You can hear an audio recording of the second scripture reading and my sermon entitled, " A Good Deed Worth Laying Down Your Life For " being preached, by CLICKING HERE.
You can hear an audio recording of the second scripture reading and my sermon entitled, " The Ghost of Jesus' Presence " being preached, by CLICKING HERE.
You can hear an audio recording of the second scripture reading and my sermon entitled, " Can We Have a Witness " being preached, by CLICKING HERE.
You can hear an audio recording of the second scripture reading and my sermon entitled, " This is YOUR Resurrection, Now! " being preached, by CLICKING HERE.
You can hear an audio recording of the Gospel reading, a meditation, followed by a second reading, the solo, and the closing of worship with a reading of Psalm 88, by CLICKING HERE.
Cross Seekers, Empty Tomb Finders, Good News Bearers,
These days we celebrate Easter like
clockwork. While the date for Easter is
fluid …tied to the moon phases in relationship to when the Passover is—we look forward
to it every year. We count the days of
Lent (forty, plus Sundays); we anticipate Holy Week, lost eggs, marshmallow
peeps, Reese’s eggs, Cadbury eggs, and an empty tomb—as if all these things are
“normal.” We mark Easter, as if it’s
NORMAL!
As I shared with you last month, Biblical
scholar and preaching guru Thomas Long would remind us that Easter changes
everything!
“ …Easter …is instead the end of this word. Easter destroys the perceived world at hand, and before we sing about the joy of Easter’s new reality, it is crucial to feel the shock and to see the destructive power of the Resurrection on the old reality. ”
Everything about resurrection is disorienting—or
should be! From the fact that the dead
are raised, to Jesus’ walking through walls with real wounds from his
crucifixion, to expectations about our own demise and rising. In our world, the dead are supposed to remain
dead—the walking dead, is only a TV show!
But what are we to do when little seems to
really change about our lives? When the
“difference” in resurrection is mostly a story for us about the one who was
raised? When what we hope for, isn’t
what is seen? When Long declares that
the world was CHANGED BY GOD who does resurrection, what are we supposed to
experience? What should we be looking
for?
Death doesn’t win. This year marks 4 years of COVID. So many died.
But death isn’t the last word.
War in Ukraine drags on and on; there’s war in Gaza; there’s violence in
Haiti; drought and starvation and gang violence and broken government hold much
of Africa’s nations hostage it seems; there’s terrorism; violent rhetoric and
dehumanization …yet, death doesn’t win.
Sin, cannot triumph. The
victory—is God’s!
Honestly …I don’t know “how” this works. I must believe God’s promises, and what God
has done. God raises Jesus. God declares, we are raised, too. None …are lost. And yet, so many are lost in this life.
But this allows us to live our life for
others. This allows us to give fully of
ourselves as Jesus does. This allows us love
…with reckless abandon. This allows us to
live freely with the Kingdom of God in our heart, in our minds, in our
hands. So, this is not just Jesus’
resurrection …it’s our resurrection. It’s
our laying down the life of the world and taking up the life of the Kingdom of
God.
For Easter, God says: This world is finished;
our life together isn’t! …Goodbye old
world. Easter’s come and gone. Now it’s time to live like it.
It is my privilege to remind you that Jesus loves you. So do I. God wants the best for us and is inviting us to fulfill our calling. Jesus dies; but God raised Jesus in the Resurrection, and that changes everything! Get ready. The tomb was empty. Christ is risen! And so are we!
You can hear an audio recording of my sermon, entitled, " Power, Made Perfect ...in Weakness " being preached, and the reading of the Passion Narrative on Palm Sunday, by CLICKING HERE.
You can hear an audio recording of the second scripture reading and my sermon entitled, " A Good Day to Die " being preached, by CLICKING HERE.
You can hear an audio recording of the second scripture reading and my sermon entitled, " Goodness, Gracious! Sakes of Fire, and Damnation " being preached, by CLICKING HERE.
You can hear an audio recording of the second scripture reading and my sermon entitled, " Broken Promises " being preached, by CLICKING HERE.
