EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 3 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on Easter Sunday, April 12, 2020. This was the sixth digital service we performed after our church was shuttered because of the COVID pandemic.
So, as I prepared for this Easter Sunday this week, you can imagine that it became quite the daunting task.
Easter, in its own right, brings with it its own mix of emotions, and excitement, and joy, at the thought of our whole Faith family coming together on the high point of our Christian year.
But, then again, this isn't just any Easter, is it? ... This is an Easter in which you all are sitting at home, hopefully safely and healthy.
We're here ... just a few of us, a handful of us, that are continuing to broadcast this ministry.
Our family celebrations will look differently this week.
Many have suffered some kind of effect from the pandemic that we are all experiencing, whether it's a financial impact, or just the anxiety of not being able to go to school, or not being able to go to work, or to wonder about your loved ones who might be in a facility that could be ravaged with a disease such as this.
And so how do you even begin to prepare for an Easter that none of us will ever forget?
As I thought about that this week, and I rolled through the Holy Week, and I continued to think about what it was that I could stand up here and tell you to be reassuring, one thought kept resonating with me. And that thought was despite the circumstances, despite the fact that we are here in a sanctuary with just a handful of us, and another 10 or so paper Sunday school children, and you are there preparing to celebrate Easter in your home from start to finish today. ... Despite all of that, we know one incredible truth. And that truth is: Today, that tomb is empty. ... And Christ has risen!
Regardless of all the circumstances that we face right now, as a Faith Family, as a nation, as a world, neither pandemic, nor distance, nor traditions that can't be upheld, will separate us from that fact today. We are promised in our gospels, in the Good News that comes down to us from our ancestors and the saints that go before us that nothing can separate us God's love.
Not even on a day like this. ... On an Easter that is unlike any Easter that any of us has ever experienced.
This pandemic does not separate us from God's love. The distance between all of us as a Faith Family does not separate us from God's love. Certainly, not being in this church together, does not separate us from God's love.
As we heard in the gospel today, there was so much that was surrounding the events of Jesus' resurrection that very first Easter the Christian people experienced. There was the threat of the Roman Empire. And there was the threat of the Jews who were afraid of what it meant that Christ may have been risen. And so the believers in that moment suffered many anxious moments just as we do on this Easter some 2,000 years later.
But, despite all of that, we fall back on the very truth that we've known since we all were in Sunday school: And on this day, there is nothing that can separate us from God's love.
So, as I thought about that Easter story today, I really began to think about the Easter story in new ways. In ways that maybe I wouldn't have without the circumstances in which we are living out our faith right now.
As I had to dwell on this Easter story, and specifically our gospel, it reminded me today that even though we focus so heavily on the fact that Christ has risen, like any story, there's always three parts to that story. There is a beginning, and a middle, and an end. As even the smallest of child reading stories can tell us.
In a normal year, in a normal Easter, where we are all packed into the sanctuary, and the kids are stirring, and the adults are smiling because they might be seeing people they haven't seen in a very long time ... we love to focus on the middle part of that gospel, don't we? We focus on the fact that Christ is risen. But there are two other parts to this story. And as we read the gospel today, even in that opening line, we are told that as the first day of the week dawns, Mary Magdalene and Mary went to see the tomb. But we are reminded that they went to see the tomb anxious and fearful. Just as many of us entered Easter today in anxious times. Maybe a bit fearful of what this means as we move forward, because after all, even though we celebrate Easter today, most of us, many of us, have weeks until we start to see any type of normalcy.
And so maybe for the first time ever we could put ourselves in the place of those two women who approached the tomb. And we can feel their anxiety, their fear flowing through us, as we approach our Easter here. Just like we do not know what is on the other side of this story, and those women did not know what was going to happen when the angel descended and that angel rolled that rock away from the tomb.
We can live confidently in the fact that Christ rises today! ... But what is on the other side for us as a faithful people? And so, maybe, for the very first time all three parts of this gospel start to come into focus on an Easter where we can't just focus on the Good News that Christ is risen.
