Easter Sunday Message

 Easter Sunday, April 17th, 2022

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen. 

Every Easter, and any large family gathering when I was a kid, we gathered at my dad’s parent’s house. And no meal was complete without the special prayer we dubbed “The Posselt Prayer.” It has 3 parts - first is the very familiar “Come lord Jesus” prayer.  The second and third parts are from Psalm 118 - “Oh give thanks unto the Lord for he is good for his mercy endures forever” followed by “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” To this day, whenever there are 2 or more Posselts gathered for a meal, no matter WHERE we are, we look at one another and ask “are we praying the Posselt Prayer?”

But eventually the family meals became smaller and more sporadic. Both my dad’s parents died years ago. But this special prayer lives on, appropriately today on Easter Sunday- “This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it” was my grandpa’s favorite verse. 

This is the day that the Lord has made, but do we really feel like rejoicing? Today, this Easter morning 2022, what were you expecting to find or to feel? 

Were you expecting that, after wandering around in the wilderness of Lent, you would come out on the other side, to rise this Easter morning completely refreshed, restored, and renewed and in an ”Easter Mood”?  But life doesn’t exactly work out in the way we expect it to, does it?  If anything, the year 2020 taught us that.

Like many of you, and like the women followers of Jesus, I woke up in the darkness of this morning to the very real, very present realities of pain, brokenness, and suffering in our world and in our lives. Our lives are still in the same mess that they were in yesterday. We’re still two years into a pandemic that really won’t actually end, there is still violence around the world and in Ukraine, our weather has been off kilter around the country all week. We still find ourselves buried in all sorts of dark tombs - illness, broken relationships, loss, mental health struggles, and an unknown future.

And yet…. here we are, on Easter morning,.....  I’m here. You’re here. Life is poking out of the ground all around us here. And Easter morning has arrived here, and it DOES change things - just not in the ways we expect. 

Really, this whole week tells the story of the unexpected: How Jesus was welcomed into town with a parade on Sunday, and being nailed to cross on Frida. 

How on Thursday Jesus washed his disciples feet, even Judas’s feet, and shared his last meal with all his disciples, the very ones who would betray him, deny him, and stand silently by as Jesus was arrested, tried, mocked, and beaten before being nailed to a cross.

These women had seen him be buried that day, so naturally they expected to find death that morning as well. They expected to find the body of their beloved Jesus, so that they could care for him one last time by anointing his body with spices. They expected to find death in a place OF death, as we all would.

Instead, the women found the stone covering his tomb had been rolled away, and the shock of an empty tomb with no body. The women found two dazzling dudes, with a laser pointer question for them: “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” 

These women expected to find death in a place of death, but instead became the first witnesses to the resurrection of our Lord. They were the first to share the GOOD WORD, that death no longer has the LAST WORD. 

All this past week, we followed in the disciples footsteps by remembering too. We remembered Jesus’ welcome into Jerusalem, we remember the night Jesus was betrayed, and how he washed the feet of ALL of his disciples, even Judas. We remembered Jesus’ command to love one another, and to be sustained by his body and blood in the Eucharist in remembrance of him. Then we remembered his death and burial on Good Friday. But that is not the end of the story. 

We who have been buried in the darkness of tombs for - buried under things such as, divorce, fear, depression, numbness, stress - for one season, or maybe for years…. we have also been buried with Jesus in our baptisms, as Paul wrote and we profess in our baptism liturgy.

And so, being baptized, we will be united with Jesus in his resurrection. New life sprouts up out of death. As my favorite Easter hymn reminds us: “Now, the green blade rises from the buried grain, wheat that in dark earth many days has lain; Love lives again, that with the dead has been. Love is come again like wheat arising green.”

Like when I visit the cemetery where my grandparents are buried, and I see their gravestone etched with a gorgeous picture of the family farm, I know it lives on in my dad, my brother, and will hopefully continue for future generations of Posselts, just as the “Posselt Family Prayer” lives on.

Why do we look for the living among the dead? Because we may have forgotten what we already knew. We expect to find death in a place of death, but Jesus has done the unexpected. He has risen from the dead. He IS NOT HERE. He WAS here, but he is not here any longer. 

Instead, Jesus has vacated the tomb and allowed some women to be his spokespeople. And, unexpectedly, he is actually nowhere to be found - at least by the women and later by Peter. Instead, today we rely on remembering what we have been told by Jesus and by the followers of Jesus - that Jesus WILL show up… even in the throes of a ham and chocolate bunny hangover, when we have to go back to work or school or our regularly scheduled lives. 

