Easter Day
Year C
Luke 24:1-12
4/4/10
Lorraine Ljunggren

This Holy Week of 2010 has tested our endurance and touched our hearts at a profoundly deep level. For those who are visiting or are newly arrived at St. Mark's, it is important for you to know that tragedy in the form of a car crash took the life of an ever-present long-time member and also injured his wife. Our congregation has experienced the grief of Good Friday which may cause our Easter Alleluia's to be accompanied by tears. But I also want to know you are in the right place for Easter in the true meaning of the day.

There is something intensely personal about being part of a community of faith. While there are many communities of which we are a part in our lives, the unique aspect of this one is that we come together for the express purpose of finding and being found by God. We come hoping that what we've heard about God being Love with a capital-L is true. We come hoping for more than we might have ever believed before. We come seeking to connect with other human beings who are willing to acknowledge and claim the fragile nature of life. We come hoping that here we'll find our spirits nurtured amid the chances and changes which come to every life. In this place it is safe to claim our vulnerability, to say aloud we desire a relationship with the Divine – to dare to say aloud we need God.         

This Holy Week of 2010 caused us to re-live the drama of the last days of Jesus' earthly life in a way we did not desire but that drew us ever closer as we prayed and waited.

This is the right place for Easter because what the stories of the Gospels say is true. There is life in an eternal sense of the word. There is Love with a capital-L – the Love of God we meet in Jesus the Christ -- Love which sustains us in grief and surrounds us in joy. But there is even more.

Easter comes again so that the world around us might be transformed by this Love. Building on comments Bishop Curry made earlier this week which Jim quoted Friday night, “Easter is the 'deep, profound hope of God colliding with an intractable reality of this world and how that collision brings about a new reality' – brings about the Dream of God for this world. Easter is an 'aperture of hope opening in the harsh nightmare reality of this world;' an opening into another reality that gives us a glimpse of the unfolding promise of God for creation.” (Jim Melnyk, 2010)

“It may be an accident of this year's calendar that Easter Day falls on the anniversary of Martin King's assassination – but perhaps it can be a reminder of God's dream for this creation – of God's dream for humanity – of the hope and promise that while the powers that be can… kill the body, they cannot kill the Dream of God that marches on – marches on – marches on!” (ibid.)         

“Resurrection reminds us that always and ultimately God and God's love for us in Christ Jesus will bring life out of death. Resurrection isn't about the taming of death – look at the stories and feel the grieving reality of Good Friday. And, even though the resounding news of new life, of Resurrection power, brings great joy to the women who seek out Jesus' body that first Easter morning, and then to the men who hear their incredible stories, the Resurrection came with wild uncertainty and with no small amount of fear and doubt as well. How hard must it have been for the women and men who followed Jesus, who fled from the garden or who watched from the foot of the cross, how hard must it have been to experience and understand something as counterintuitive, as counter-sensible, as unreasonable, as resurrection?” (ibid.)

But, “consider the outward and visible signs of Resurrection life: Bread and wine shared at a common table as we gather together in a circle, children and adults gathered around …baptismal font[s all around the world], the tired feet of family, friends and strangers so recently washed – sacraments of God's unfailing grace – sacraments of community and inclusion – sacraments that nurture us and sustain us in the midst of the ambiguities of life. These are not marks of power or control – they are not marks of status or wealth. They are not the marks of fear or exclusion – they are not marks of apathy or death. The marks of Resurrection life are servanthood, self-giving love, compassion, mercy, grace, freedom, promise, and hope – they are marks of our lives shared together in community, not held tightly for fear of loss.” (ibid)

“We proclaim a risen Christ who tells us blessed are the poor, and the poor in spirit – for theirs is the kingdom of God; blessed are those who hunger and thirst – in their bellies and in their hearts – for they shall be filled; blessed are the peacemakers – for they shall be sons and daughters of God. We proclaim a risen Jesus who tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who seek to do us harm – who tells us the way of life is through his cross. Easter: that “deep, profound hope of God colliding with an intractable reality of this world that brings about a new reality” – that brings about the Dream of God for this world.” (ibid)

“It's not easy – It's not tame – It's not predictable – but it is the way of life! Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!” (ibid.)

(My thanks to Jim Melnyk for his contributions to our Easter Day at St. Mark's)

©2010 Lorraine Ljunggren