Easter 2004
The Rev. Dr. Harold Weicker
April 11, 2004
Readings:Acts 10:34-43
or Isaiah 51:9-11
Colossians 3:1-4
or Acts 10:34-43
Luke 24:1-10
Good Morning! Christ is risen! If you feel that your spirit is risen today with Christ, your reply could be, "We are risen indeed!" So let's try this out.
You have risen!
I truly hope that you are. Because, the only question I asked you to consider in your Lenten preparation was, "On Easter morning, when you wake up, what kind of person you will be?" And this is not just a moral question. If you are here this morning, chances are that you are a moral person-- or want to be. And it goes without saying that, when you go to church, you expect the preacher to encourage you to be a good person. I mean, most of you know by now that St. Paul's Church is not pro sin! Some of you might say that sin keeps organized Christianity in business. Well, I hope that we at St. Paul's have a lot more to say about life! In either case, Easter is not about ethics, but the power of life.
The challenge of Easter, is simply this: How alive are you this morning? I am not asking if you are living. The fact that you woke up this morning attests to that. The question this Easter morning - and each day of your life - is am I really living? Am I truly alive?
I can remember an old "Bonaker" - that's a crusty, geezer type person who lives at the northern end of Long Island - commenting on a somewhat gloomy friend of ours, "That guy stopped living years ago. He just refuses to lie down." Hey, that better not be us! What are the tombs that we need to leave today? What will it take to roll away the boulders that block the doors to our resurrection into the power of life! The challenge of Easter is this: Since God is alive, we should be alive too! We always focus on Jesus' resurrection at Easter. That certainly is a good and historic celebration, but Christ was not the only person who rose again that day! There were a whole lot of disciples who had bottomed out and came to life again that first Easter- in a stronger sense of aliveness, confidence and purpose- because they discovered the dead Jesus was alive, as the living Christ.
Now I don't much care if you believe that Jesus was bodily resurrected or spiritually resurrected. That was not the issue for most early Christians. The essential resurrection experience was that Jesus was alive as Christ. The New Testament has resurrected writers on both sides of that question. Our patron saint, Paul, clearly believed in the resurrection of a spiritual body, but that only served to enhance his solid confidence in the Lord's aliveness, AND his belief in our need, and ability, to experience a Godly (a Christ-like) resurrection ourselves.
Paul believed that God's power of life as witnessed in Christ's resurrection reaches into our lives. He says to the church at Rome, "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you." When Paul says the resurrection spirit of Christ gives life to our mortal bodies, he is talking about us in the here and now, not just in the life to come. In a clear way, he is telling us that if we want to be truly alive, we need a resurrection spirit- the same spirit as the risen Christ that we are celebrating today, an Easter spirit.
What does this mean?
Bishop Fred Borsch, the retired Bishop of Los Angeles, gives us the first part of the answer to this question. When asked if he believed in the bodily resurrection of Christ, the Bishop replied, "I believe in whatever made the apostles believe that the Lord was living." We all know how down and out, totally dispirited, and disillusioned the apostles were because of the crucifixion. In a very real sense, they died with Jesus. And then something which went beyond analysis- indeed went beyond comprehension- occurred, and the disciples were back on their feet, charged up with the power of life, confident in the Master's victory.
At the very least, it doesn't take much faith on our part to agree with the Bishop that, whatever happened, something more than human re-energized the disciples' hope, their energy, and their life purpose. All the God experiences they had experienced in Jesus came back in strength, and God was no longer dead for them, but alive, once again, in Christ. Therefore, the first truth of the resurrected person is that they know God is alive for them. Such a person might not have the knowledge of, or even an interest in, a God defined by the doctrine of a church, but she or he knows in the deepest essence of their being that a living God dwells within them and cares for them.
