Easter Sunday

Acts 10:34a, 37-43 | Colossians 3:1-4 | John 20:1-9

Oh God, who wonderfully created the dignity of human nature and still more wonderfully restored it, grant, we pray, that we who share in this divinity may share it with those that we are called to serve, and we ask this through Christ our Lord, amen.  

Every time I proclaim the liturgy of the word for you and pick a song that I think amplifies what I want to say, I get to this moment where I feel a kind of intimacy with you, and what I want, and where I think that intimacy comes from, is an inner desire we all share, we all have, of wanting to place something in another person, to awaken something there that would bear fruit.  The word for that is compassion, love, understanding, and it’s at the heart of this thing we call our Christian faith, the ability to be a source of life to one another.  And so what I want to talk about is the elephant in the room, in a sense.  

I know that we’re all dealing with the same thing, a pandemic.  It’s a kind of darkness that’s descended on everything.  The world as we know has just simply stopped.  There’s no action out there.  I’ve been home alone many times but never with the same recognition that there’s nothing going on out there that is drawing my attention.  I’m left with just me, and what I’ve noticed awakening in me, as well as I realize I’m not able to be with the people I love, there’s been something awakened in me that is a kind of weird compassion and connection with the people I haven’t seen for years.  I start looking at old photos.  I start sending photos to friends.  “Remember the time in 19-blah-blah?  We were doing this.”  And it’s like I find myself, in this weird time of no physical connection, connecting in a way that is often not the way I think I primarily connect, connecting through some kind of — I don't know — intention, something that feels like being present with someone, but it’s even deeper.  It’s like it’s not limited by the mood we’re in or how we look.  It’s like something that’s part of our nature, part of our humanity.  We are naturally connected, and so there’s a part of me that’s just pondering over and over again, “What is this pandemic about?  Why this pandemic now?”  It’s fascinating to me that, in our country, the area — the time, rather, that we’re getting to, that feels like the peak of the impact, negative impact of the disease, in terms of cases being recognized and people dying, is during Holy Week, the week that we as Christians call holy, which means that it’s the week that we know, if we ponder what it’s about and what it celebrates, we’re going to grow in wholeness.  So there must be a connection between this pandemic and the desire that God has in his heart that would allow something like that to happen.  That desire is being manifested.  Just look for it.  Listen for it.  Wait for it.  Then I realize that, when we look at what we do during this Holy Week, what we have to remember, there’s three major events.  There’s Holy Thursday.  There’s Good Friday.  There’s Easter.  I want to go to each one for a moment, and see if I can awaken in you an awareness of what it is that we are all being immersed in.  

Let’s start with the supper.  There’s three things about that evening.  The first is the fact that they had this archetypal experience of union, communion, a meal together.  That’s what we all do when we really feel we want to be with people.  Drinking is fun, but drinking and eating is even better, especially when somebody takes their time to prepare something for us, something special.  What Jesus was doing was preparing food for people that they never dreamt was ever even possible.  His disciples must have watched this unfold with a kind of strange disbelief.  He simply said, “Look, see this bread that I break and share with you?  It’s me.  It’s my body.  It’s my flesh, and when you eat it, it’s a celebration of a reality that is going to happen in a matter of days when I’m going to redeem the world.  And I’m going to enter, in a special way, into the hearts of people, and from there, I’m going to resonate the kind of love that I want everyone to feel from each other.”  And then he took wine, this intoxicating liquid, and said, “See this?  This is my blood.  This is what courses through my veins.  This is what feeds every cell of my body, and I want to pour it into you, because it’s going to do the same thing for you. And what it is basically is forgiveness.  Just to let you know that, when I come into you, my reason for being there is for giving you life, not for judging you, whether you’re worth of life, not for making decisions about whether I want to accept you, because you’ve maybe failed, and do I want to write you off.  You think this way,” he’s saying to his disciples, “But don’t think this way anymore.  You know how you look at the religious leaders of the time.  You know how you complain that they lord it over you.  They lay burdens on you.  I don’t want to lay any burden on you.  I want to free you from burden, from stress, from shame, from fear, from anger.”  And then he gave an example.  He took off his robe and put on an apron and went around and washed the feet of his disciples.  Why?  Because of what I just said about the way they saw the temple.  There was nothing coming from the temple that felt like service.  It felt like obligation, regulation, something robbing them of the fullness of life.  And he said, “No, what I want you to understand is that I’m welcoming you, and this is the sign of welcome to a great meal.  The host has someone washing the feet of those who will recline at table.  What I’m getting you ready for is the banquet, and what it is that you need to understand, that you need to long for, when you go to this banquet, is the gift that is there, my presence in you, my forgiveness flowing through you to the people around you.  That’s my gift, and give it away freely.  That’s your destiny.  You’ll find a unique gift that you have that will interpret it in a certain way, whether you’re an artist, whether you’re — whatever you excel at, you’re going to be able to do that in a field or in an area that’s uniquely yours.”  And that’s the celebration that night. 

