Sermon Notes for Easter 2017

Sermon Notes for Easter 2017 Sometimes a song says it best. What is your favorite song at Easter? Lord of the Dance? Jesus Lifted Me? It’s a Wonderful World ( a favorite bishop of mine used that classic song once) I even heard a Bruno Mars song quoted last night: Hit your Hallelujahs High. The end of our excerpt today from Psalm 118 reads: The same stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes! It is also the lyrics of many songs. The words from this ancient hymn of Israel get repeated in the New Testament. The gospel writers use the image of the stone cast away as useless to describe Jesus. Like the stone, Jesus was cast off, rejected, and yet is now vindicated, he has become the cornerstone, a stone that forms the base of a corner of a building, joining two walls. A cornerstone can be a foundation, basis, a keystone, mainstay, a linchpin, a bedrock, base, backbone, key, centerpiece, core, heart, center, or crux. The celebrated young composer, Shawn Kirchner, took verse 22, the one about the stone and added a little bit more. He wrote down the verse with a simple twist. The stone that the builders rejected became the cornerstone of a whole new world. The Kirchner composition is a completely infectious gospel song and you can find many youtube postings of choirs singing the Cornerstone song with wonderful abandon. Jesus, the rejected stone, has become cornerstone of a whole new world. That is one of the best summations of Easter there is. And the message about a new world is embedded in our gospel reading today. Mary arrives in the darkness on the first day of the week to attend to the body of Jesus in a tomb that has been laid to rest in a garden. Dark, first day, garden, anyone making any associations with another book of the Bible? How does John’s gospel start? In the beginning… Here we are, John is saying, with a new creation being born through the resurrection of Jesus. But Peter and Mary Magdalene and the other disciple are not thinking about a whole new world at this point. They are trying to comprehend what has just happened in that garden. There is this curious line that sounds like a typo or a glitch in the text: “Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” What I take from the passage is this: it is possible to believe that Jesus has risen from the dead but at the same time to not yet understand the significance or meaning of his rising. The other disciple believes that Jesus is alive but neither he nor Peter understands that Jesus, the rejected stone is the cornerstone of a whole new world. They are not quoting Ps 118: 22 yet. Everything is too new for that. What we know is that something happened which was life changing for the disciples. This change in them came from seeing and hearing and touching and eating with Jesus after his death and burial. He was present to them and others in a bewildering variety of ways. Because of the Risen Jesus, Peter the fearful loses his fear, Mary Magdalene the bereft loses her grief, Thomas the skeptic loses his doubt, Paul the certain changes his mind about Jesus. Everyone who encounters him has a dramatic shift because their world has changed. The change in the world is this: Jesus is alive and he is Lord and they will come to understand that the world has a new order to it. The world where Jesus is alive and Jesus is Lord is one that runs on a holy love expressed as forgiveness and service. Peter has a revelation about this new resurrection world. The one that we heard today that begins: I truly understand that God shows no partiality. In the words of the Message translation: …God plays no favorites! It makes no difference who you are or where you are from –if you want God and are ready to do as he says, the door is open. The Message that he sent to the children of Israel –that through Jesus everything is being put together—well, he’s doing it everywhere, among everyone. A whole new world that runs on forgiving one another and serving each other and that is now open to all. That’s the new world that is coming into being. It is a message that has touched the lives of two young men named Andrew Collins and Jameel McGee. They were interviewed on CBS Evening News, On the Road with Steve Hartman. Andrew was a young white cop in Benton Harbor, Mi. who, for no good reason framed Jameel, a young black man on a fake drug charge. Andrew simply wanted to look good on the police force by boosting his arrest and conviction numbers. Jameel went to prison for four years as an innocent man. But Andrew’s corruption was also uncovered and he too went to prison. Some years passed, both men, both unemployed met up in a church run jobs ministry in their hometown. Andrew had to face the man that he had so harmed. Andrew addressed Jameel with these words: “Honestly, I have no explanation, all I can do is say I’m sorry.'” Jameel had been working on his faith life as a follower of Jesus since a conversion experience in prison. He was finally ready to make a change… He said, “That was pretty much what I needed to hear.” And after working side by side and day by day in the church run café, they became friends. Such close friends, that one day Jameel actually told Andrew that he loved him. Andrew said about that day: “And I just started weeping because he doesn’t owe me that. I don’t deserve that.” When the interviewer asked about why he forgave Andrew, Jameel said that he didn’t forgive just for his own sake, even for Andrew’s sake. “For our sake,” Jameel said. “Not just (for the two of) us, but for our (everybody’s) sake.” Jameel went on to talk about his faith, and his hope for a kinder mankind. He wants to be an example — so now he and Andrew give speeches together about the importance of forgiveness and redemption. So this is what it looks like to follow a risen Lord. To understand that Jesus is the cornerstone of a whole new world of forgiveness and service. We have signs of that new world in our midst as well. In our care for our shut-ins, in the gracious treatment of every person who comes into our thrift shop, in the outpouring of generosity for our sock and underwear drive along with the kids at P.S. 116, a number of whom themselves are homeless. So what I want to celebrate today in the rising of Jesus is not only that it was a miracle of resurrection but also that resurrection is a sign of a whole new world, a world in which Jesus is linchpin, bedrock, base, core, heart, center and crux. A sign worth singing about: Jesus is Lord of the Dance, and through him it is a Wonderful World. Jesus the rejected stone has become the cornerstone of a whole new world, this is the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes. Sometimes a song says it best. Amen.