The LCA Provides This Sermon Edited for Lay-Reading, with Thanks to the Original Author s10

The LCA provides this sermon edited for lay-reading, with thanks to the original author.

Easter Day (Year A, B or C) John 20: 1-18

Woman, why are you crying? I’m crying because the one who gave me hope, the one who accepted me not for what I do but for me, as a person, because my friend, Jesus, is dead! I’m crying for all those who pinned their hope on him; for all those who saw God like they’d never seen him before; for those who felt unburdened by chains which bound them, chains of oppression, chains of hopelessness, chains of feeling you have to do the right thing but never being able to do it well enough, chains which said you weren’t allowed here, you couldn’t go there, you weren’t the right race, didn’t have the right background, weren’t rich enough, religious enough, healthy enough, weren’t the right gender to be a part of God’s plan for his people.

I’m crying for all those people who felt a sense of liberation in the message of Jesus who are now shattered because he is dead. I’m crying for all those through the ages who have lost a loved one, for those who have experienced what it is to be separated from someone they thought they would have for ever, for all those who know the pain of sickness and disease and tragedy and have sat by the bedside of a loved one as they slowly let go of the breath of life, or have been stunned, shocked, numbed by news of an inexplicable tragedy, those who in the death of Jesus see nothing more than that he went the same way we all go.

I’m crying for all those with an emptiness inside, all those who search for meaning, all those who are confused and lonely and wanting to give up. And I’m crying for a world which is without direction, spinning hopelessly out of control, a world marked by millions without a home, without enough food, without the security of knowing how safe they will be tomorrow, with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, for all the displaced people, all the orphaned, for the unborn who are terminated before they see the light of day and the elderly and frail who wonder when it will be their time to be extinguished – all those who could have found hope in this Jesus who have now been left hopeless as Jesus lies cold, dead in the tomb!

And I’m crying for me and for those like me, for those who lived before me and believed that God would one day set things right, and all those who come after me. And I’m crying because a man like this, a man we thought was God’s man, the holy one, should be treated this way and they can’t even let him rest in peace – stealing his body and playing tricks on us and our emotions!

You know what it is to experience the sadnesses in life. We all do, to one degree or another. And to experience those things and to know about God, to believe in God to trust God, makes no sense if Jesus is there that Sunday morning, still wrapped up, in the tomb. Then it is really all a bit pointless. Face it - Jesus is a phony! The things he is reported to have done, can you really buy all that? Were the healings real? Did he walk on water or was it a sandbar? Is all this just a story concocted to make people feel better in bad times? And the things he said, the things he promised? When he said “Don’t be afraid”, what basis is there not to be afraid? When he said that he’d come to bring life, life in all it’s fullness, what sort of life is that if it ends the way it does for everybody, with a big full-stop, nothingness? If he said he had power over the Evil One, what use is that if the Evil One plays his last trump card, the card of death, and wins? When Jesus said “ I am the Resurrection and the Life, I am the way the truth and the life, I’ve come to bring you life, life in all it’s fullness” , what use are those words if they go with him into the tomb and are locked up there forever as the big stone is rolled across the entrance? When Jesus said “I am with you always”, what is that, other than that he’s with us in our memories? But memories fade… even of those we loved the most! And God? What sort of God would play such a trick on people, give people so much hope, sit back and watch as we devote so much of our time and our energy and our love in things we do in the name of Jesus, if it’s a dead Jesus in whose name we do all this?

If Jesus was found to be still in the tomb that morning, then we would be right to cry. For we do cry, and we do feel pain, and we do get hurt, but there would be nothing to heal our hurt or dry our tears or soothe the pain, because we would have this sense that just as the first sound we utter when we see the light of day is the cry of a newborn baby, so all our days are marked by crying and we’d better get used to it because that’s just the way it is!

Woman, why are you crying? Woman, whom are you looking for? Jesus said to her: Mary! Yes, JESUS said to her. Not a dead Jesus. Not a walking, talking-ghost Jesus, but a living, real, resurrected Jesus. Having been into death itself and come out of it as Victor; having trumped Satan’s last trump. Having verified, underlined, confirmed everything he did, everything he said as real, genuine, believable, trustworthy, life-changing. Not a loser but a winner. Not defeated but victorious. Not just one with us in our pain and our dying. Not just one with us, but one who is in front of us, who has gone ahead of us, offering us healing and help and hope, wanting to dry our tears and lift our heads and tell us that this isn’t all there is, there’s more!

What use would it be for God to want to identify with us, get close to us, and so come in the form of one of us, in the man Jesus, be born like us and grow up and experience so much of the sorts of things we experience, only for him to finally succumb to the things in this life which eventually seem to win the day over us? What use would it be if he ended up going the same way we do? The message of Jesus was always that there’s more than just this existence; there’s more than just living in a way which keeps us onside with others. There’s also an eternal perspective. There’s how God sees us, what God wants of us, his standards, his expectations, what he wants to give us. There’s a new birth, a re-birth, a birth “from above”. There’s how we are in relationship to God, how we will spend eternity! Jesus standing there that morning before Mary, the Living Jesus, revitalises Mary again, puts her tears into a different perspective, transforms her from the deepest despair to once again having a sense of purpose and direction. It’s like her life has been given back to her again!

That’s what we celebrate today. This is what our faith is all about, and this is what our living is all about. At one level we do live a certain kind of existence and it is often hard. We are carried up and down like a little yacht on huge seas: we experience moments of exhilaration and then we are dashed by enormous pain and hurt and sadness. We find something which motivates us and we expend our energy and feel good about ourselves and then we experience times when it all seems pointless and heading nowhere. But our lives have been given back to us, restored to us because Jesus, the risen Jesus has given us a whole new perspective. This isn’t all there is. It isn’t just all heading for the big fullstop. The pain isn’t just there for us to bear. The Jesus who walked this earth, the healing Jesus, the forgiving Jesus, the accepting Jesus is alive and in charge now. This Jesus called Mary by her name and she looked up and saw who it was who was speaking to her and she sensed once again this Jesus touch her soul by the calling of her name. This same Jesus calls our names, your name and my name, and restores, revitalises our souls. As the Bible says: We are often troubled, but not crushed; sometimes in doubt, but never in despair; there are many enemies, but we are never without a friend; and though badly hurt at times, we are not destroyed. And another translation says: What Jesus did among them (back then) he does in us – he lives! Woman, why are you crying? My tears now are for a moment, my joy no one can take away from me. My hope was dashed but now it has been restored. I wept for others, but now I know that they, too, can have the experiences I’ve had of Jesus and everything he brings. I cried because my Jesus, the Rescuer, the Saviour was dead, but now I smile because I know that my Redeemer lives!

Mark the celebration of this day each year as the most important day in your life. There’s a song which has these words:

Because he lives, I can face tomorrow Because he lives, all fear is gone Because I know he holds the future Now life is worth the living just because he lives!

That says it all. That’s what we celebrate each Easter Sunday, and that’s what makes every day of our lives a day of joy, whatever our circumstances!

And the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.