Father John McGinn, Rector

Saint John’s Episcopal Church

Sandwich, Massachusetts

 

April 8, 2007                                              Easter Sunday

 

 

In the beauty of the earth, in the rhythm of the seasons, in the mystery of time and space, Jesus our light, you are alive.  In the tenderness of touch, in the heartbeat of intimacy, and the insights of solitude, Hallelujah, Jesus our light, you are alive.  In the creative possibility of the dullest conversation, the dreariest task, the most threatening event, Hallelujah, Jesus our light, you are alive.  To offer recreation to every unhealed heart, to every deadened place, and to every damaged heart, Hallelujah. 

 

You set before us great choice, therefore we choose this life.  Jesus is risen from the dead, Jesus is alive, Hallelujah.

 

A priest found the branch of a thorn tree and twisted it around so it resembled a crown of thorns.  Thinking it a symbol of the crucifixion, he placed it on the altar on Good Friday.  Early on Easter morning, he remembered what he had done, and feeling it was not appropriate for Easter Sunday, he hurried in the church to clear it away before the congregation came. (I guess he didn’t have an active alter guild!) But when he went into the church he found the branch blossoming with beautiful roses.  Welcome this morning to the celebration of Easter day.  The thorns of Good Friday have blossomed into the roses of the resurrection. 

 

Jesus the Lord is risen.  Jesus has risen indeed.

 

I read a wonderful story in preparation for this sermon about a white person in the stat of Georgia, buried in a cemetery reserved exclusively for African-Americans.  This man had lost his mother when he was young and his father never married again, but hired a black woman named Mandy to help raise his son.  She was a Christian woman who took her task seriously.  Seldom has a motherless boy received so much warm-hearted attention. 

 

One of his earliest memories is of Mandy standing over him in his bedroom at the beginning of each day, and softly saying, “Wake up, God’s morning has come.”  AS the years past, Mandy served as his surrogate mother.  The young man went to college, but when he returned home she would still wake him in the same manor.  One day after he became a well known statesman, the sad news came of Mandy’s passing.  As he stood by her grave in the cemetery, he turned to his friends and said, “If I die before Jesus comes, I want to be buried right here beside Mandy. I like to think that on resurrection day she will again say to me ‘Wake up, God’s morning has come.’”

 

It is my joyful privilege to say to you that God’s morning has come.

 

A father is explaining to his five year old son that Jesus died and arose from the dead, “That is how we know Jesus is the son of God, because he came back from the dead, just as he said he would.”  “Do you mean like Elvis?” said the boy.  Not exactly.

 

There is something really wrong with a society in which God is dead and Elvis is alive. 

 

You know the story well, from the gospel this morning.  On Friday Jesus was flogged and crucified until he was dead, and they took his lifeless body from the cross and laid him in a tomb.  Soldiers were ordered to stand guard at the tomb, but on Sunday morning the women who were closest to him came to anoint him, but the stone was moved, and Jesus was no longer there.  An angel told them that he had risen as he said, and Jesus began to make a number of appearances to his followers, beginning with Mary Magdalene.

 

Listen as Simon Peter gives his personal testimony.

“You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached.  How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.   We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews, and in Jerusalem.  They killed him by hanging him from a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen.  He was not seen by all the people but by witnesses whom God had already chosen; by us who ate and drank with him after he arose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people to tell them that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead.  All the prophets testify about him, that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness from sin through his name.”

 

This is the event that we celebrate here today; the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  There will always be those who doubt Jesus’ resurrection, which is not surprising.  It is an amazing story.  Some will contend that it is a hoax.  Last year we had The DaVinci Code, and this year we have James Cameron who was concerned about the bones of Jesus.

 

 A fuzzy black and white photo appeared in the London Telegraph in 1934 that caused enormous excitement.  It showed a long neck and a head rising from the waters of Loch Ness.  Photographed by the Dr. Wilson, it appeared to be an extinct dinosaur.  Some claim the photo proved the Loch Ness monster, but still people remained skeptical.  The truth is that Nessie was an elaborate hoax.  A man named Christian Sperling confessed his role in the fake photograph before he died in 1994.  The monster had been fabricated from a 14inch submarine, to which a long neck was attached.  They floated the model into the shallows and took the photograph.  Wilson became the front man for this deception, and to this day people travel to Loch Ness to try to catch a glimpse of the Loch Ness monster.

