"Idle Talk or Gospel Truth?" A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Easter Sunday

"Idle Talk or Gospel Truth?"

Luke 24:1-12

         During Holy Week, we heard the powerful story of how Jesus offered his life in the ultimate act of sacrificial love and was crucified on the cross.  The women who had followed Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem had watched as the body of Jesus was taken down from the cross. They watched as Joseph of Arimithea took the body, wrapped it in linen, and placed it in a nearby tomb… and sealed in with a big stone that was rolled against the opening. They went home to prepare spices that would be needed to complete the proper burial of the body.

            There wasn’t time to finish preparing Jesus’ body for burial before the Sabbath began, so in the darkness, just before sunrise on the day after the Sabbath, the women head back to the tomb, bringing the spices and ointments they need to finish preparing Jesus’ body for burial.       

As the grieving women approach the tomb, they’re focused on completing the burial of Jesus’ body. But when they get to the tomb, they find that the stone has been rolled away, and the tomb is empty!  The women stand there, perplexed, not knowing what to make of what they see, when suddenly two men in dazzling white clothes are standing beside them.   They’re  terrified!    They bow down in awe.   But the men say to them, “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?  He is not here...  but has risen.  Remember how he told you--while he was still in Galilee-- that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again?”       

“Why do you seek the living among the dead?”  The women came to the tomb expecting to find the dead.  But this tomb is now empty, transformed by the resurrection.

            Apparently, then, the women do remember. They run back to tell the rest of the disciples what they have seen and heard.   But the other disciples don’t believe them.  The news seems to them an “idle tale.”   Actually, as David Lose points out, that’s a fairly generous translation of the Greek word leros, which is the root of the word “delirious.”  So, it seems they thought what the women were saying was crazy—utter nonsense.[1]

            And, if we’re to be honest, who can blame them? Dead men don’t just get up and walk out of their tombs. Resurrection breaks all the old, familiar rules that help us to understand how things work in the world. Then-- as now-- we often don’t know how to respond to the unexpected… things that don’t fall neatly into our preconceived ways of thinking.  So, Peter gets up and runs to the tomb to check things out for himself.  He stoops down and looks in, and he sees the linen grave cloths lying there empty.  Then he heads for home, amazed at what had happened. 

The first disciples were reeling with grief.  Their beloved friend, their leader-- the one person on whom they had staked everything, had just been tortured and killed.  Now his body had disappeared.   Everything that was happening that first Easter was new… unfamiliar…strange.   It was hard to take it all in.

          Each of the gospels makes it clear that the disciples didn’t come quickly to believe in the resurrection.  They respond with a mixture of emotions:  fear…great joy…amazement…and doubt.   It takes more than an empty tomb for the disciples to understand and to become believers. And yet the disciples do follow Jesus after the resurrection.  Some even follow him to their own deaths. 

            The tomb is empty, and Christ is risen.  Death does not have the final word.  Love and life are stronger than fear and death.   Everything is new.  Anything is possible with God. 

            This was a perplexing new reality.  But they follow in faith--without fully grasping the meaning of it all. 

            Isn’t that what a lot of us do?  You and I may not fully understand what happened on that first Easter Sunday long ago.  That’s why we call it a mystery!   Yet every now and then, if only for a fleeting moment, Jesus is especially alive and real to us.

            In the coming weeks we’ll hear some of the stories about how the Risen Christ appeared to his disciples.  They recognize him as the Risen Christ. Then he vanishes from their sight. It’s a pattern that’s common in the resurrection stories.  Jesus is there.  Then he’s gone.  Though they experience his presence, they can’t grab on to him and keep him there.  But they come to know the Risen Christ in powerful ways in their daily lives and work.

            It was not at the empty tomb that these people came to know the Risen Christ.  It was as they sought to follow him--as they experienced his power and love in their lives and among the community of faith-- that they knew his presence.  As they followed the Risen Christ, they were transformed into Easter people!

