Resurrection Now

 Welcome to all families visiting from out of town and to all guests!

When I look out at you sitting there in the pews today,

         I don’t know all your stories, all your history,

but I do know that you have chosen to be here today,

         and that lets me know first of all that this has importance for you.

No matter how each of you may be feeling at the moment

         that either encouraged you to be here or did not deter you from coming,

                  you are here.

This I do know:  that you are each uniquely created beings

         who are so valued by your Creator, so loved, so deeply known 

                  that despite whatever we may have ever said or done,

                           grace has touched our lives.

You are love,                    and I respect that and I thank God for you.

 

So at the time for Communion please don’t hesitate to join with us                                                                         in the receiving the bread and the wine.

         Wherever you are in your journey of faith, you are welcome at this table.

 

Today, Easter Sunday, we celebrate the Feast of the Resurrection

         and not just for today, but for the Great 50 Days of the Easter Season.

 

Christians are sometimes referred to as the Resurrection People.

         The emphasis is on Resurrection.

So liturgically in how we worship, we need 50 days of Easter

         - and notice that this is longer than 40 days of Lent. 

 

We need 50 days to celebrate and practice living in Resurrection Life

                  to foster being open to realization of Resurrection

                           as a present reality and potency of life

                                                               right here and now

 

But notice, this Resurrection is not just about one person raised from the dead,

         but ALL of us given the opportunity to experience Resurrection Life NOW,

                  even before we die.

 

Resurrection Life is realized life, 

         a quality of life revealed to us in the present moment

                  when we recognize the Holy One  present with us,

                  when we experience joy and wonder in Creation around us,

                  when we know that our love for others 

                                    is taking us beyond ourselves, outside of ourselves.

 

These are Easter moments

At these times, which we may consider “special”

         we are tasting the Eternal quality of Life,

                  that part of life that has a timelessness about it,

                           a fullness about it.

 

Take a moment right now to search your memory, something recent, 

                  or something farther in the past,

         those moments when what I am describing was something you tasted.

 

Maybe that is what you long for right now.

You might recognize 

         that our longings come out of what we have previously experienced.

When you recognize that this is so,

         then you have proof that you have tasted this Eternal quality Life.

You have tasted something of the Resurrection.

 

But let’s take a pause here to see how the great Spiritual Truth of Resurrection

         was initially experienced.

In the Resurrection story we just heard read

         the women come to the tomb seeking the corpse

                  to do it service and honor as respects the dead.

In that dark cave of a tomb as they fumble around searching for the body,

         instead they suddenly encounter right beside them 

                  two men in dazzling clothes that flood the tomb with light.

That’s enough to make you jump right out of your skin!

But it’s the question they ask which is the most important:

         “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

 

Let me share a quotation with you from the late Bill Ellis,

         who had been dean at St. John’s Cathedral here in Spokane.

He wrote this to address that provocative question the two in the tomb had posed.

 

Our catechism tells us that 

         “By his resurrection Jesus overcame death 

         and opened for us the way of eternal life.” 

Were we to content ourselves with [this]…, 

         we would draw the reasonable conclusion 

                  that the resurrection of Jesus is not particularly relevant to us 

                           while we are alive on this earth; 

         it becomes important only when we die …

And thus, as far as our present existence is concerned, 

         the resurrection is like an exit from a very large building.  

It is nice to know it is there, but we won’t need it until we are ready to leave.

 

[end of quote]  This is helpful for all of us, 

      as we deal with our own mortality and of those we love, 

                  but it is not enough.  

 

A religion that deals only with what happens after we die 

         is a religion for the dead, not the living. 

What difference does the Resurrection make to us right here and now?

 

For all of us, from the least of us to the greatest theologians,

         our understanding of the resurrection 

                  is much too small, too limited, vastly incomplete.

Resurrection is far more than life after death,

         far more than an idea about heaven.

 

We say in the creed we believe in the resurrection of the body.

         But what sort of body is this?

The women in the Gospel story for today come to the tomb,

         and even before the stone is rolled away, the body is gone.

That’s some sort of body! a body that can dematerialize,

         and then rematerialize in a room where the way in by the door is barred.

 

Yet it is a body that can be touched, 

         a body that can take in food, eat and swallow,

                  not like Marley’s ghost whom Scrooge could look through

                  and see the waistcoat buttons on the other side.

What kind of body is this?

The bodies we are familiar with die and decompose and return to dust.

 

But resurrection is more than a body, a physical body or a spiritual body.

Resurrection came after the death of Jesus,

         a death into which Jesus has perpetually taken all our sins, 

                                                      all our suffering, all our deaths.

He died our deaths.           He died our deaths for us.

 

Resurrection is the New Creation.

 

With his last breath, the last breath of the One who is the Word of God,

         who spoke all creation into being,

         now in this last breath he takes with him all beings,

                  back into that realm of Uncreated Light,

                  the realm of the undivided waters over which the Spirit was hovering,

                  back into the Source, back to God,

and now he brings to life, lifts up all that the Father had entrusted to him.

 

And so now everything is New Life, new life sustained in the resurrection.

It is all the New Creation, 

         continually and eternally sustained in the resurrection life of Jesus.

 

Now we can begin to see what difference resurrection means to us 

                                    right here and now.

 

We are living in resurrection.

If we had eyes to see this, we would be able to recognize

         the newness of every moment,

         the incredible wonder of life, of breathing, of growing,

         the love which sustains all life new every moment,

                  despite all the strife, contention, warfare, and suffering.

 

We would see the abundance of goodness.

We would see through our attitudes of scarcity.

We would see through our fears for what they are.

 

If we had eyes to see the resurrection

         we would see in each other the image of Jesus the Resurrected One.

 

We would see Jesus in each and every one of us,

                                                      in all living beings.

We would bow down in awe and love before one another.

If our awareness of present resurrection were to expand,

         this would have great implications on what we would do.

 

It could shift our priorities, reorder our attitudes,

         change our emotional reactivity,

         reorient our aims and purpose in life,

         and energize us for participating more fully in life.

It would send us out as agents of resurrection,

                  lights sparked eternally 

                           from that ultimate Paschal candle

                           of Uncreated Light at the Source,

                           the creating Word of God himself,

                           the Resurrection Lord.

 

So that group of devoted women left the tomb

         and reported to the disciples and everyone all that they had seen and heard.

And the disciples’ response was not the joyful response we give when we hear

                  Alleluia! Christ is risen!

not

                  The Lord is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

 

They dismissed the women’s testimony.

         Easter Day was not yet a celebration for them.  They would be in hiding.

Still, Peter, at least, went to check out the report.

         But don’t go looking for the living among the dead.

 

May we not be so slow to believe, to accept the joyful Gospel good news.

 

Alleluia.  Christ is risen…