I could talk to you, with you this morning, this beautiful morning, about eggs and bunnies, about flowers and spring and laughing children. I could tell you what you already know...this is the time of the year to celebrate new life!
I could tell you that here we don’t have to talk about, or sing about the death and resurrection of Jesus who became the Christ, just because that’s what “they” are celebrating this Easter Sunday. We don’t have to go there to lift up the theme of hope over despair, of good over evil, of the power of life over death...
All we need do is open our eyes, our ears...to the natural world...springing forth with beauty and life all around us!
I could use the symbol of the circle to tell you that death and birth, fall-winter- spring and summer, is like a wheel turning again and again and that all we need do is accept where we are in the cycle of the seasons...
I love and am moved by the splendor of nature renewing itself...
Yet, I want more! Especially this time of year!
I want more than cycling, circling, spinning...! I want change! I want to be changed! I want to clean house and throw open the doors! I want the warm wind to blow through every nook and cranny and clean out all the dust.
I want to move the furniture. I want to re-model the house, dig up the yard and plant seeds. I want to change. I want to change myself!
Yes, spring is the season, is the “right” time to watch the flowers bloom, to hear the birds sing, to let the joy that comes from being warm again move me.
I want to move/ to be moved!
Maybe I need to go to the beach, or the mountains!
I have been trying to tell myself that just because it is Easter Sunday, I don’t need to hear or tell the sad story about the death of Jesus. I really don’t need to hear the part about Mary and her companions....going to the tomb where the body of Jesus was supposed to be... to find that it was empty...and hearing the angel say; “he’s not here.”
....nothing to touch, to see... just one more time...
Nothing there in that tomb but emptiness and shadows...
The man who was alive, vibrant, powerful, breathing; warm, tender and provocative ...was gone. Not even his body remained...
You see, for years Easter Sunday has felt like that to me. No one there...no dead Jesus...no living Christ for me to celebrate...like “they” do...
So, let’s just call off Easter and go to the beach and decorate eggs!
I know what it must have felt like when Mary and her companions looked in and found an empty space ...
I know what it feels like for someone I have loved, have been loved by to have died. They’re gone. There’s nothing to see, nothing to touch...just an empty space where a friend, a companion, a teacher, a warm body, a living presence used to be...
Long, so long ago...I celebrated the Jesus who became the Christ...on Easter Sunday. I believed that he rose from the dead to free me from sin and death.
That was a long, long time ago.
I don’t believe that anymore.
I don’t need an angel in an empty tomb where that belief used to be...to tell me; “Can’t you see, he’s not here!”
I know that Jesus the Christ is not there in some locked up room in my soul. I’ve heard it. ...I have felt it for years...that emptiness where Christian faith used to live...
It been like losing someone I loved and was loved by.
When that happens we try to soothe ourselves with the message that the one who has died will live on in our memories, in our deeds, in the genes of their children and their children’s children, in the pantheon of heroes and heroines that inspire our lives. I know those messages bring comfort!
But they don’t make the empty spaces go away. Those spaces can stay empty for a long, long time... for a long time Easter just reminds me of that empty space...
The tomb inside my soul where the Christ used to be...
It is as if for years if I have been stuck standing looking into that tomb, seeing only what is no more... who is no more... staring at the emptiness...
Sometimes, I think I see a ghost, or a shadow... I think I hear a faint and a far off voice. “It’s not real” I say. It is just my longing for what used to be, that is no more...
Most of the time, I don’t want to think about it and I don’t. I find a big boulder and close up that space. Until spring comes...until Easter comes... and “they” are celebrating, and I have this overwhelming urge to go to the beach!
Or stay here and re-model the house; let the wind blow in.
So this year I’m rolling back the stones, taking a look again.
I heard tell that God is always there, never leaves us...even when we leave him.
Maybe you know that God, but I don’t...
I know about the Jesus who died.
Just like other human beings whom I have loved, who have loved me...somewhere along the way in my spiritual journey the God I knew as Jesus the Christ died, and I moved on.
Where a warm presence used to be, there is nothing now....
Most of the time, I don’t go there to that space. I’ve got plenty of rocks and stones piled up to keep me from dealing with that emptiness...
But it is Easter again and I’m digging through the dirt...
Over and over for years I have come to this spot, this DAY and tried to convince myself that because “they”, those Christians who say they believe in the risen Christ, because so many of them have failed and failed terribly to hear or to live his message, why should I celebrate Easter...
Why should I celebrate? Maybe there is answer in these words from Victoria Weinstein:
"The stone has got to be rolled back from the tomb again and again every year.
Roll up your sleeves.
He is not coming back, you know.
He is not coming back unless it is we who rise for him
We who lay healing hands on the reviled and rejected like he did
on his behalf --
We who rage for righteousness in his insistent voice
We who love the sinner, even knowing that "the sinner" is no farther off than our own heartbeat
He will not be back to join us at the table
To share God's extravagant banquet
God's love feast, all are invited, come as you are
And so it is you and I who must feast for him
Must say the grace and break the bread and pass it to the left
and dish up the broiled fish (or pour the wine) and pass it to the right.
And treat each one so tenderly
as though just this morning she or he made the personal effort
to make it back from heaven, or from hell
but certainly from death
to be by our side.
Because if by some miracle (and why not a miracle?)
He did come back
Wouldn't he want to see us like this?
Wouldn't it be a miracle to live for just one day
So that if he did, by some amazing feat
come riding into town
He could take a look around and say
"This is what I meant!"
And we could say
it took us a long time...
but we finally figured it out.
Oh, let us live to make it so.
You are the resurrection and the life."
I have been, maybe you have been to, waiting for “them” to get it right.
I am tired of waiting! It is up to you and to me to RISE up, to see that the dead are gone and we remain. It is up to us now to go tell, to fill the world with tender, provocative, breathing love...
We are alive and not yet dead. We are living, loving, breathing, tender and provocative. We are the good news.
We are the resurrection and the life.
It doesn’t matter what they do. It matters what we do, what I do, what you do.
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