In fact, Jesus has already gone on ahead of us, to meet up with us out there on the roads we travel. On this day, which the Lord has made, and tomorrow too. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. 

Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed, Alleluia! Amen. 

Between Two Easters

4-12-20 Easter

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

Ten “Holy Weeks” ago, while I was on internship in southern Minnesota, I found myself on Holy Saturday in the empty sanctuary of the church, helping to set up a giant paper mache empty tomb with the stone rolled away. As the intern pastor, I had underestimated the importance of this…. Thing… as part of the Holy Week observance of this congregation. Or at least, I had underestimated how important it was to my internship supervisor. So, I did as I was told, and in ten minutes time helped him set up this plywood monstrosity that seemed to necessary to his Holy Week experience.

Under normal circumstances, we all have our “favorite” traditions about Holy Week and Easter – the candles in the Tenebrae, the stripping of the altar, unburying the Alleluia, seeing all the kids come up for the children’s sermon, getting dressed up in our Easter best, ready to celebrate… then go home to eat a bug ham and too much chocolate.

Today, Easter 2020, it’s hard to feel like celebrating. The joyful “alleluias” can easily feel bitter in our mouths as we think about the families for whom this Easter will be full of death rather than life. Instead of stripping the altar on Maundy Thursday, we have been stripped of all the trappings and traditions we have added to this day.

This experience rattles us to the very marrow of our trust in God; it penetrates to the very core of who we believe our God to be. It causes us to ask ourselves, how could a truly good God allow this to happen? There are no easy answers to be found, not even on Easter.

During the very first Holy Week, the disciples had been through a lot in the previous few days and had no answers either. Their beloved leader, teacher, and friend had been arrested and cruelly killed while they had all fled. Now they were hiding – at home - in fear, waiting, watching, praying….. Waiting for discovery perhaps? Watching for whatever might happen next? Praying for a miracle?

And then there was this thing, about an empty tomb and some folded up grave linens. Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early in the morning and got the shock of her life – she discovered the stone had been rolled away. While Peter and the other disciple went back home puzzled, she stuck around. So she was the first person to encounter the risen Jesus – even though she didn’t recognize him (was he wearing a mask?) and he didn’t let her touch him – apparently he was practicing social distancing.

These years later, we may wonder at how long it takes for them to “get it” – Jesus is raised! Empty grave! Tada! Party time!  But we have the luxury of knowing the end of this story. Throughout these three days, as we commemorate the last days of Jesus’ earthly ministry, we do so knowing the ending. We know that the end of this story is a triumphant one – Jesus rises from the dead and the power of death is defeated for all time. The good guys win. So why aren’t the disciples living like it?

We know that through Christ’s death and resurrection, our sins have been forgiven and we are new people. But we don’t always live like this. We know that death has been defeated. But we still live in fear of it. We know that Jesus has conquered evil for all time. But there is still so much suffering and sadness  in this world.

It is so hard to live as Easter People, because we don’t know the end of our own story. We are living in the in-between, now more than ever, remaining in our homes behind closed doors, waiting for a miracle. We are the characters in the middle of God’s story, overwhelmed by our circumstances, consumed by conflicts, and persecuted by adversaries.  In every chapter and in every paragraph, we cry out to God, “Is there a plot here?” In this way, we are no different from the disciples. We thought God had come to fix everything. Make our lives better. To end the suffering. To make sure that no one ever had to die again.

During the first Holy Week, the people still prayed that their messiah would come and deliver them from their bitter existence, to mightily kick the Romans out of their land and establish a great kingdom of their own. But I imagine that they were getting very tired of waiting. God had seemed to be silent for so long, they must have begun to wonder if God had indeed forgotten them.

Fast forward two thousand years, and how much has really changed? For all of our modern marvels of technology, our breakthroughs in science, our fast travel and even faster means of communication, are we better off now? In many ways, yes, our lives have vastly improved compared to those in the past. With all our technological prowess, there are so many ways that we can remain connected during this time. But it also means that we have found more efficient and elaborate ways to hurt one another, and make the vulnerable even more at risk. In all this time, we have not really changed.

But in all this time, God has not changed either. And that’s a good thing. The faithfulness, the love, and the goodness of the Lord toward God’s people have remained the same, today, tomorrow, and always – and nowhere is it more apparent than in Jesus’s rising from the dead.