            In the days following Jesus’ crucifixion, the first disciples were huddled behind locked doors, trembling in fear.   But over time, they were transformed and empowered to witness to the Gospel.

             In the early days of the church growing numbers of people came together for prayer and to study the scriptures   and became more and more generous and loving in their relationship with others.  People looked at Christians and exclaimed, “See how they love one another!  See how joyful they are!”  And they wanted to be a part of that movement.  Even though, in the earliest centuries of the church, following Christ could bring persecution, the church grew like wildfire and transformed the world.

            Easter is perplexing. But Easter isn’t just about saying we believe in the resurrection. Easter is about saying “no” to the power of death and destruction that surrounds us. It’s about trusting in the sustaining power of God, who brings life out of death…and reconciliation out of conflict, as the scriptures tell us.  It’s about committing ourselves to the gospel claim that opens the door to new life—for ourselves and for acts of love and reconciliation in the world.

            Our Holy Week journey moves us from pain and suffering of Jesus and the pain and suffering in the world-- to hope. We see the continuing open wounds of structural racism, patriarchy, and other forms of oppression and injustice. We see Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Nativism, and other forms of hatred practiced more virulently and openly than at any time in recent memory. Every day we get more scientific information that shows us that we’re running out of time to avoid the most catastrophic levels of climate change. We also see crowd-funding campaigns for people trying to pay for medical procedures or even basic maintenance medications like insulin and hear stories of people who died because they couldn’t afford the treatment they needed.[2]

This week, we observed the twentieth anniversary of the Columbine School massacre and mourn that the United States now averages nearly one mass shooting a day.[3]  In one of the richest countries of the world, we don’t seem to have the political will to address the unjust policies that support growing income inequity and cruel immigration policies.

            Easter is a reminder every year that pain and loss and death don’t have the final word. The resurrection of Jesus Christ teaches us that there always is and always will be hope.

            The first disciples went to the tomb that first Easter looking for a dead Messiah.  But what they found was an empty tomb.   They were confused and fearful.  But within a few days, the followers of Jesus were telling the world that Christ, the King of Love, was alive and making all things new.

            We have come to the tomb and found it empty.  Like those first disciples, we have been given a mission and a message to tell the others.  We, too, need to look beyond the empty tomb...  and trust God to show us the risen and living Savior and the new life to which we are called. Like those first disciples, we are witnesses of amazing things.

            So-- what do we do about that?  Tune in-- same time, same place-- next Sunday and the following Sundays, as we discover together more about what it means to be God's Easter people in this new time. Easter isn't over at the end of Easter Sunday.  This is the beginning of Easter-tide, the season when we are led further into God's truth for God's Easter people…further into God’s new creation.

            In this broken and fearful world, “the Spirit gives us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in Church and culture, to hear the voices of peoples long silenced, and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.”[4]

            Every act of love, every deed done in the name of Christ, by the power of the Spirit… every work of true creativity—healing families, doing justice, making peace, seeking and winning true freedom—is an earthly event in a long history of things that carry the resurrection out into the world and anticipate the final new creation.

            The good news for us today is that when we gather in Christ's name, Christ will be with us, calling us into to hope and wholeness and freedom.

            Christ is risen!

            Christ is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

April 21, 2019

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[1] David Lose, “If It’s Not Hard to Believe, You’re Probably Not Paying Attention,” at Working Preacher.   http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2498

 

[2] Jim Wallis, “Moving from Pain to Hope this Holy Week,” from Sojourners. https://sojo.net/articles/moving-pain-hope-holy-week

[3] German Lopez, “20 Years after Columbine, America sees roughly one mass shooting a day.” https://www.vox.com/2019/4/19/18412650/columbine-mass-shootings-gun-violence-map-charts-data

[4] “A Brief Statement of Faith.” Presbyterian Church (USA), 1990.