 

Some people have labeled the resurrection of Jesus as such a hoax.  I have to tell you that they are up against overwhelming evidence.  There are more than 500 witnesses to Jesus resurrection, were they making it up?  Was there a conspiracy?

 

Former Watergate conspirator, Chuck Colson says that it is preposterous.   All you have to do is look at the Watergate conspiracy in which he was involved.  Watergate was carried out by the closest aides to the president of the US, the most powerful men in America who are intensely loyal to their president.  One of them, John Dean, turned state’s evidence, which is testified against the president to save his own skin.  He did so only two weeks after informing the president of what was going on.  Two weeks after he confessed.  The cover=up, the lie, could only be held for two weeks.  Then everybody jumped ship to save themselves.  Chuck Colson goes on to note, that the twelve disciples, powerless and facing disgrace, stoning and death, and even powerful zealots at the pinnacle of power jump ship to save their own necks, but the apostles could not deny Jesus because they have seen him face to face and they knew he had risen from the dead.

 

“You can take it from an expert in cover-ups,” says Chuck Colson, “No one less than a resurrected Jesus could cause those men to their dying day to declare that Jesus is alive and is Lord.”  I would also say that the women, especially Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James.

 

That is why we are here this morning.  Jesus has risen and is alive.

 

What does that mean to you and me?  It means more than anything else that we no longer have to fear death. 

 

A Christian woman was confined to a bed in a nursing home.  She was ill and there were times when she became overwrought.  In order to keep this woman from falling off her bed, she was strapped in.  Above the bed was a sign that said “This patient must be restrained at all times.”  Her daughter said that this broke her heart.  Every time the daughter went to see her, she cried as her mother asked her to release her so she could be free.  The mother died, and the daughter said the first thing she did was to walk into the room and tear up that sign and say “Thank God my mother is free at last.”

 

There are people in this church this morning who will tell you they have lost a loved one to death, and they miss them very much.  But still they acknowledge that death came a liberation to the person they love.  Even though they miss this person with every fiber of their being, they know that the person is better off now.  We always want to hold on those those we love.  Easter says we can trust those we love to God.  They are not gone from us forever; they await us on the other side. 

 

Above all, Easter says that we don’t need to fear death.

 

I took four years of Latin in High School and my guidance counselor assured me that it is the root language for all other language, and if I mastered that ancient tongue, all other languages would fall into place.  I conjugated verbs, I read short stories, and I tried to speak like a famous Roman orator in front of the class.  Many years have passed, and for the life of me all I can remember from those classes are the words of Julius Caesar, “Vini, vidi, vici”  I came, I saw, I conquered.

Jesus came, he saw, he suffered, but he conquered.  He conquered it all, sin and suffering and death.  Give thanks this Easter day.

 

Several years ago in my parish in Southington, CT, I got a call from a funeral director saying one of my parishioners had committed suicide.  I think all of us have been touched by that form of death and it is devastating.  Chris, was a Vietnam veteran, he had come back from the war, but had never recovered.  He had a drinking and drug problem.  His wife came home one day and found him dead.  He had three children, and was a contractor.  I remember the service clearly; it was so difficult because the crying was uncontrollable.  I tried to give a good sermon about his life, but it was overwhelmed by the tears of everyone.

 

We went to the cemetery, and I read the words of committal from the prayer book, and there was more crying.  Then the military came to do their part of the service.  The military fired 3 times and the bugler played four stanzas of I Know My Redeemer Liveth, arching each note toward us as if the music were a time delay message from a more beautiful world.  Standing in the mud of the cemetery, I could see Easter.  I know that my redeemer liveth. It is not a hoax, but the most important truth on earth. 

 

Can you see Easter?

 

 We need not fear death ever again, God’ morning has come.  Jesus is risen from the dead.  AMEN

 

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