Then after the dinner, there was the garden, so important in this whole story of this Holy Week, and that is where he sat there, knelt there, sweat there, prayed, and as a human being, he makes absolute sense.  His humanity is, in a way, overwhelming him, and he’s saying to his God, “God, I know I will do whatever you ask.”  He said that three times, but before he said it, he said, “But if there’s any way you could change this plan for me, this darkness that’s going to descend on me — I wanted to accomplish this for you and for my disciples, and I’m not through.  I’m not finished.  I’ve given all I can, and they don’t really believe enough in you or in me.  Don’t end it here,” he said.  “But if it has to be this way, I’ll do it.”  And then he did what the crucifixion’s all about.  He surrendered.  Surrender, what a word.  Surrender isn’t a passive act of just sitting there and letting whatever happens to you happen.  No, it’s much more connected to no resistance to what must be, no resistance to the reality that God is inviting you into out of compassion and love for you and for everyone that will be transformed by what you go through.  That’s what surrender is, and that’s what the crucifix statement is to everybody, the conflict of humanity and divinity, in a sense, which is ruling, which is in charge.  And they’re both there, right together.  The desire to be freed of everything painful and the longing to be transformed are absolutely inseparable with each other, and until we accept and allow and believe that the darkness has its absolute essential place, we can’t deal with things that we’re having to deal with right now.  How do you deal with a God that allows pain and suffering and separation and death to accomplish something that is for our good?  “God, isn’t there any other way you can help us to grow in consciousness?  Isn’t there any other way you can help us to become who we need to be without this kind of painful situation?”  You know the answer.  It’s no.  We don’t go through radical change when everything is the way it’s supposed to be.  It’s only when we’re up against something that we absolutely are terrified of, in a way, and feel like it will destroy us, and yet when we surrender that believing that is an illusion, the destructive thing, and that it’s going to bring life, something radically shifts.  

Then we get to resurrection, a new life.  The thing I find fascinating about the resurrection is that we always focus on the fact now Jesus is alive.  He didn’t die.  He’s alive.  He’s able to talk to his disciples.  He announced to the women, who trusted in him and believed in him more than any male, other than perhaps John, and he said, “Don’t be afraid.  Don’t be afraid.”  Remember the words he said to his disciples when he entered the locked room.  “Peace be with you.”  He’s saying that to all of us.  Don’t be afraid of this darkness.  Don’t let it take your peace away from you, but the other thing I want to talk about is what happened after Jesus rose from the dead?  We saw an immediate change in his disciples.  We have that wonderful story of Pentecost when these frightened, separated people were all in the same room, intoxicated by their sense of oneness and unity.  They all spoke different languages.  It’s a symbol of the entire globe together, and they are understanding each other.  I have an app on my phone that’s a weather app, and it shows the planet.  I was looking at it the other day, and it’s interesting to see where the storms are, wherever it is.  But I just was staring at it for a while, and I realized I felt something I’ve never felt before looking at it, and that was some kind of awareness.  I was connected to everybody on it.  I watched it roll into — the different parts of it rolled into my attention.  There was China.  There was Italy.  There was France.  There was the United States.  There was — it was like, “I know I’m connected.”  I felt oneness with all that.  I’ve never felt that before.  So what is that?  I think it’s the gift of — one of the gifts of this pandemic is a sense and connection with friends we haven’t seen, with a world we’ve never met.  And that’s what we celebrate at Pentecost, all these people from different lands everywhere understanding each other, being connected with each other.  It’s a beautiful image of what the goal of religion is all about, what the goal and gift of redemption is all about.  We are empowered to be a different kind of people, and that’s what I think is fascinating about Easter.  It celebrates redemption, not just the resurrection of Jesus but the redemption of the world, and what is that?  An amazing shift in consciousness brought about by a gift.  The gift is God’s indwelling presence, his love filling us with a healthy response to all the needs of our flesh, meaning the blood brings oxygen.  The kind of forgiveness, compassion he’s teaching us brings life to every facet of life.  What a gift.  And if we don’t focus on that, we’re missing something, because it’s one thing to say how wonderful it is that Christ rose, but more wonderful than that is that we have risen.  The human race has risen, and every time we need to grow in a very dramatic way, he knows that moment, and he creates a passion for us to go through.  That’s what we’re in, a passion, transformation demanding our resources of our humanity surrendering to the most extraordinary gift of his divinity, his love, his capacity to heal flowing through us.

Father, your Son was the most powerful witness of who you are, what you long to bring to us, what your intention is, and this Holy Week brings all of that to our attention.  I ask you to bless all of us with a greater understanding of the fullness of what has been revealed, what we’re called to remember over and over again and to live the new life that has been promised, a life of miracles and transformation and new life.  And we ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.