"Resurrection Doubt, Resurrection Hope." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Luke 24:36-48

"Supper at Emmaus." Artist: He Qi

"Resurrection Doubt, Resurrection Hope"

Luke 24:36-48

“While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering…”

            New Testament scholar David Lose says, “If you don’t have serious doubts about the Easter story, you’re not paying attention.”[1]

            Think about it. The different gospel accounts have some interesting variations, but they’re consistent about one thing: nobody believes the good news of Jesus’ resurrection when they first hear it. And that includes Jesus’ own inner circles of disciples, who were closest to him and spent the most time with him.

            Easter Sunday was only two weeks ago, but it feels like longer to me. But the verses we just heard are a continuation of Luke’s account of the first Easter day.

            In the first story, the women went to the tomb, they found the tomb was empty. Heavenly messengers opened the scriptures to them, explaining that Jesus had been raised from the dead. But when the women returned to the Eleven disciples and the others, they dismissed what the women said, calling it “an idle tale.”

            Actually, the word Luke used-- leros-- is the root of our word “delirious.” So, the disciples may have been saying the women were extremely excited and joyful, but also incoherent…irrational…or mentally confused. Delirious.

           

            Well, is it so surprising that the disciples had their doubts? Jesus had died on the cross and been buried. The testimony they heard from the women that Jesus who died has been raised upsets the natural order of things and everything they’ve always believed about how things work in the world.

           

            The story continues. Peter gets up and runs to the tomb to see for himself and he’s amazed.

           

            In the second story, on the same day, Cleopas and another disciple were walking toward Emmaus and talking about what had been happening. Jesus came and started walking with them, but they didn’t recognize him, even as Jesus interprets the scriptures for them. When they invite Jesus to dinner and he took bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it to them, their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and Jesus vanished from their sight.

            That same hour, the two got up and returned to Jerusalem, and they found the eleven and other disciples, who were talking about how Jesus was risen and had appeared to Simon Peter. Then Clopas and his companion told about their encounter on the road and how Jesus had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

            The story continues in the verses we heard this morning. While they were all talking, all of a sudden Jesus was standing among them, saying, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought they were seeing a ghost.

            Imagine having to explain to your closest friends, over and over again, that you’re not a ghost or a figment of their imagination, that you are real and alive, approachable, and trustworthy.  What would you say or do to calm their fears?

            Jesus doesn’t scold them or reprove them or shame them. He sees that they’re still struggling, even though he’d predicted all these things three times, and they’ve already heard the testimony of the women, and Cleopas and his companion, and Peter.

            Jesus meets them where they are.  He asks them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet. See that it is I myself. Touch me and see--for a ghost doesn’t have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”  Jesus showed them his hands and feet, which bear unmistakable signs of his crucifixion and vulnerability.

            But that isn’t enough. “In their joy, they were disbelieving and still wondering…”

            So, Jesus says, “Do you have anything to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.

            Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you--that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Jesus’ whole life, death, and rising were about what God is doing in the world--reconciling the world to God’s self. It has always been about God and God’s purposes and agenda for creation-- repentance that leads to forgiveness and the wholeness of creation.[2]

            Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.” He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

            He opened their minds to begin to see that death is not the final word. He sets them free from those bonds and commissions them: “You are witnesses of these things.”

            I love how Luke’s account of the resurrection story shows us that joy and disbelief, wonder and understanding, fear and courage are all part of our experience. Apparently, we don’t have to have it all together to be a witness to “all of these things.” Our Christian faith takes root in the tension.  Jesus meets us--all of us-- where we are in order to embrace our wonder, disbelief, and joy and gather us into the amazing, surprising grace and newness of God.

            Today’s gospel lesson brings the work and ministry and teaching of Jesus full circle. At the very beginning of his gospel, Luke tells us that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s plan to redeem all of creation.

            The power of the resurrection is the power to plant the seeds of transformation and new life. The hope of the resurrection is grounded in the experience of those first disciples, whose closed minds were opened.

            Just when we think the story is over, God has something new to say.  It has always been about God, and it still is. 

            As witnesses, we are called to declare in our words and deeds the presence and power of God in the midst of tragedy, despair, and death. They are not ultimate, because God’s goodness is stronger than evil and death.