No matter what their circumstances, despairs or disappointments, resurrected people are those who live with the confidence that they are not alone in their most private fears and worries. They know God is not only with them but also within them. And they believe that if God is for them, who, or what, can prevail against them. Heck, Paul said, even death can not prevail against us if God is for us. With faith in the living Christ, nothing could diminish or destroy us. "Who then," he asks, "shall I fear?"
That's resurrected living!
Now the second manifestation of a resurrected spirit is hope- hope that brings strength. When I know that God is alive within me and revving me up when my spirit gets weak, then I can have a boundless hope. Paul said, "When I am weak, then I am strong." When we are down and are having trouble finding our way, and darkness crowds in on us, we can turn to the light that is always available within us, and, instead of feeling hopeless, thank God for the need that has brought us back to The Light. We don't despair. We flip the switch! The light of God comes on in our heart and mind. The darkness recedes. And in the peace which comes from confidence in God, God gives us the objectivity to choose a better path; gain wisdom; and gather strength to do what needs to be done. The greatest evidence of the living power of God in the Christ experience for almost two thousand years now, is the boundless hope that keeps welling up in resurrected lives, and the great strength this hope brings.
In a sermon, portions of which were recently published in the Anglican Digest, a monk from the order of our namesake, The Society of St. Paul in Oregon, wrote: "Someone once wrote, "Easter is a special time for Christians to celebrate the ultimate reason for our hope: Christ is risen, and invites us to rise with him to new life. Easter is an opportunity to reach out to our neighbors who in our busyness, we neglect. There's something better coming…Easter is an invitation to look at our lack of love and seek God for compassion. There is something better coming…Easter is an opportunity to renew our faith. There is something better coming…Easter is a chance to renew our strength and mount up with wings as eagles; to run and not faint. There's something better coming!"
The basis of hope in resurrected living is the solid belief that something better coming is just around the corner for us!
Thirdly, resurrected life has purpose. When you acknowledge God as the life force within you, you search for your highest purpose in everything you do, and you want to do it. You want to be your best in all that you undertake. You come to realize that you can turn whatever you have to do in life into a vocation, a calling with a Godly purpose. The saintly monk, Brother Lawrence, changed his discouragement in having to wash the monastery's dishes every day into the fulfillment of a Godly calling and divine revelation. And then there are all the people we meet every day in our labors, no matter what we do, or wherever we are. You can find a Godly purpose in all of your daily interactions. People, who feel stuck in their life, need Jesus to come alive in them, so that they can start living with purpose.
Next, resurrected living produces a life of faith. This kind of faith has legs. It is real. Scripture tells us that Thomas had to put his hand on the resurrected Christ's wounds to believe in the truth of the resurrection. That's us. We, too, need to test our faith in God, by checking to see if God is there for us in our doubts and fears- like Thomas. The moral of Thomas' Easter story is that God welcomes us to try out our faith. It's OK to test faith. What with all we have gone through without any consistency of awareness of God in our life, it is understandable we have doubts Resurrected living says, "It is all right to have doubts. It is OK to test your ability to have faith. Just do what you have to do to believe." Open yourself to the evidence and let God show you what you need to do. Faith is a matter of you doing the driving while God gives you the directions, especially when your road gets confusing, or tiring. That's why so many people we meet, who are living the resurrection life, usually are so calm and peacefully centered.
And lastly, like the disciples who experienced resurrection that first Easter, people who are reborn and truly alive, because God is alive for them, are joyful. Knowing what Christ is doing for them by restoring them to the power of life, reborn (renewed) people have an attitude of gratitude, as we say in 12 step programs where thousands upon thousands of dead people have been raised. Easter is a joyous time - as we know today - and it can last a lifetime, if God is alive in you. St. Patrick's famous hymn begins, "I arise today by the power of heaven." Hold that thought every morning when you rise. Greet God with a hearty "Happy Easter" each day, and welcome Christ who has risen in you that day and every day.
So brothers and sisters, Happy Easter! The Lord is reborn in us, and we are risen indeed!
Hallelujah!
Return to Top Return to Sermons Page