Truth be told, will we really feel like saying – Alleluia- when our lives seem like on long Good Friday that never ends. We are in uncharted territory, which feels both uncomfortable and scary. But, for over two thousand years, Good Friday has always been followed by Easter.  

The church may be empty today, on Easter 2020. The church is empty, but so is the tomb. Easter arrives, even when we are hidden away in our homes. Not unlike how Christmas arrived in Whoville, despite the Grinch’s theft of all the precious "who-trappings." This year there will be no Easter lilies, or gimmicky children’s sermon, or plywood paper mache tombs…. And yet, even so, Easter morning has arrived. It’s here. We made it. We’re still standing.

While at the same time we celebrate Easter 2020, we look to another Easter – and Easter when this pandemic is over, the dust settling, and we can attempt to find a new normal. And we long for the final Easter, when we are welcomed into the arms of Jesus, when illness, suffering, and death will be no more.

In the meantime, we Lutherans do what we do best – live into the nuance of living somewhere between “once upon a time” and “happily ever after,” somewhere between the first Easter and the Last Easter. And in between those two points in time are still a million possibilities to be lived. Some good, some bad, all holy.

Pastor Meta Herrick Carlson wrote a book of poems and meditations called “Ordinary Blessings.” And in her poem called “False Choices,” she writes, “Draw me to the mysteries of an ever-expanding universe, a redemption that is already and not yet, a God who is bending time and space … we are resuscitated wild and holy, wherever death and life blur… Surely, we are made for more than two dimensions and the simple chronology of life!” (70-1)

Though songs of praise and alleluias may stick in our throats today……  that’s ok. Disasters can and will still come, but we do not need to fear them. Jesus is the plot. Jesus is the meaning. Jesus is there, in the prayer, in the waiting, in the watching for what is to come. We may not know what the end of this next chapter might bring for us, but GOD IS THE ONE WHO WROTE THE BOOK. And God loves us so much that God just HAD to “spoil” the ending for us:

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed, ALLELUIA! Amen.

Our Good Friday Zoom Tenebrae worship

The Sunday After Easter: Storybook Sunday!!!

Sermon 4-8-18

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

For us, Easter happened one full week ago. A lot has happened in a week, hasn’t it? You probably have eaten the rest of you Easter candy, wrapped up spring break, and have gone back to our “regular scheduled” lives… probably wishing for spring to come. Meanwhile, here in the church, it is the Second Sunday of Easter… that’s right, Easter is not just a day – it’s season that is seven weeks long. A week after Easter, WE are still wearing white, and we are still shouting ALLELUIA!!

A week may have passed for us in “real time,” but for the disciples, Jesus shows up here for the first time during the first part of the original Easter day. So, where did Jesus find them on the evening that he had risen from the dead? On the highways and byways of Judea, spreading the good news?

Nope. In a secure room with the door locked.

And a week later, when they had eight whole days to live into the glorious experience that Jesus had appeared to them and had sent his blessing with them… surely THEN they were out and about, sharing the good news…. NOW… right?

Nope, locked up again.

The disciples might have heard and believed what the women had to say about the empty tomb… but did they believe and understand that Jesus was giving them his peace… so that they could be SENT OUT, just like Jesus has been SENT OUT to spread the good news that is the undying love of God for all people?

It's the second Sunday of Easter. What are we going to do? What would that look like? What COULD that look like?

Let’s try something a little different that what we normally do. I am going to tell you a story about another young woman who went out on a mission to share something amazing with others.

This story is from a book called ….. Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett.  

….

The archduke wanted to keep the yarn away, locked up, only for himself, didn’t he? But Annabelle wanted to share it. And because she kept sharing it, the yarn keeps growing until it covers everything. I wonder… will it eventually reach across the sea and cover the archduke’s castle? I would like to think that eventually it does. Everybody gets a sweater (or hat) … and I would like to think that even the Archduke finally gets one.

Because we all have a little bit of the Archduke in us. But even though we try to keep the love of God “safe” for our own keeping in locked rooms- out of fear, out of self-centeredness, out of desire for control – like the beautiful yarn, this resurrected life won’t be contained. It won’t be confined for one person, in a locked box. It won’t be contained in one single Easter morning, either. New life is going to get out, to spill over into seven whole weeks and beyond. New life is going to cover you like a multi-colored sweater in a grey world.

Are you ready to get out your knitting needles? I hope so. Because new life and extra yarn are coming our way. Thanks be to God. Amen.