            The good news is that we do not witness alone, as we are part of a community of fellow believers. We do not witness alone, as the Spirit is indeed coming. In a broken and fearful world, the same Spirit who inspired the prophets and apostles gives us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in Church and culture, to hear the voices of peoples long silenced, and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.[3]

           

            Thanks be to God!

           

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[1] http://www.davidlose.net/2015/04/easter-3-b-resurrection-doubts/

  

[2] Barbara J. Essex, in “Homiletical Perspective,” in Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 2: Lent Through Pentecost. Kindle Edition, Loc 15076/

[3] Brief Statement of Faith of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 1990.

"Resurrection Abundance." A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on the Third Sunday of Easter, on April 10, 2016.

"Resurrection Abundance"

John 21:1-19

We’re now two weeks past Easter Sunday.  But for a lot of folk, Easter already seems long ago and far away.   For some, great joy and hope have given way to the routine of daily life:  family responsibilities…health issues…work concerns.  In the midst of it all, what does the Resurrection mean?  What difference does it make?  Has it changed anything?

            In the last chapter of John,  we hear how, after the Resurrection, the disciples’ lives don’t seem to have changed.  They have seen the risen Jesus.  But they’ve gone back to the same old thing they used to do.  They’ve gone fishing. 

            The disciples had given up everything to follow Jesus.  But he’d been crucified and buried.  They’re grieving…frustrated…confused.  They don’t know what the Resurrection means. 

            True, they knew that Jesus had been raised from the dead.  But what did that mean?  What difference did it make? 

            So they go back to something familiar—what they’d been doing before Jesus came into their lives.  They go fishing.  They fish all night.  But they don’t catch anything. 

            Yet, as the disciples return to the way things used to be, the risen Jesus seeks them out once again.  He comes to them in their ordinary lives, and he blesses them.  He appears on the beach—but the disciples don’t recognize him at first.  He calls out to them,  “You don’t have any fish, do you?”

            No.

            “Cast your net on the right side of the boat, and you’ll find some.”

            The catch is so great that they can’t haul it in, because there are so many fish.  Then John recognizes Jesus, and says, “It’s the Lord!”

            Once he recognizes the Lord, Peter leaps into the water and swims toward Jesus.  Jesus knows how deeply Simon Peter needs to be forgiven for the three times he denied his relationship with Jesus on that awful night before Jesus was crucified.  Jesus says, three times:   “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” 

            Peter responds with an affirmation of his love, saying, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”  Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”  Three times.  “Tend my sheep.”  “Feed my sheep.”

            Instead of praising his declarations,  Jesus tells Peter that one day he will stretch out his hands    and someone will take him where he does not wish to go.   Feeding lambs and tending sheep can cost us—even cost us our lives.  It is work that will link our lives to pain and suffering.  It will lead us many places we don’t want to go.  If we love Jesus, our relationship with him will change us.

           

            On this third Sunday in Eastertide, the lectionary gives us two stories of conversion.   The stories we heard are about two great saints of the church, Peter and Paul.  In  the book of Acts, we encounter Saul, who was introduced in chapter 7 as the young man who was present when the angry mob stoned Stephen to death.  Luke tells us that Saul took care of their coats for them, that he approved of their killing Stephen, and that he was ravaging the church by entering house after house, dragging off both men and women believers, and imprisoning them.[1]

            In the story we heard today, Saul is “still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.”  He has gone to the high priest and gotten letters of authorization to the synagogues of Damascus, so he can look for followers of the Way and bring them back to Jerusalem in chains.

            Now, Saul was well-educated and devout.  He was someone who had his faith and values all figured out.  His mission in life was to stamp out the movement of those who followed the risen Jesus on the Way.  Saul was very certain that he was right—and they were wrong.