So, of course, that is the beginning of the story in the gospel, and we move onto the middle part, and we all know what the middle of this story is: The stone is rolled back, and the angel invites Mary Magdalene and Mary into the tomb to see where Jesus had lain. And he of course, he is not there. Jesus is not laying in that tomb. He had risen! And that is why we come here every Easter Sunday to celebrate. And it is worthy of celebration because that is the crux of our faith, Faith Family.
That despite the crucifixion of our Christ, despite the greed and the jealousy and the death that conquered three days ago, our risen Christ rises today and defeats all of that, all of what the evil one may have taken from us, Christ defeats in his single, great sacrifice of love. And that indeed is worthy of celebration today.
And so as we think about the beginning of the story, and we bring our anxieties and our fears, in the middle of the story, we place those anxieties and fears in our risen Christ, and we hand them off to him. And we ask him to hold those for us as we celebrate in the emptiness of the tomb.
And then finally. ... We all know that after a beginning and a middle, there is an end to every story. But today, I'm going to substitute the word "end" to "after." And so in today's gospel, we have a beginning and a middle and an "after." Because our normal Easter, as we focus on that empty tomb, and on our Christ rising, we often forget that Jesus promises that he is here, and he is still living in our lives. And that in the moment that he has risen, he runs back to greet Mary Magdalene and Mary as they returning to the tomb to go and share the news with the rest of the disciples, Jesus drops down and he says, "Greetings!"
And we can't forget that Jesus is still doing that for us today. We've talked about it all through Lent. Each of you has seen tremendous acts of generosity that this pandemic has brought upon us in the local community, and in our nation, and even globally. And we talked about it Friday night here, after we finished a "Good Friday" service that was unlike any we ever envisioned.
Jesus is still appearing to us today. Whether he's in your homes this morning, or in this sanctuary helping to let you feel the Spirit of our Easter service, Jesus is still appearing to each of us on that road back to the city, saying "Greetings!"
And so, on the Easter like any other, we also dwell in the "after" because it is really important to remember that after Christ rose, that's not the end of the story. There is only one end that we all wait for: The glorious end when Christ returns and brings all of us faithful with him into the kingdom. But until then, in this, what I'm calling the "after" period today, in the "after" Christ promises that he will be here in the mix with us. He is here in this pandemic, walking along with each of us, curing us of our anxiety, and helping to relieve our fears, and helping to remind us that we as the church have the opportunity to show others Christ's love. We have the opportunity, in this time, to appear in someone's life, and be that greeting from Christ.
Faith Family, in this Easter unlike any other, I hope you focus on the whole continuum of the story. Absolutely celebrate the fact that our Christ has risen! But, I also want you to think about where the disciples were on the first Easter so many hundreds of years ago. When they brought their fears and their anxieties to the foot of the tomb and laid them there because they discovered that Christ had risen.
Just as today, whether you are in your homes, whether its miles from here, or hundreds of miles from here or thousands of miles from here, you get to bring your fears and your anxieties and lay them at the tomb. And then as a Faith Family, as we are walking on the road to tell the Good News to all the other sisters and brothers in the faith, we get to dwell on the fact that Jesus Christ is stopping each of us on that road and saying, "Greetings!"
And I can't think of a better message for today! I can't think of something more joyful than our Lord stopping each of us, each of us who are holding this fear and this excitement in dual tension together. I can't think of anything more exciting than our Lord stopping us and saying, "Greetings!"
And finally the after. ... Of course, we all will go from the service today to celebrate with our family in new ways and create new traditions. But what gives me more joy than our Christ being risen today is the fact that he is still active and moving in this world. And until we reach our ultimate end, we can take comfort in the fact that we have a living God. He walks and lives among us, and has sent his Spirit so that we can share that light with the rest of the world.
And so on this day, on this Easter day unlike any other, Faith Family, I remind you that we live into a story that is thousands of years old. A story that starts with fear and anxiety but then comes to joy and a risen Christ. And moves into an "after" giving us joy that we have a living God among us. And with that Faith Family, I joyfully announce to you, "Christ has risen! Christ has risen indeed! Amen!"
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