I Have Seen Resurrection

Easter Sunday 4-20-14

Matthew 28:1-10

Resurreciton,
Otto Dix 1927

 

In Matthew’s Easter Story,

there is a lot going on, it’s real, it’s action filled.

There’s an earthquake,

there’s a flashy lightning angel,

and then that angel moves the great big stone

out of the way of the tomb.

The guards are so afraid they pass out.

Real, physical things happen in this story.

And when the stone is rolled away,

the tomb is empty and Jesus is not there.

The one whom everyone saw was crucified and laid in a tomb

was not in the tomb any more.

They all seemed surprised.

There had been guards posted in front of the tomb,

so they knew that Jesus body wasn’t stolen.

And then the angel speaks and clears everything up,

she says:

“Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for

Jesus who was crucified.

He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.”

In other words, Jesus told you this was gonna happen.

Jesus told them all that he would be arrested

and killed by the authorities,

and that after three days,

he would rise from the dead.

Peter and the rest seemed to get hung up on the dying.

The part where he told them

to deny themselves and take up their cross.

But they forgot about the promise that came at the end.
The promise that after three days he would rise again.

  

Sometimes we get hung up on the dying part too.

We live in fear of it, and so we avoid the commitment.

We only hear that we are asked to follow the way of Jesus,

denying ourselves,  -- dying, in many ways,

to our egos, our greed, our false selves.

It feels like a heavy demand to be with Jesus,

but the reality is, when we are with Jesus we find the

burden is easy, because the promise is so great.

Because when we die with Christ, we rise with Christ again.

Now some people have suggested

that maybe Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead.

Actually, the theory has been around since the very beginning.

People have been proposing that maybe it was a vision,

Maybe Jesus just came and spoke to them in dreams.

maybe it was just a collective illusion.

Maybe it was just an elaborate PR stunt.

Maybe nobody really saw anything that day.

But to me, that argument is irrelevant.

I believe that Jesus rose from the dead on that day.
But if someone doesn’t want to believe that’s fine.

Because I’m here to say that I have seen resurrection, first hand.

I have seen God take what was once dead

and make it alive -- Real physical things.

I have seen people who once lived in fear of drug dealers

out in the streets having block parties, reclaiming their neighborhoods.

- I have seen people who were beside themselves with mourning

regain their ability to love again.

- I have seen people enslaved to alcohol

overcome their addictions and rejoin life.

- I have seen people who lived

in cardboard boxes beside a river in Honduras

come together, move to higher ground, and form a community.

- I can see the resurrected Christ in people,

Christian and non Christian , who give their time,

their hope and their possessions away to help other people.

- I can see the resurrected Christ in the way Gethsemane serves others,

building houses for strangers, helping people in our neighborhood,

caring for each other.

That is Jesus. Alive today.

And those are just the things that I’ve seen.

You’ve probably seen many, many more.

Where have you seen Jesus alive?

What empty tombs have you seen for yourself?

We can probably put together thousands of Jesus sightings between us!

Resurrection is not just something

that happened to one person 2000 years ago,

resurrection is happening here and now. Christ’s power is with us.

Tombs that were once filled are now empty.

God is working today to make things alive.

We should not be afraid of death, dying

and the other setbacks and tragedies of life.

Because sometimes the only way to really live is through dying

through pain and through hurt and grief.

Giving up what once was, and embracing what God is doing today.

And we should not fear death because God

will never run out of sunrises, or out of songs, or visions, or insight.
God will never run out of Easters.

The message of Easter today is the same message

that the resurrected Jesus told those women at the tomb that early

Sunday morning - “Do not be afraid.”

Do not live your life in fear of the unknown or the unpredictable.

Have faith and know that God is with you.

So live boldly and believe !

Believe in the resurrection,

believe in the promise! believe in hope!

and know that Christ is risen!

Who Shoul Die?

Good Friday

April 18, 2014

Michael Rothenstein
The Crucifixion, 1937

Most of the religions in the world

have a lot to say about death.
It seems as if death and dying

are an important part of our understanding of God.

There must be something that we need to learn about death and dying.

Unfortunately, throughout history, religion has mostly

learned and taught the wrong lessons about death.

We started with human sacrifices and animal sacrifices,

the very pure have been killed in the name of God.

God was seen as any angry God who demanded a blood sacrifice.