            So far in Acts, Saul is described almost entirely in terms of his certainty and his violence.   It is this violence that Jesus addresses when he speaks out of the heavenly light, saying, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

            By identifying himself as the one whom Saul is persecuting, Jesus identifies with the believers in their suffering, and he makes Saul’s violence a central issue of his conversion.

            The voice of the risen Christ intrudes and devastates Saul’s self-confident journey.  He opens his eyes, but he can’t see.  He has to be led around by the hand, and he doesn’t eat or drink for three days.   Saul, who knew so much about religion, about God…who could quote chapter and verse of the scriptures, is rendered helpless by the blinding light on the road to Damascus.  He needs to be led by the hand, healed, and instructed by the very ones he’d planned to round up and bind and drag back to Jerusalem to face the religious authorities.

            What happens to Saul on the road to Damascus becomes a transformative moment.  

            Now, relatively few of us are likely to have spiritual experiences that are as dramatic and vivid as the one Saul had on the road to Damascus.  And yet, I believe that every real Christian transformation has some things in common with what happened in Saul and Peter.   For one thing, Saul and Peter weren’t called by abstract, intellectual teachings or doctrines or laws.   Rather, they were called into a personal relationship with Jesus.  In responding, they recognize that Jesus, the Crucified, is now alive and addressing them in a very personal way. 

            I believe that’s true today.  The Christian faith isn’t a religion about Jesus.  It’s about following Jesus on the Way of Love.   It's about how God’s love is revealed to us through Jesus on the Way and as we live together as a faith community.

            When Paul encountered the risen Christ, he was blinded by the brightness of the light of Christ    and transformed-- from a man committed to aggression and persecution of those who were different, those who challenged what he believed— to one who was lost and struggling.  In the process of his conversion, Paul learns that the agenda he set for himself was futile, and that God’s plan is the only plan that matters. 

            Peter’s encounter with the Risen Christ helped to transform him from someone who was afraid to admit he even knew Jesus—into an apostle who was empowered to jump out of his familiar boat into waters that were over his head     and walk bravely into the world with resurrection power and hope. 

            In this third resurrection appearance, we hear Peter getting a new chance,  as he experiences Jesus’ resurrection power in a quiet way over breakfast.

            Three years before, Peter was called away from life as he had known it—an ordinary life of a fisherman.  Now again, in an ordinary place and meal, the disciples receive a kind of re-commissioning.  They are reminded who they are and what they were called to be and do. 

            Easter is about living out our identity and calling as if we truly believe that Jesus has overcome sin and death.  It’s about living as if we trust in his gift of abundant, eternal life.    It means following Jesus, embodying Jesus’ love. It means being with Jesus as we gather together to hear the good news… and in the places we are led to serve.

           

            “Do you love me?”  Jesus asks us.

            Then feed my lambs.

            Jesus calls his disciples to follow him.  Yet we know all too well that the compelling call of human need often feels like it is taking us to places we don’t want to go.  Our ability and willingness to go there will be a testimony to the clarity and passion of our Christian discipleship.  Our ability and willingness to follow Jesus is a sign of how we have changed…of how we are being transformed.

           

            The first disciples huddled behind locked doors, or went back to their old familiar routines.  They struggled with fear about how Jesus calls his followers to go places where they don’t want to go.

            When I get impatient with myself for my lack of courage, or my reluctance to go some of the places Jesus might call me to go in his name, I find comfort and hope in the conviction that God isn’t finished  with me yet.  God isn’t finished with any of us yet.

            Part of the good news is that we are in a continuing, evolving relationship with our Lord and Savior, who loves us with a love so amazing, so divine—that he gave his life for us. 

            We have Christ’s promise that he will not leave us alone.  He will be with us, to help and to guide us…to provide for our needs…and to comfort and care for us.   The One who commands us to embody his love and light in the world   promises us that we will be given the power we need through the Holy Spirit.

            Again and again, when it seems impossible to counteract the grim reality of sin and brokenness in our lives and in the world, Christ reaches out in love to restore us.   Again and again, Jesus asks us, “Do you love me?”   This is no cheap grace Christ offers us.  Again and again, Jesus calls us:  “Follow me.”

