Sermon - April 4, 2010

Year C - The Year of Luke - Easter Sunday

My first morning in Israel, I looked out the window of my hotel and gazed upon the mists of the Mediterranean Sea as dawn broke. I saw the light of a boat in the distance; I stood mesmerized thinking of all the ships over all the centuries that had come to these shores. I wanted to stay in that moment forever. I wanted to hold it and never let it go.

There is something personal and intimate about arriving in Israel. If one allows it, the land can reach into the heart of a person, and for a while, one may fully see why this place was the chosen land.

In Israel, the ancient and the modern live side by side. It is a place alive with the past; yet, it is filled with the present, as both antiquity and modernity mingle. Such was the feeling as we walked the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem. Jesus walked the street to his crucifixion and burial. The area is chaotic with noise, music, bargaining and haggling. One walks trying to avoid pickpockets and vendors.

Then, just when the confusion of the avenue becomes almost too much, one walks into the sunlight and there stands the Church of the Holy Sepulcher - magnificent in its ancient beauty. It is the place where Jesus was buried and raised from the dead. Suddenly, there are no more hagglers. There is only the sunlight, the church, and the flocks of people coming and going from this space made sacred by the mystery, wonder, and enduring miracle made by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - the God who raised Jesus from the dead.

Standing in the courtyard of what was once a temple to Venus built by an emperor who wanted to erase the memory of Christ's resurrection, one sees people of every age and nationality. They have arrived to this once lonely spot where the women came to anoint the body of Jesus and who found the stone rolled away from the tomb.

Instead of seeing the body of Jesus, they saw two men in dazzling white who said, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen." With those words, the course of human life and death became forever transformed by a miracle.

We now live on the promise of that miracle. This miracle is God's response to human brutality and infidelity. It is God's embrace of things, people, and world that cannot fathom the depth and beauty by which we are loved. God has given his heart to us fully and completely. He has loved us with a passion so deep that it could not stay dead and buried in the grave.

This is the God who loves even when his beloved is unfaithful. It is the God who broke the bonds of death so that we might have the gift of life both now and in the future.

Make no mistake; the resurrection is about the day when we are raised from the dead. However, it is about even more. The resurrection is also about now. It is about the present. It is about you and me here this morning and what we do with the rest of our lives from this day forward.

Each day Christ is wooing us. Each day Christ is trying to bring us to a new place. Christ wants us to follow him with joy and freedom. He wants us to be an Easter people. In other words, he wants us to be people who rise from the dust of this earth and the ways in which our lives are brought low so that we can live with a grace and dignity won by Jesus on that Easter morning.

Today we have moved from the darkness of the cross to the light of Easter morning. We are baptized into this resurrection. Therefore, we are baptized into the life of Christ. Each of us becomes "little Chirsts" who show forth the risen Lord in our lives. The resurrection is present in the love you feel, the hopes you hold, the pains you know, and the joys you experience. Christ is there in the midst of your life sharing his resurrection with you. He is there making your life a place of his light. The face of Christ is in what you hold dear.

All of that is what the resurrection is doing in our lives. It is a peek at what will be when we are raised from the dead. Until that day when the dead are raised, we live in anticipation. We live loved by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We go forth from this day and this life transformed by a miracle made in a quiet garden as the morning light broke forth.

On the ancient walls of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, one sees the Greek word “Nika,” which means “Victory!” That word is there because in the early years of the Church, the Christians saw the resurrection as a victory over life, death and all that is evil. Christ is victor for us and all people in need of his love. Christ is victor over this world so that we might have life in his kingdom. This day declares it for all to hear, “Christ is victor. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. He is risen that we might live.” Amen.