April Fools: God is Dead Serious About Life

4-1-18 Easter Sunday (reading from Mark)

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Risen Lord and savior Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

Did you noticed something odd about the end of the gospel reading? Take a closer look at it. Did you hear the end and think… “wait, Pastor Lydia, that CAN’T be where the reading ends? Surely there must be some mistake! Are you pulling an April Fool’s joke on us?”

I promise you it’s not a mistake, and I’m not playing an April Fool’s joke. This is EXACTLY how our most original version of the Gospel of Mark ends: “They went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” THE END. Mic drop.

…..WHAT???????

If it’s not a mistake in the bulletin… and I’m NOT an April fool’s joke on all of you…. then, what is going on here? Is Mark pulling the biggest April Fool’s joke ever…. A joke so big that it ended up in the BIBLE??? Now THAT would be pretty epic, wouldn’t it? It would certainly be one of the best April Fool’sjokes in all of history… right up there with the 1976 planetary alignment that claimed to briefly reduce Earth’s gravity, the Swedish Spaghetti Tree Hoax, and the left-handed Whopper.

I can see the headlines now… “Earliest Copy of the Gospel of Mark Found…. Gospel ends with... “Haha, just kidding you guys.  You should have seen your FACES!!!”

But no. We just have THIS ending. No post-resurrection Jesus. No telling of the good news. No big resurrection appearances, walking through walls, or any kind of nice, neat resolution.

What a big letdown. “You mean…. I got out of bed…. all dressed up in my Easter best…. Got myself to church, with all the flowers and alleluias…. For this???” Worst ending ever.

Well, you’re not wrong. It IS the worst ending ever… if you’re in with the devil. It IS the worst ending ever… if you’re on the side of injustice and domination. It is the worst ending ever if you think that death has won… because … the joke really IS on you.

Because April Fools! Christ is RISEN!! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)

In fact, Jesus’ life was just one big joke on the expectations of the world. Just a few short months ago, we were singing “Joy to the World” and welcoming Jesus as a baby at Christmas. It’s not hard to imagine how Jesus’ birth announcement went down - With the angel surprising Mary, and saying something to the effect of: “Yo, Mary, I know you you’re a virgin, and you’re not married, but hey – you’re going to get pregnant and give birth, to the son of God no less!” With Mary looking around, going, “Yeah right, get real…. Am I on Candid Camera?” Most likely Joseph also hoped that the angel was joking when he got eventually the news.

And when Mary went into labor, they both probably thought it was a cruel trick of fate, since they were traveling and there were no vacancies in Bethlehem that night. And then wondered why the angels had sent the first news that the son of God had been born, to shepherds on the night shift, and not… you know, actual important people.

The wise men must have felt the same way later, as they arrived at the king’s palace in the capitol Jerusalem – “what do you mean, King Herod, that the newborn king isn’t HERE? Surely you must be joking.” And later, once they were on the right track, how foolish it must have felt for them to arrive all in state with fine gifts… to a humble house with a poor peasant toddler and his mom.

And when Jesus grew up, he kept at these antics.  Who would Jesus call to be in his inner circle of followers? The educated, the powerful, the wealthy? April Fools! It’s fishermen, tax collectors, and working stiffs who flunked out of rabbi school!

And who does the Son of God choose to spend most of his time with? Statesmen, rabbis, priests, and other people with power and influence? Nope again – Jesus hangs out mostly with the sick, with women and children – healing, feeding, and teaching people that the love of God is for ALL… not just for some. April Fools!

Are you sensing a pattern here?

But there were some in power who thought this was not funny anymore, that the joke had gone too far. It might have been cute and amusing at first – the nobody from nowhere preaching about God’s love to the outcast and hopeless - but joke needed to end. So, they chose to end the life of the jokester who was causing all this ruckus in the first place.

That last week of Jesus’ life we call Holy Week, which began last week with Palm Sunday, must have felt like one big nightmarish April Fool’s joke on Jesus’s disciples. It started well - after they came into Jerusalem on Sunday to a parade - but the week took an unexpected turn on Thursday. That night, Jesus passes around bread and wine and says strange things like “This is my body, and this is my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” The disciples wait for Jesus to say, “That’s bananas! April Fools!” But it never comes. Because Jesus is not fooling around here, not with the forgiveness of sins.

After supper, Jesus tells them that one will betray him, and the rest will deny and abandon him. Again, the disciples protest that this too, must be a joke. Only Jesus is not fooling here, either – not with facing betrayal and suffering.

