4/19/20

Sermon Notes:

Eastertide!

Easter is the pinnacle of the liturgical year. 

On Easter Sunday we celebrate the resurrection of Christ from the grave. 

But it took Lent and Holy Week to get here.

We have walked the 40 days of Lent, going deeper and deeper into our own inner need for God, looking at the great emptiness inside us that only God can satisfy, that same emptiness that is constantly threatening to lure us into appetites that “seem” like they will make us happy but all too often lead to dangerous attitudes and coping mechanisms and even addictions.

We have, during Lent, been invited to ponder our human limits, to ponder the difference between what we can control and what we cannot control, to ponder the reality of our lifespan, that “from dust we come and to dust we shall return.” Lent, if we really sink into it, can be a heavy time. And that is OK. 

The point of Lent is to open to the miracle and the mystery that for Christ followers, the darkness of the tomb can only really be the darkness of the womb. Because light is ever at work in our lives, and even the darkest hour will be used by the God who loves us to bring us into new life.

This darkness intensifies during Holy Week with Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. And Easter Sunday brings the brightness of Christ thundering back into our lives, like the angel whose countenance was bright and shocking as lightening.

Easter is the event, Jesus’ resurrection from the grave, that forms the foundation of our faith and invites us to deepen our belief in the mysterious paradox that LIFE FOLLOWS DEATH.

After Lent has drawn us to the grave and taken us down to look into the darkness, Easter assures us God is always making things new, and not even death can stop that process. In theological language, this is called the paschal mystery.

And then we have 50 days of Eastertide! 

During this time, we observe Jesus’ ascension into heaven and the imparting of the Holy Spirit. The Day of Pentecost is the last day of the Easter Season.

Friends, here we go into Eastertide. It will be like no other Easter season we’ve known.

But I believe. I believe that despite the strangeness and suffering in this time, that God is doing something good with and in all of this.

The only legitimate way to embrace this miracle is to also let all the emotions and realities move through you.

Lent teaches us: sometimes we have to let the tears out to make way for the joy. 

Holy Week teaches us: serving each other is never wasted, giving is always blessed, and even while we scatter and hide, God is making plans for us to be gathered up as the body of Christ on earth.  

Eastertide teaches us: there is life on the other side of grief so we must resist the temptation to get stuck in the romance of the gloom. We must be willing to admit we were wrong or never really understood. We must accept ourselves when we doubt it was Jesus there on the road, even though our hearts were burning and fluttering and telling us so. We must allow ourselves to admit that he has walked through the locked doors of our hearts and sat in the gloom waiting for us to realize who we are and who he is and how that changes everything! 

Friends, we are in a time that can really be used in our spiritual practices as Christians. Let us pray to see God’s grace at work and let us pray to play our part as God calls on our gifts and graces for the good of his people.

With much love to you, in Christ Jesus the Risen Lord!

Jane