As time wore on,

the people of religion have placed themselves in the role

of the more pure and more holy and have set out putting to death

those who were seen as less pure and less holy.

This is the system that Jesus got caught up in.

Religions kill those who cause trouble or break religious laws.

We’ve killed those who try to change religion.

Those who don’t believe the right things.

Or those who have a different faith all together.

We’ve projected the evil in the world outside ourselves

and said that that, over there, must die.

The lesson that people have often learned is that

God was a demanding God and wanted to do away

with those who didn’t worship God the right way.

Others have to die for our religious experience to be pure and good.

In order for the world to be sacred, the unsacred must die.

Someone else has to die.

But Jesus showed us another way.

Not just by telling us, but by example.

Someone else doesn’t have to die,

it’s us that have to die.

Maybe not literally, on a cross by the hands of another.

Jesus gave us the most giving example.
But parts of us die.
Our egos, our selfishness, our need for security,

our pasts, our false selves, we let these, or make these die,

so that the kingdom of God can come be born in us.

Jesus died to show us the way.

Jesus died to show us a God that loves.

A God that loves us more than anything or any one.

A God that was not willing to lose us to the powers of this world.

Jesus death is not just a death for us

it’s not just an atonement for our sins

it’s not a just gift that Jesus gave to us.

It is the way of the cross.

The way to live.

“Take up your cross and follow me”, Jesus said.

We are asked to offer up our lives,

to others, to something else,

Sacrifice what is precious, give ourselves away.

But even as we lose our lives, we gain something better,

the life of the kingdom, lives transformed by the power of death,

new lives lived in Christ.

Let us now hear the way that Jesus

gave his life for us,

followed the way of the cross,

and offered us new life.

Last Meal

Maundy Thursday

April 17, 2014

There is a tradition going back

to ancient Greece, China and Rome

to let a condemned person choose their last meal.

Sharing meals has often had symbolic meaning,

accepting food symbolized that the person accepting

the food had made peace with the host who was offering it.

In accepting the food, the guest makes a truce,

giving up vengeance against the host.

And the condemned person’s choosing and accepting

their last meal symbolized their forgiveness of the executioner,

the judge, and the witnesses.

It’s still done in most places that have the death penalty

it adds a bit of humanity to the inhuman process of capital punishment,

Unfortunately in 2011, Texas -- the leader in the number of

death penalties carried out in the US --

stopped the final meal requests because one

offender requested an obscene amount of food

and then refused to eat it.

But until that time, there was a list that you could look at

on the internet of each person and the meal they chose as their last meal.

Some of the meals were expensive meals like lobster or filet mingon

but most of them were typical food:

fried chicken, grilled cheese, strawberry cake.
Things that evoked memories.

Things that their mothers made for them.

Things that reminded them of times

when their world was simpler and less violent

when they were just people instead of convicted murderers.

So what is your favorite meal?
Or better yet, what meal would you want to eat

if you knew you couldn’t eat any more meals?

My guess is for most people it would be something that

your mother or grandmother or father or uncle made for you.

Something that evoked a time or a place

more than a taste, it would be an emotion.

It’s probably more about recalling the person who made it for you

than the actual food. Because lots of times, food means love.

We don’t know what Jesus ate for his last meal.

We know what Passover meals consist of now,

but the menu has changed over the last two thousand years.

Maybe some olives, maybe some meat, maybe some lentils, or grain.

All we know is that they had bread and wine

And we know that Jesus took that last bread and that wine

and he told us to eat it in remembrance of him,

not because it tasted good or it was fine food,

but because it was Jesus -- broken and given to us.

Jesus gave himself to us in that meal,

just like mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandmothers

give some of their love in the food they make,

Jesus gave us his whole self. Given for us.

And in this last meal before he was killed

he sat with his betrayer, his denier,

those who pledged their loyalty and then fled his side later

and he ate his last meal with them.

And in John’s gospel, he washed their feet.

symbolizing his peace with them

a meal of forgiveness before they do what they are about to do.

And Jesus shares this meal with us,

a meal of forgiveness, sometimes even before we need to be forgiven.

Before we do what he knows we’re about to do.

Every time we eat this bread and drink this cup,

Jesus shares his last meal of forgiveness with us.

In showing us how he dies, Jesus shows us how to live.

As a gift, in service to other people, in forgiveness and love.

Our whole selves, broken, blessed, and given for each other.