And perhaps, even when Jesus was dying on the cross on Good Friday, the women disciples who DID remain with him must have thought – “This is GOD’S SON. … surely Jesus will come down from the cross in a great show of his power … surely an angel army will come to the rescue…. Surely this has to be a joke, because Jesus can’t possibly have meant it when he told us that he was going to die.” Only, Jesus wasn’t fooling this time… especially not this time, especially not with facing death and the grave.

So, for these same women, to have arrived at the tomb early that Sunday morning, only to find that – April Fools! Jesus is not dead, but alive! – it must have seemed too good to be true. They must have thought someone was playing a trick on THEM. Their joy at the news utterly terrified them… and so they said nothing to anyone.   

….

Or did they?

April Fools!

The Gospel of Mark would not exist if these women had not – eventually – told someone. We would not have a New Testament of they had not – eventually – shared with Peter and the rest of the disciples. WE WOULD NOT BE HERE today, Easter Sunday, April Fool’s Day 2018, if they had not – eventually – shared the good news.

God DID play the best trick of all time… on death, the devil, and the powers of evil.

April Fools, death doesn’t have the last word anymore!

April Fools, the powers of evil and might in the world are going to LOSE!

April Fools, the king of the universe gave us his life so that we may be delivered from death and the grave!

April Fools, new life is happening everywhere we look! Even when we least expect it. ESPECIALLY when we least expect it.

And we WILL see him, in places where we expect to see sadness and death… like after a Good Friday service, when one of the thorns from our “Sights, Sounds, and Smells of Good Friday Service” … was discovered to have a small bud on it. April fools, new life is happening!

This last week we SAW, HEARD, and TASTED how the Lord is good. Today, and every day to come, we will HEAR and SEE the goodness of this new life coming into our lives.

But the joke is on US if we think that the story actually ENDS here, at the conclusion of Mark’ Gospel. God’s story… OUR story, does not. It keeps going. Life happens. 

Resurrection happens. And not JUST TODAY either… April Fools! Easter isn’t just a day, it is a season. 50 days long in fact… much longer than the season of Lent. As it turns out, God is dead serious about life.

Christ is Risen! (He is risen…)

Thanks be to God! Amen.

"Joy to the world, the Lord has come.... back!!!!"

Easter Sunday 4-16-17

Grace to you and peace from God our father and from our risen Lord and savior Jesus the Christ,  Amen.

Merry Christmas! ….  “Joy to the world, the Lord has come… Back!”

“Hark the Herald Angels sing! Glory to the resurrected king!”

“Oh come all ye faithful… to the empty tomb.”

Well, I haven’t actually lost my marbles, though this week I probably came close, between Holy Week prep and my first ever Easter here, and also planning a surprise trip to Namibia! So, ya know, not all THAT much going on this week!

This is the most special day of the most special week of the Christian calendar. On Palm Sunday, just one week ago, Jesus entered Jerusalem in a festive parade. On Thursday, we gathered around the Lord’s table to remember the night that Jesus ate his last meal surrounded by his closes friends – friends who would later go on to deny, betray, and completely abandon him. And on the Friday that we call Good, we heard the rest of the story of Jesus’ suffering, crucifixion, and death, as darkness fell inside a tomb sealed with a stone.

But today, “It’s beginning to look a lot like.. Easter!” Because, after all, today we remember how we received the Best. Gift. Ever.

When I went Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, I attended a downtown church that drew members from the white retired social justice involved crowd and those who were born in West Africa. One year, Easters fell really early, and as we sang our Alleluias, we saw snow starting to fall outside, in big fluffy, Christmas-card-worthy flakes. It seriously felt like Christmas morning, made me want to sing some “Joy to the World” rather than “Jesus Christ is Risen Today.”

After all, Christmas is the holiday that most of us say is our favorite. There aren’t too many “count downs” to Easter Sunday, unless you are a big church nerd like me. Though, we still try to make Easter into a cute holiday, like Christmas, and cover up talk of tombs and death by crucifixion with chocolate and bunnies. Babies are much easier to deal with than crosses anyway. And don’t get me started on CHOCOLATE Crosses. Bah Humbug!

So why not just skip Easter and celebrate another Christmas? If one Christmas is good, two are better! Right? All the same elements are already there: we have an angel who announces good news of great joy to some unsuspecting people – shepherds, women – both pretty far down on the social latter.  Mary the mother of Jesus is there too, as “the other Mary,” at least according to many scholars. The angel tells them to “fear not.” Then the women GO to SEE what the angel has told them. (go to Bethlehem) “Come and see the empty tomb…”  And Lo and behold – they find Jesus, just as the angel said. And you know what? SNOW is even mentioned today – the clothing of the angel is described as being as white as snow! “I’m dreaming of a white… Easter!”

