Thursday, April 8, 2010

What a Difference a Day Makes

A recent survey from the Barna Group says that while 2/3’s of Americans know that Easter is a religious holiday of some sort, only 42% link Easter with the Resurrection of Christ. Only 2% say that they would describe Easter as the most important holiday of their faith.

What is this day all about? It is, in part the end of a season, the end of Lent. You get to eat the chocolate, drink the coke, play the golf again. It is often celebrated around the time of the end of winter. We hope that it is the end of the season of snow and ice!

It is the beginning of Eastertide, really a whole season when the church calendar says we are celebrating Easter. It is the beginning of Spring. New things are blooming and new life arrives in the animal world. We have baby ducks swimming in our lakes in my neighborhood. When I was a child, Easter was the first day that it was all right to wear my white patent leather shoes.

For many of us, this is a day to dress up in new clothes, be with family, come to church, enjoy the special music. But when all is said and done, is this really just another day? Or is it a day that makes a difference. A day that changes things.

I suspect that all of us can point to days in our lives that have been watershed days, days on which everything changed for us. For me my wedding day was one such day. Another was the day I had my first child. Before my wedding day, I was in a relationship that was very important to me, but after my wedding day, I was a wife. I had to figure out how to live with another person and grow into that relationship. After I had my first child, many things in my life were still the same, but a crucial distinction had been made. After that day, I was a mother, and I had to figure out how to live as a mother. I didn’t become expert at it immediately, I daresay I am still not expert at it; but I have learned a few things over the years and I am much more comfortable in my identity as wife and mother now.

Sometimes the days that change our life forever are difficult ones. The day our parents die and we become the elder generation. The day that we are diagnosed with cancer or diabetes or heart disease and the disease threatens to become our defining reality.

There are personal days that change our personal world, but there have also been days in which the world or a large part of it as a whole changed forever. I think that the day the Declaration of Independence was signed was one such day. The first time an atomic bomb was exploded was another. For those of us in the U.S. 911 was a day after which the whole world seemed different. People on both sides of the debate are predicting that the vote on health care reform will turn out to be a watershed moment for our country. The earthquake in Haiti was certainly a moment of drastic change for the people of that country.

The Christian claim is that on that morning almost 2000 years ago, when the women went to the tomb and found it empty, the whole world changed. Before that moment, the world was one way and afterward, it was something very different because something absolutely new had happened. Something that changed everything.

On the Sabbath day just prior to that morning, the disciples were in mourning. They were grieving the loss of their friend, their leader, their Messiah, their Jesus. The hopes that they had cherished of the kingdom of God being made visible and real in this world were dashed. They were confused, scared, scattered, in shock. They had no expectations other than perhaps the fear that they too would be picked up and accused as followers of Jesus. It was safest for the women to go to the grave to prepare the body properly because no one cared about women. It was the men who were in danger.

What happened on that first Easter morning was so new, so unexpected, so radical that we who have heard the story every year for many years can’t quite grasp it. Whether it was several of the women or maybe just Mary Magdalene by herself, going to the tomb expecting to anoint the body of their dead friend and but instead finding it empty. And then Mary met a man she thought was the gardener and turned out to be Jesus. (The Gospel of John loves allusions to the Hebrew Scriptures, and so, I suspect that in that garden setting, we are to see Jesus as both the new Adam who really will care for the garden as it should have been cared for all along and as God the gardener as God is portrayed so many times in the Old Testament, making all things new.) That is what we celebrate today, the resurrection of the crucified Messiah, made known by the combination of the empty tomb and the appearance of the risen Christ.

Why do I say it was unexpected? The Jews, the disciples did believe in Resurrection before this day, but in the general resurrection of the dead at the end of the age. They were not looking for one man to be raised ahead of schedule. So this plan of God came as a surprise even to those who believed that Jesus was the Messiah, even to those who believed in the concept of the resurrection.

Why do I say that this day changed everything? What did it really matter that this one man came back to life after being thoroughly dead? Well two reasons really.

First of all, if Jesus was raised from the dead, then he was vindicated as the Messiah. All that he had taught and done before his ignominious death could now be seen in a new light. These words really were a message from God. These healings and feedings and exorcisms really were a sign that the kingdom of God had come near. Jesus really was the one in whom the image of God was fully realized. God had begun to remake the world and Jesus was the first fruits of this new creation.

