The following is a sermon for Easter Sunday, based on the following readings: Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; Colossians 3:1-4; and John 20:1-18. A recording of it is on our Online Worship page. Download the service sheet for an entire Morning Prayer service, including inks to hymns by Keith and Kristyn Getty.
“Alleluia! Christ is risen!”“The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!”
I often start off an Easter sermon this way, because it is such a grand thing to have Lent over and to celebrate Christ’s resurrection from the dead. So why be different this year?
Of course many things are different this year, as we self-isolate from the Covid-19 pandemic. Someone I was talking to the other day said it is sad that we cannot gather in our churches today to worship together and to celebrate Easter Day. And she suggested that when all this is over and we can finally gather again, that our church put on a grand Easter celebration.
I think it is a great idea. I can imagine proclaiming Christ risen and singing favorite Easter hymns and reveling in being able to worship together. I look forward to it.
And I wonder what life will be like then. We wait for life to “return to normal,” but I suspect that life will never be normal again, in the sense that we think of it. Instead, we will be living a new “normal.”
But that is a lesson of Easter. Look at Jesus’ disciples. On Good Friday, they are shattered. They have dispersed — fled from the awful scene of the Crucifixion. You might say they are self-isolating in their own way, away from everyone else, even from each other, out of grief and fear. Everything they have come to know — being with Jesus, following him and learning from him, eating and drinking with him — is all gone.
Of course this life they had been spending with Jesus was for them a “new normal.” Several years earlier they had left the life they were used to in order to follow him. Knowing Jesus and Jesus calling them to follow him had already been a life-changing event. Their worlds had already, in a sense, been turned upside down.
But now, with Jesus arrested, crucified, and buried, their life is completely shattered. They could not return to the life they had known before, of fishing or tax collecting or whatever else they had done, because knowing Jesus had already changed their lives so much. But now what? What will life be like with Jesus gone? They do not know.
But they never could have expected what actually happened, even though Jesus had given them lots of clues that he would be killed and after three days rise again. On Sunday morning, two of the disciples and Mary Magdalene go to the tomb. The stone covering the tomb is rolled away, the burial cloths are all rolled up, and Jesus is not there. What they do not immediately realize is that Jesus has risen from the dead.
But the interesting thing is, he is different somehow. When Jesus speaks to Mary, she does not immediately recognize him. It is only when he calls her by name, when Jesus says to her, “Mary!” that she realizes it is Jesus. it is as though she is jolted into recognizing him, as though waking up.
He is different somehow, but still Jesus. And over the next 40 days, the resurrected Jesus will appear to the disciples, he will eat and drink with them, as before. He will walk with them, as before. He will teach them, as before. But something will be different.
Resurrection brings new life, but different. After Resurrection, life does not return to “normal.” The disciples will no longer tromp the Holy Land listening to Jesus teach others and heal people. Now he is teaching them alone, those who, as Peter says in the Book of Acts, “were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.”
When we experience a life-changing event, life does not return to “normal.” We can never go back to the way something was, because we have been shown something new. We may not immediately know what it is, but we are assured that it is better. The disciples did not know what was coming. They knew that Jesus was risen from the dead. They knew that death and evil had been defeated. They knew they could see him and hear him and eat with him. But they did not know what was coming, and near the end of our fifty-day season of Easter, we will hear of the disciples sitting in an upper room, self-isolating you might say from those who would wish them harm, waiting to find out what will happen next in this new life that God is bringing to them. And no matter what, all is good, all is well.
We have experienced an earth-shattering event in this Covid-19 pandemic. Life is changed. We may want for life to return to “normal,” but it is far more likely that life will never again be normal in the way that we knew it before. We just don’t know what it will look like.
But Christ is still resurrected from the dead, and we still celebrate Easter, because through Christ and his resurrection, we have the means to be raised to new life ourselves. Easter suggests what will be required of us no matter what the new normal of this earthly life will be. For what is required of us is of the spirit; we are called to new ways of being. As Paul wrote to the Colossians, “So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is …. Set your minds on things that are above.”
So to do well in the new normal, whatever it is, what do we need? I suggest three things: Forgiveness, joy, and gratitude.
Forgiveness is the hallmark of the Christian faith. From the cross, Jesus prayed that the people might be forgiven. God offers us forgiveness always, constantly, forever. Don’t seek to blame others for what goes wrong, including this virus. Forgive, and move on.
Second: Joy. Happiness. Life is not easy now. With the medical uncertainty this virus brings, with the economic woes we face, life will continue to be difficult. But to face it, we need joy and happiness, and to show these to others. Don’t wait until life is “good,” whatever that means. Instead, find joy and happiness now, and the only way to do that is to seek the things that are above. So pray, worship, and remember that this is a prime opportunity to know God and the possibility of new life and resurrection. I assure you, it truly is possible.
Finally, gratitude. Be thankful. Be thankful for the small things. Being in lockdown has awakened some to the wonder of the small things of life: the birds chirping, the flowers blooming, talking on the phone with a friend, the taste of food. Gratitude and happiness go together. So let us be grateful.
Forgiveness, joy and happiness, and gratitude. They really are possible right now. They are the ingredients of new life, of being resurrected from an old normal to whatever the new normal will be.
Keep in mind and heart these words from our Psalm today. Even say them as you awake each morning:
“This is the day that the Lord has made;
we will rejoice and be glad in it.”
May God bless you and watch over you,
God make his face to shine upon you
and be gracious to you,
God look kindly on you
and give you peace.