Oh yes, I almost forgot. At both Christmas and Easter, someone is also trying to kill Jesus. You probably forgot about that part of the Christmas story. King Herod attempted to kill baby Jesus when he heard about him from the Wise Men, and Herod tried to put the kabosh on Jesus’ potential political career at its start. (kill motion) Try putting THAT on a Hallmark Christmas card.

Jesus obviously escaped death as a baby, but it looked like here it finally caught up to him. The Roman government, in partnership with the Judean leadership in power, thought they had finally gotten rid of this troublemaker. They even put his grave under surveillance, so that his followers could not steal the body and claim resurrection. But we just heard how about how that plan failed BIG TIME.

This is what Jesus had been saying his whole ministry. Over and over Jesus told his disciples, that he “must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” (Mtt 16:21) That third day, that’s TODAY. But where are his disciples? We haven’t heard from them since Friday. The only people who showed up, the only people who believed the word of Jesus, were the WOMEN.

Dorothy Sayers wrote that women “were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross,” and I would add that they were first again to witness the resurrection. Women were the first preachers of the good news. The men, the soldiers at the tomb didn’t stand a chance. They came to “work” that morning expecting the cushy job of guarding a dead body. The women came to see a dead body, hoping and believing that they would be disappointed. Then boom. Resurrection happened.  Same event, totally different reactions.

Just imagine for a moment these big, tough men with weapons at the ready fainting dead away like proverbial Victorian ladies at the sight of ONE SINGLE MEASLY angel. One. Not even a heavenly host. Just one was all it took to pass out from fear. But for these women, they were not overcome by fear, because they already expected to see the impossible. For them, believing was seeing.

We’ve all been there. We’ve all be so overcome by fear of the darkness around us that we miss out where new life is happening. There is so much fear and so much TO FEAR in the world – racism, sexism, violence, war, bombing, homophobia, fear of our neighbors, of refugees, and strangers – so many things that would set us to shaking in our boots and fainting dead away in dismay.

But what if we looked at the darkness around us with resurrection eyes, like these women. Preacher and writer Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “...new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb.” What if we could hear through our fear, and see in the dark? What if believing is seeing? What if Easter is Christmas? What if Christmas is Easter?

At Christmas, we often call Jesus Immanuel, which means “God with us.” Remember that great Advent hymn, “O Come, O Come Immanuel?” “And ransom captive Israel, who mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear.” Well, Immanuel IS HERE and Immanuel has ransomed us, so that mourning and death and exile are no longer our reality.

Maybe Easter feels like Christmas because the two are bookends of the same story –which is the story of God birthing light out of darkness, life out of death, resurrection out of Good Friday. This story is also OUR story. Easter is the culmination, the completion, the last note in the final movement of the symphony, the nail in the coffin for death. Birth, death, resurrection – you can’t have Easter without Christmas, but without Easter, Christmas is more like a gift of a pair of socks rather than a BMW.

At Easter, Jesus give us the greatest gift of all – not chocolate crosses, but eternal life with God, made possible by Jesus defeating the REAL cross, it’s power of sin, death, and the grave. Jesus’ resurrection is OUR resurrection too, and THIS is why it is GOOD NEWS. Because this gift is FOR US. It is FOR YOU.

Last week I went with a friend to hear Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony #2. During the final movement, two soloists and a choir accompanied the orchestra, and sang these words, translated from German:  

O Sorrow, all-penetrating! I have been wrested away from you!
O Death, all-conquering! Now you are conquered!
I shall die, so as to live! What you have conquered Will bear you to God.
O believe, my heart, oh believe…
Tremble no more! Prepare yourself to live!

The disciples hid, and the soldiers fainted, but the women took a page out of the shepherds’ book and MADE HASTE, skedaddling out of that tome so fast that they crash headlong into the risen Jesus. 

Because Jesus lives, we live too. We live, not to hide away or be paralyzed by fear, but to boldly put one foot in front of the other, knowing that Jesus, Immanuel goes with us, and sometimes lets us crash head on into resurrection without realizing it. Immanual comes with us, so that we may live.

“Joy to the world, the Lord has come back!”

Christ is Risen!
(He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!)

Thanks be to God! Amen.