Psalm 118.1)
The Compassionate One kindly glorified me… and I opened doors which had been closed. (Odes of Solomon)
Grateful for the darkness that has nourished us, we push away the stone and invite the light to awaken us to the possibilities within us and among us. (Sara Moores Campbell)

In other words, there’s got to be a morning after. This is the Easter message and this is the good news. Amen.

Audio worship service (http://sunshinecathedral.org/sermons/audio/20100404_1.mp3)