Even more importantly than this, Jesus was now seen to be the world’s true Lord. Nothing that the world could throw at him, not betrayal, not denial, not pain, not suffering, no brand of evil, not even death could overcome God’s just and gracious plan for this world. Evil still exists, but after this day it no longer could be seen as the final word. Death is still an enemy, but after this day it is a beaten enemy. We who now live in Christ have died with him, but we will also be raised with him.

That is the difference a day makes. And what difference does it make for you? Will you be dramatically different if you accept the claim of Easter in your life? Will you go out and be a new holy person tomorrow morning? Maybe, but probably not. However, if you accept the claim that Easter has made on your life, if you accept that the risen Christ is Lord of your life, then Colossians hints at what else you can claim:

Paul tells the Colossians that they have been raised with Christ. He doesn’t mean that they already have the resurrection bodies that they will one day have, but that they already possess the new life that Christ offers.

You have been raised with Christ, therefore, first of all: What you do makes a difference! The resurrection tells us that this life, this world matters. I have a shocking statement to make: Jesus was not resurrected to tell us about heaven. Does that seem like heresy? Check the gospels. Jesus didn’t say to his followers, now that I am resurrected, you can all look forward to heaven when you die. That may be true, in fact, I think that we who have died with Christ will be in Paradise with Christ when our physical bodies die. But Jesus was resurrected and appeared to his disciples to give them a job: you have seen how I have come to heal the world, now go out and be a part of my healing work. Feed my sheep! Go make disciples! Forgive! Live as kingdom people. Heaven is the word the bible gives to the divine dimension, the divine rule. Heaven "is not a future destiny, but the other, hidden dimension of our ordinary life, God’s dimension." (Wright, Surprised, 19)

You are not to believe that you can escape this world by going to heaven. Paul tells the Colossians to set their mind on the divine realm, because he wants them to understand that they are now citizens living under God’s rule, just as in the Lord’s prayer we pray “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” This world is your home and you need to take seriously your stewardship of this world because one day heaven and earth, the divine realm and the human realm will no longer be separated, will be put back together as God puts everything to rights and comes to live once more among mortals as it says in Revelation (Rev. 21:1-3). Because of that, because of what Paul says explicitly in 1 Corinthians 15:58 --"Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain," -- what you do in the present in this life, in this body, in this world, will not be wasted in God’s future. Right now, because Jesus is Lord of this world, you can be a part of the work of building for the kingdom.

You have been raised with Christ, therefore, a second claim can be made: What you are has changed! Just as I had to grow into my identities as wife, mother, pastor, you will have to grow into your identity as Christ follower. It won’t be easy. You will make mistakes. You won’t change overnight. You will have to work at it and the ways to work at it should not be a surprise: study of scripture, prayer, worship, reaching out in mission whether you feel particularly loving or not. All of those disciplines the church urges you to practice, not because they are rules to follow, but because they will form you into a new type of person. An example: When the choir first started practicing the Brahms’ Requiem, it wasn’t pretty. We didn’t know the notes, we didn’t know the timing, we didn’t understand how the music was put together. But Rusty encouraged us, gave us examples on CD’s of those who already sang it beautifully and over time, with a lot of hard work, we got it. We were formed as musicians. We could sing, still not perfectly, but in a way that enabled others to experience the presence of God through the music. In fact that ability spilled over into our singing of other music. We began singing all of out music better, more gloriously.

That is what you are in for. If you work at it, practice being Christian in this or another imperfect church community, take as your example those who seem better at it than you are, wrestle with the bible, which is the record of the community of faith throughout the centuries, then eventually your life will reflect God’s image as it was meant to. Paul tells us that what is hidden in this life will be revealed when you are a part of that resurrected community. And, just as our reward in learning the Brahms was the enjoyment of being caught up in the joy of the music, your reward is not some divine gold star, but the enjoyment and fulfillment that comes from truly living as you were meant to live.

I know that it may not feel as if this day makes a real difference. But that is what faith is about: believing it until you feel it, until your mind and your heart have grasped the reality.(Wright,Paul for Everyone, The Prison Letters, 175) My hope for you, my prayer is that you will embrace the claim that this day changes everything. I beseech you to claim this day both the future that God has for you in the community of the faithful who will be resurrected to new life, and to claim the present as people whose life is hidden in Christ and who can begin to live as fully and gloriously human people who work in God’s kingdom to reflect God’s powerful, healing, transformative love into the world. (Wright, [I cannot find the source of this quote, when I find it, I will add it).


(This sermon owes much to N. T. Wright and three particular books: Surprised by Hope, After You Believe, and Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters. I cannot say it as well as he does, and I urge you to read these books.)