FESTIVAL of the RESURRECTION

April 24, 2011

Text: Matthew 28:1-10

Pastor Dale G. Bauer

It’s Easter. Depending on the calendar, the first Easter was 2,011 years ago. In any event, the Church has celebrated this day for at least 2,000 years. For people like you and me who worship the immediate, that’s a long time ago; for many it is ancient history, considering we all hope to get just eighty or so years. All together now.

Ho-Hum

Things haven’t changed much over those 2,000. Women went to a tomb of a young man, who died before his years. Happens a lot. He was the innocent victim of the mighty and the jealous. He suffered. He died as countless have. The women were tearful and sad as men and women have been for way more than 2,000 years. All together, now.

Ho-Hum

War has been a constant over those years. In less than one hundred years alone, we’ve lived through two massive, global world wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. There have been many more wars, the names of which most of us here cannot even name. Sadly, all together, now.

Ho-Hum

Relationships which make up the very core of human life are still broken. Spouses can’t talk to each other. Parents and children don’t talk to each other. People in the workplace sabotage each other. We communicate intensively and instantaneously but don’t hear or listen much to each other. All together now.

Ho-Hum

People are victimized in ways that they were 2,000 years ago. The poor are still with us. The rich are getting richer. Jobs are hard to find. The mentally ill and the emotionally troubled are victims of the bottom line. All together now.

Ho-Hum

Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire’s Candide proclaim that is the best of all possible worlds—in the face of the death of thousands of human beings in the earthquake of 1755 that destroyed Lisbon, Portugal. Many still wonder what the meaning of life is, really. Death still separates us from those we love. All together now.

Ho-Hum

Except. Except that this day we proclaim that Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead. If we believe so much and so hard that Jesus was raised from the dead, this can never be a Ho-Hum day. All together now, with gusto.

Ho-Hum Not

This day death is put to death. Suffering in Christ Jesus has a purpose. By faith, living in the hearts and minds of each of us, transforms us into New Beings. Loved. Redeemed. Headed towards glory. Walking by light out of the darkness. All together, now, slamming hard the word, “not.”

Ho-Hum Not

What we proclaim today is so revolutionary that we claim those words from a contemporary Christian song:

This is the first
day of the rest of your life.

It can be. This is most certainly true.

Amen.