           

            Do you love me?  Jesus asks.

            Feed my lambs.  Tend my sheep.  Feed my sheep.

            Just as Jesus met with his first disciples at dawn on the Sea of  Galilee, Jesus comes to us.   The dawn is breaking on new chances,  the  new life Jesus promises us.   Jesus keeps coming to us to teach us and to lead us to places where we’d never have thought to go.  

            The gospel reminds us that God can make a way where there is no way, bringing abundance where there is emptiness, and joy where there is only sorrow.   Jesus’ resurrection gives us the promise of life after death, and the assurance of God’s healing and restoration in this life.

Today, in this time and place, as long ago, Jesus does many signs in the presence of his disciples.   We have the witness of the gospel, which was written “so that we may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God…and that through believing, we may have life in his name.”

After the Easter flowers have been carried out of the sanctuary and attendance is back to normal, Jesus keeps coming back.  Jesus meets us where we work, where we despair, or where we question or doubt. Whether we’re still feeling “up” from Easter or feeling let down, Jesus keeps coming to us.

            Jesus meets us in in our friends or in strangers.  He challenges us with a task to do—caring for his people.  He gives us work that truly satisfies us, and invites us to make him more and more the center of our lives.  One way or another, Jesus comes back and calls us to himself and to his new life. 

            Do you love me?  Then feed my sheep.  Tend my lambs.

            As individuals and as a congregation, we often fall short of being the loving, compassionate, generous, welcoming people God created us to be.  We don’t always follow through.  Sometimes we even fall away for a while and go back to whatever felt familiar before we recognized the Risen Christ. 

            But Jesus doesn’t give up on us.  After each time we fail…or forget… or are overcome by our fears, Jesus comes to us again and invites us to try again, providing encouragement and nourishment, and calls us to put our love into action, caring for the world God loves.  If you love me, show it through your actions.   “Feed my sheep.”

Jesus comes to us today, this morning, starting again Easter-fresh with each of us, saying, “Follow me.”

            Thanks be to God!  Alleluia!

           

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

April 10, 2016

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[1] Acts 7:58 – 8:1

"Idle Talk or Gospel Truth?" A sermon preached Luke 24:1-12 on Easter Sunday at Littlefield Presbyterian Church

"Idle Talk or Gospel Truth?"

Luke 24:1-12

         Those of you who were here on Palm Sunday or Maundy Thursday heard the powerful story of how Jesus offered his life in the ultimate act of sacrificial love and was crucified on the cross.   The gospel story tells us how the body of Jesus was taken down from the cross and taken to a nearby tomb...  and sealed in with a big stone that was rolled against the opening.   

            There wasn’t time to finish preparing Jesus’ body for burial before the Sabbath began,  so in the darkness just before sunrise on the day after the Sabbath, the women head back to the tomb, bringing the spices and ointments they need to finish preparing Jesus’ body for burial.       

When they get to the tomb, they find that the stone has been rolled away, and the tomb is empty!  The women are standing there, not knowing what to make of what they see,  when suddenly two men in dazzling white clothes are standing  beside them.   They’re terrified!    They bow down in awe.   But the men say to them, “Why are you looking for the LIVING among the DEAD?  He is not here...  but has risen.  Remember how he told you--while he was still in Galilee-- that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again?”       

            The women run back to tell the rest of the disciples.   But they don’t believe them.  The news seems to them an “idle tale.”   Actually, as David Lose points out, that’s a fairly generous translation of the Greek word leros.  The word is the root of our word “delirious.”  So it seems they thought what the women were saying was crazy—utter nonsense.[1]

            And, if we’re to be honest, who can blame them?  Resurrection isn’t about a claim that Jesus’ body was resuscitated.  It’s a claim that God created an entirely new reality.  But it flies in the face of common sense.  Dead men don’t just get up and walk out of their tombs. Resurrection breaks all the old, familiar rules that help us to understand how things work in the world.

