Easter crowds are huge. Churches schedule extra Sunday morning services plus a Sunrise Service at the local park. Pews are full to overflowing at 11:00. People who don’t attend church all year are there on Easter Sunday morning. Sometimes preachers can’t resist the temptation and try to disguise their consternation in the form of hackneyed humor, wishing the congregation a happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas because so many of them won’t be back until next year. Everybody laughs nervously. I never actually did it. I referred to the old joke but every year said something like, “If you only attend church once a year this is the Sunday to be here. The music is powerful, the flowers are gorgeous, and everybody is dressed up and feeling good.” There is more to it than that, of course. People come to church on Easter because they know the subject is the oldest, deepest, most profound question in the human heart. Is there any reason to hope in the face of the inevitability of death? Is there any serious reason, in light of all the violence, suffering and injustice in the world to love without fear and dread, to love, instead, with hope and resolve and confidence and joy?
Nothing of death, nothing.
And this is the morning of Christ’s resurrection.
The tomb is empty. There is
No death.
If you must have a little hard evidence you can do worse than ponder how human beings have been transformed: frightened disciples, cowering behind a bolted door, transformed, emerging from hiding as fearless and fierce followers who simply could not stop talking about and singing and proclaiming what had happened, even in the face of persecution, arrest and their own martyrdoms. What changed cowards into brave disciples was the conviction that their crucified friend was alive. Death did not defeat him and therefore there was no reason to fear anything ever again, not even death, not even their own deaths.
What transformed them was the same truth that raises up brave men and women to love and struggle and witness and oppose evil and injustice in the face of overwhelming odds: Bonhoeffer, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr. It is the same truth that raises up men and women to live with courage and commitment in the midst of illness, suffering, oppression and loss and, of course, the insult of our mortality; namely, the Easter truth that is so glorious it must be sung rather than explained, that love is stronger than hate, always, and life is stronger than death, that there are skirmishes to be fought but the battle has been won. Jesus Christ is risen.
Thanks, John.
This is very special piece for a very special time
Happy Easter to all.
Karen and Larry
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It is so good to read your wise words. We all miss you very much. Also, we look forward to our new head pastor.
John, thank you for such beautiful words. We just discovered your blog and we were so excited to see that you are doing this! PLEASE keep writing!!
Jeremy and Shannon Smith
It is after reading something like this that I realize again just how fortunate I was to have the benefit of your sermons Sunday after Sunday for so many years and how much I miss them now. So glad I discovered your blog. Hope all is well with you. Carole Ogden
From one who has often looked too directly at the bright sun, I thank you, John, for your wise and wonderful meditation. Happy Easter. Hallelujah!