Easter Sermon

My wife posted something recently that I thought was a cute way to begin my Easter message.  It was a picture of “buddy Jesus”—you know the one, Jesus with a hokie smile on his face, giving the world a thumbs up expression—and Jesus was saying, “Don’t eat my candy! I’ll be back in three days.”

That’s the promise—“I’ll be back in three days.” It had nothing to do with candy, but it did have a lot to make us joyful.

Before Jesus’ death on a cross he promised his disciples he would be back in three days. But, his disciples didn’t believe him. They thought it was an empty promise. John’s gospel points out that the disciples were struggling to believe that he was alive, even after witnessing the empty tomb.

And so it is with us, still today, that Jesus’ resurrection, even as we sit here this Easter morning, is hard to believe.

I recently came across this story, it was told by “Dear Abby” in a response to someone’s question. 

A young man (Bill) from a wealthy family was about to graduate from high school. It was the custom in that affluent neighborhood for the parents to give the graduate a car. Bill and his father had spent months looking at cars, and the week before graduation, they found the perfect car. On the eve of his graduation, his father handed him a gift-wrapped box. Expecting to find the keys to his new car inside, Bill excitedly opened the box. But, to the young man’s dismay, inside the gift box was not keys, but a Bible. So angered that his father got him a Bible instead of a car, Bill threw the Bible down and stormed out of the house. For weeks he allowed his selfishness to drive a wedge between him and his father…refusing to speak to him, refusing to talk about it. He went off to college, time passed, and the father and son relationship began to heal, but they never spoke of the Bible or the car…until, during Bill’s first year of college, the news of the father’s death brought him home. As he sat, grieving the loss of his father, going through his father’s possessions, he came across the Bible his father had given him. Unlike the last time, this time he opened it, and inside the cover he found a cashier’s check, dated the day of his graduation - in the exact amount of the car they had chosen together.

As I thought about this story, I couldn't help but wonder how often we do the same thing to our Heavenly Father’s gift of resurrection. How often we literally toss aside this wonderful gift, assuming it to be an empty promise.   In our world, we are taught that; “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” So many of us have been taken in by “empty promises,” that we are leery of anything or anyone that tells us we can have something for nothing.  The world simply does not work that way!

But – while we live and die in this world, we are baptized and chosen by God for a greater world.  One that exists simultaneously with the other one, but one that does not operate the same as the other.

In God's world, God most certainly does work that way!

With God’s gift of resurrection, we get something for nothing. And it strikes us as empty because, just like the disciples at that tomb, it seems too good to be true. So, we don’t trust it, and in its place we trust ourselves, our own abilities. We discard, and reject the Kingdom of Heaven.  But, soon we learn that our abilities only get us so far…in the end they are as weak and unreliable as anything else in this world. Our attempt to save ourselves, is just one more empty promise we try to convince ourselves.

The truth of the matter is the world is full of empty promises. Everywhere we look there are promises being made to us…telling us that we can fulfill all of our dreams if we just do this or that, or buy this or that. It doesn’t take long before we have been fooled enough to know that the world’s promises are full of emptiness.

But, God is different.
God promises life and hope, and God’s promises can be trusted…Easter is the proof!

Instead of promises full of emptiness, on Easter, God gave us an emptiness that is full of promise.
The emptiness of the tomb is God’s promise that:
grace and mercy will always overcome guilt and shame.
that faith, hope and love will never be stopped by anger, hatred, and violence.
that life will always defeat death.

Because Christ lives, so shall we, both eternally as well as right now; through the difficulties we face today.
Because Christ lives, God is with us, and will remain with us forever.
Because Christ lives, we will one day be reunited with all of those who have died in the faith ahead of us.

Now----we can believe this—and allow this promise to hold us upright, and give us hope for something new, something we can’t understand today—something good and meaningful that God will bring with us. And, we can allow that tiny amount of faith in God to open us to ways in which we might begin trust God’s direction right now, to begin this new life—this new creation—with us…NOW!

Or, we can allow our modern intellect to deny it, reject it—like the young man who rejected his father’s gift.

We can trust God’s promise in the emptiness of this tomb, or we can discard it and be left only to our own abilities.

The choice is ours.
But, really, is there any choice?

I saw this video on Youtube recently that exemplifies what God is capable of doing with the things we discard.

The video shows a plastic grocery bag being thrown out the window of a car along a busy residential street. The camera, fixed on this piece of trash, shows it catching the wind from the cars passing by. The bag never hits the ground, never gets hit by a car. Instead, the wind fills this empty bag and gives it life. It bobs, weaves, up and down, back and forth. Creatively, the video was then given background music. And, suddenly this discarded piece of someone else’s trash appeared to be dancing.

Jesus was discarded, thrown away in a tomb.
Most of us know what that feels like.
All of us know what it is like to have our lives emptied, discarded, lifeless.

But, by the wind of the Holy Spirit, life was blown back into Jesus.
He was filled with new life, and he lives even now, through us and through the church.

And, because he lives, we too, no matter how lifeless we feel…no matter how discarded and rejected are God's promises, God will fill us with new life once again.

The emptiness of the tomb—is the promise that fills us with new life.
Hold onto that promise, and no matter what happens, God will fill you with life,
and a reason to dance.


Amen