            Then-- as now--  we often don’t know how to respond to the unexpected… things that don’t fall neatly into our preconceived ways of thinking.  So Peter gets up and runs to the tomb to check things out for himself.  He stoops down and looks in, and he sees the linen grave cloths lying there empty.  Then he heads for home, amazed at what had happened. 

            The first disciples were reeling with grief.  Their beloved friend, their leader-- the one person on whom they had staked everything, had just been tortured and killed.  Now his body had disappeared.   Everything that was happening that first Easter was new… unfamiliar…strange.   It was hard to take it all in.

                         

            Each of the gospels makes it clear that the disciples didn’t come quickly to believe in the resurrection.  They respond with a mixture of emotions:  fear…great joy…amazement…and doubt.   It takes more than an empty tomb for the disciples to understand and to become believers.

            And yet the disciples do follow Jesus after the resurrection.  Some even follow him to their own deaths. 

            The tomb is empty, and Christ is risen.  Death does not have the final word.  Love and life are stronger than fear and death.   Everything is new.  Anything is possible with God. 

            This was a perplexing new reality.  But they follow in faith--without fully grasping the meaning of it all. 

            Isn’t that what a lot of us do?  You and I may not fully understand what happened on that first Easter Sunday long ago.  That’s why we call it a mystery!   But every now and then, if only for a fleeting moment, Jesus is especially alive and real to us.

            In the coming weeks we’ll hear some of the stories about how the Risen Christ appeared   to his disciples.  They recognize him as the Risen Christ. Then he vanishes from their sight. 

            It’s a pattern that’s common in the resurrection stories.  Jesus is there.  Then he’s gone.  Though they experience his presence, they can’t grab on to him and keep him there.  But they come to know the Risen Christ in powerful ways in their daily lives and work.

            It was not at the empty tomb that these people came to know the Risen Christ.  It was as they sought to follow him--as they experienced his power and love in their lives and among the community of faith-- that they knew his presence.  As they followed the Risen Christ, they were transformed into Easter people!

           

            In the days following Jesus’ crucifixion, the first disciples were huddled behind locked doors, trembling in fear.   But over time they were transformed and empowered to witness to the Gospel.

             In the early days of the church growing numbers of people came together for prayer and to study the scriptures   and became more and more generous and loving in their relationship with others.  People looked at Christians and exclaimed, “See how they love one another!  See how joyful they are!”  And they wanted to be a part of that movement.  Even though, in the earliest centuries of the church, following Christ could bring persecution, the church grew like wildfire and transformed the world.

           

            The Risen Christ is present in the lives and in the work of those who seek to follow him—those who, even if they don’t comprehend the meaning of the resurrection fully...  even if we can’t explain exactly what happened on that first Easter.  The Risen Christ is present among the living—among the faithful. 

            The Risen Christ has been present with the faithful throughout history.  We remember some of their names:   Francis of Assisi…and Hildegarde of Bingen… Dietrich Bonhoeffer….  Archbishop Romero…Margin Luther King… and Mother Theresa… and others known and unknown to us.  

            The Risen Christ is present among the living:  among ordinary people who work tirelessly and joyfully building Habitat houses for poor people… and cleaning up and rebuilding after disasters… developing job skills at Focus Hope.        

            The Risen Christ is with those who prepare meals and sort clothes to serve the homeless and desperately poor people who are the guests at Fort Street Open Door.

            The Risen Christ is with us when we assemble health and school kits and baby layettes for those in need…and when we share God’s love through the One Great Hour of Sharing offering.  

            The Risen Christ is with the faithful remnant of Palestinian Christians who witness to their faith in the Holy Land...and with those whose faith empowers them to work for God’s justice and peace.

            The Risen Christ is present when congregations become communities of welcome and hope and healing and empowerment, where broken and hurting people find support and encouragement and help and healing.

            The Risen Christ is present with a congregations that emerge from  sadness over the losses they’ve experienced   and their anxiety about survival...  and make a new beginning for a new time with courage and a sense of adventure   and openness to follow wherever Christ leads.

