Easter Day 2014
Today we have arrived
at Easter! We have been through 40 days of wilderness- Lent we given things
up -we’ve taken on new spiritual practices- we've had fish fry or two, or three.
We've moved through
holy week we picked up palm branches and welcomed Jesus into the city –we have
gathered around the table at the last supper watching as Jesus took the feet of
his disciples and tenderly washed their feet --we've stood at the foot of the
cross, tears rolling down our faces as
we watched Jesus take his last breath and give up his life.
Now we go to the tomb
to peak in but what we find in this tomb is different-- we find just linens,
discarded burial wrappings. For every
other tomb we have ever looked in has housed dead people- but this tomb is
different- life emerges. Joy rises as the world is different.
Many preaching
commentaries that I have read over the years about Easter, caution the preacher
not to try to prove that that the resurrection happened, don’t explain how God
put breath back into Jesus lungs – be careful not to reduce the resurrection to
some simple equation of 2+2=4.
I tend to fall in line
with Frederick Beuchner’s approach-a much more esteemed preacher than I who
says that there are just some things in faith that we will not ever be able to
understand- there are some things in faith we will never be able to understand.
The resurrection is one
of those things that I don’t think can’t fit inside my skull.
I believe that something amazing happened that
morning- something so amazing that the people who experienced it firsthand were
so shaken to their core, to their being they began to see the world in a new
way.
Several few years ago,
my wife and I decided to stop attending 3-D movies. We are kind of cheap and don’t particularly
like paying the few extra bucks to see the movie in 3-D. It’s really expensive enough to go to the
movies without the 3-D surcharge so we stopped going to 3-d movie. I would
rather get a larger bucket of popcorn.
But it was not only that-- we got tired of our
daughter Alexis constantly interrupting us during the movie asking us to clean
her glasses ----somehow they were constantly getting smeared with popcorn
butter.
But it was not only
that- my son Caden was a little bit younger at the time and he would refuse to
wear the glasses. I guess he preferred
the blurry haze of reds and greens of the movie, rather than having this
oversized glasses constantly slipping off his face.
Now when you think
about it—Caden, who refused to wear the glasses- ended up watching the same
movie as the rest of us were but he had a vastly different experience. For Caden the movie was dull and fuzzy- He
missed something that we all got to experience—we who were wearing the glasses
got all the magic of the movie we got to experience all the special effects
that were just right there as we could touch- Caden missed out on all that.
The resurrection of
Jesus isn’t just a story we tell. It is an event that is meant to transform all
whom encounter it, its an event that is
meant to transform the way we see, the way we experience the world. Kind of like when we put on 3-d glasses at the movies. All whom encounter it are given resurrection
sight- new ways to see- The early community of faith were given resurrection
sight.
Resurrection sight
allow us to see that death does not have the last word- it allows us to believe
the words of our prayer book that say in the funeral service that even at the
grave we make our song Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.
Resurrection sight
allow us to see that Jesus has gone ahead --not just to Galilee to meet up with
his disciples but that Jesus goes ahead of us into our world and that his spirit
resides in our lives.
Resurrection sight
allow us to see what Peter speaks about in the book of Acts- that the God we
follow is a God who shows no partiality---- that God loves each one of us
without exception.
Resurrection sight
allows us to see glimpse of the kingdom, to see miracles breaking into this world in
the midst of evil, destruction, decay.
There is one of those
historical markers on the corner 4th and Walnut St. in Louisville
Kentucky. It’s not a marker that commemorates a civil war battle being fought
there longe or it’s not a marker that hallow that corner as the birthplace of
someone important. The historical marker
on the corner of 4th and walnut commemorates one man’s religious
experience on that corner. You see one day in 1958 Thomas Merton, a Trappist
monk was out running errands for his monastery when all of a sudden he had this
grand vision on the corner of 4th and Walnut.
As the crowds were
swirling by him Merton became acutely aware of a feeling of love for all the
strangers passing by him on the street that day. The sign says that “he found [the people] walking
around shining like the sun.”
Thomas Merton would later describe his vision
that day as if he was seeing what Jesus sees.
Looking at the world
through the resurrection allows us to see what Jesus see, what God sees.
Resurrection sight
peels back the reality of this world and allows us to see more richly and
vibrantly ---glimpses of what God sees. Life pops and sparkles, and is
magnificent kind of like when we sit down and put on the 3-d glasses settle in
for a at the movies.
The gift of today, the
gift of the empty tomb is that God has given us a new way to look at the world,
a new way to encounter life- a way where we are no longer are shackled by fear,
by despair, by unworthiness. But we can
embrace the gifts of peace and hope.
God hands us
resurrection glasses and invites us to look at the world through His eyes.
Will we put those
glasses on?
Say yes my friends. Say
yes!
AMEN
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