            At Easter, part of what we celebrate is Jesus’ victory over death   and our own hope of life beyond death through our faith in him.  That’s an important dimension of Easter.

            But there’s another dimension that sometimes we miss--  the present dimension.  We are called to participate in it now, because Christ is alive and present with us.   When we place our TRUST in the risen and living Christ, we can experience new freedom and strength and courage.  We can experience new life, as God’s Easter people.

            Most Sundays, as part of the act of confession, I declare to you in the declaration of forgiveness:  “Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation.  The old life has gone.  A new life has begun.”

            The good news of Easter invites us turn from the power of sin and evil … and to live a new life, as we follow the Risen Christ in the way of self-giving love and justice and peace. 

 

            In his “Parable of the Eagle,”  James Aggrey tells of a man who found a young eagle in the forest.  He took the orphaned eagle home and put it in his barnyard with his chickens, where it soon learned to eat chicken feed...  and to act like a chicken.

            One day a naturalist who was passing by asked why an eagle--  the king of all birds--  should be living in a barnyard with chickens.  The owner said,  “Since I’ve raised it to be a chicken, it never learned to fly.   It behaves as chickens behave, so it’s no longer an eagle.”

            “But it still has the heart of an eagle,”  said the naturalist.  “Surely it can be taught to fly.”

            After talking it over, the two men agreed to find out whether this was possible.  The naturalist picked the eagle up gently and said,  “You belong to the sky and not to the earth.  Stretch forth your wings and fly.”

            But the eagle was confused.  He didn’t know who he was.  He looked down at the chickens eating their food.  He jumped down to each chicken feed with them again.

            The next day the naturalist took the eagle up on the roof of the house   and tried the same thing with the same results. 

           

            The third day he took the eagle to a high mountain where there were some other eagles.  He held it up and said,  “You are an eagle.  You belong to the sky as well as to the earth.  Stretch forth your wings now and fly.”

            He lifted the great bird toward the sun.  The eagle began to tremble as he slowly stretched his wings.  Then, with a triumphant cry, he soared into the air.

            Like the naturalist in that story, the risen Christ invites you and me to live as Easter people.   Jesus invites each of us to put our trust in his power and love, and to follow him in the life of joy and peace and abundance he offers us.   We are called to live more and more fully into our God-given identity as beloved children of God, and to live into hope.      

           

            The first disciples went to the tomb that first Easter looking for a dead Messiah.  But what they found was an empty tomb.   They were confused and fearful.  But within a few days, the followers of Jesus were telling the world that Christ, the King of Love, was alive and making all things new.  

            We have come to the tomb and found it empty.  Like those first disciples, we have been given a mission and a message to tell the others.  We, too, need to look beyond the empty tomb...  and trust God to show us the risen and living Savior and the new life to which we are called.  

            Like those first disciples, we are witnesses of amazing things.

            So--  what do we do about that?  Tune in--  same time, same place--  next Sunday and the following Sundays, as we discover together more about what it means to be God's Easter people in this new time.

            Easter isn't over at the end of  today.  This is the beginning of Easter-tide, the season when we are led further into God's truth for God's Easter people…further into God’s new creation.

            In this broken and fearful world, “the Spirit gives us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in Church and culture, to hear the voices of peoples long silenced, and to work with others for justice, freeom, and peace.”[2]

            Every act of love, every deed done in the name of Christ, by the power of the Spirit… every work of true creativity—healing families, doing justice, making peace, seeking and winning true freedom—is an earthly event in a long history of things that carry the resurrection out into the world and anticipate the final new creation.

            The good news for us today is that when we gather in Christ's name, Christ will be with us, calling us into to hope and wholeness and freedom.

            Christ is risen!

            Christ is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

March 27, 2016

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[1] David Lose, in Working Preacher ……..

[2] Brief Statement of Faith, Presbyterian Church (USA), 1991.