To Be Easter People

Alleluia, Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

It’s a crazy thing we proclaim this morning – Jesus risen from the dead. Today is the day when God declares to you and me that we are loved so much that God won’t let anything destroy us – not even death. There are a lot of folks who don’t believe it. I imagine there are a fair number of folks here this morning that don’t quite believe it. Maybe you are someone who hopes it’s true, or you have come this morning because you want it to be true, or you’ve come to pray that it is true.

Resurrection is a hard thing for us to wrap our heads around. It goes against what we expect. The world says – when you are dead, you’re dead. It’s sad but that’s the way it goes. The world says, let’s be realistic. Jesus was a good man who said and did wonderful things, but he upset some very powerful people, and they caught up with him and they killed him. Not all stories have happy endings; that’s just the way life is.

If you think about it, that’s exactly what the disciples thought. When Jesus was arrested and crucified they all ran and hid. They were terrified and sure that this was the end of the story. In fact, before Easter all the disciples had one thing in common – they were frightened. The gospels are full of examples of their fear. They were frightened of storms, hunger, the Romans, the Pharisees and even each other. Fear dominated their lives. Before Easter, the disciples were a bunch of clumsy, unenthusiastic followers. Their lives were distinguished more by their fear than their faith. Before Easter, Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fishes because the disciples were afraid that there wouldn’t be enough to eat. Before Easter, Jesus calmed the storm and the waves because the disciples were afraid that their boat might be swamped. Before Easter, Peter denied his Lord three times, because he was afraid of the consequences of being associated with Jesus.

But after Easter, after Easter, that’s a completely different story. After Easter they were transformed by their encounter with the risen Christ. After Easter they discovered a new life. After Easter, this same group of followers became so empowered and inspired that they spread the good news about Jesus from Africa to Rome and beyond. After Easter, they wrote, traveled, preached, taught and took on huge hardships. These same frightened, timid disciples who ran and hid for fear of the Romans became people willing to suffer beatings, crucifixion, stoning, imprisonment, and many other horrors just to tell the story of Jesus the Christ. And the only thing that separates their before and after are the events of this morning. The empty tomb, the risen Christ, that’s what changed them, that’s what transformed their lives of fear and into lives of faith. Is it hard to believe in the resurrection? Not for me, not when you see the before and the after.

What is the first thing Jesus says to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary when he encounters them at the tomb? “Do not be afraid,” he tells them. Do not be afraid. This wasn’t a command; it was more like what I used say to my children when they woke up in the middle of the night after a bad dream. I knew I couldn’t take away their fear. Instead, I just comforted them and assured them that although they were afraid, they were not alone, I was with them and they would be okay. The risen Christ promises us the same. Do not be afraid, Jesus says from the other side of the grave, for I am with you and you are not alone.

The question for all of us today is whether we want to live before Easter or after Easter. We have to decide whether or not we are Easter people.

I heard a story recently about a man who woke up one morning and found his dog out on the back patio, covered in dirt, with a rabbit in her mouth. The rabbit wasn’t bloody, just dirty. The neighbor’s children raised rabbits, and the man immediately realized what had happened. Panicked, he grabbed the rabbit from the dog and brushed it off as best he could. It was a little stiff, but he thought, maybe it’s just playing dead. He couldn’t quite remember which animals do that, but carefully he snuck over to the neighbor’s yard, placed the rabbit back in its cage, and ran home as fast as he could. About an hour later, he heard his neighbors screaming. He went outside and asked what was wrong. Shocked they said, “You’re not going to believe this. Our rabbit died three days ago—we buried it—and now it’s back in the cage!”

As baptized Christians who have received the Easter promise, have we embraced this new life Christ offers or are we still holding on to dead things? Easter is not about appearances. It is not about pretending that everything is okay. It is not about making the old life look a little better. Easter is about new life, real life, God’s life breaking into a world that cannot save itself.

We live in a time dominated by fear. You only have to read the headlines to know this truth: nations locked in wars where civilians bear the cost and peace feels distant; political discourse so shaped by suspicion and anger that neighbors begin to see each other as enemies; communities anxious about economic uncertainty, and an unpredictable future. Fear is not hard to find. Mahatma Gandhi once wrote, “The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but it is fear.” Gandhi understood something the gospel has been telling us all along—that fear, left unchecked, shapes how we live and how we treat one another.

Let’s face it, the world is a scary place. And being an Easter person doesn’t mean doing away with fear. We can’t do away with fear any more than my children could do away with their bad dreams. But we can learn to believe and trust in the Christ who comes and says—Do not be afraid, I have risen, I am with you. We can live after Easter.

What does it mean for us to live after Easter? It means living in a fearful world in loving ways. It means being a square peg in a round hole. It means going against the grain. It means holding onto hope, and joy and forgiveness when everything around you says that you ought to run for the hills. It means being a courageous advocate for justice and peace when neither seems very possible. I saw a bumper sticker once on the back of a Volkswagen Microbus that said: “I feel like I am diagonally parked in a parallel universe.” I think that bumper sticker is a great description of what it feels like to live in this world and be people who live on the other side of Easter.

“Be not afraid,” “He is risen.” The promise of the empty tomb declares that Jesus goes ahead of us, blazing a path for us to follow, and “where Christ has gone, we need not fear. Christ went to the cross; we need not fear the cross. Christ went to the grave; we need not fear the grave. Christ has gone into the future; we need not fear the future.”¹ We don’t gather this morning pretending the world is not broken. We gather knowing that God has already begun to make it whole.

Christ is risen. And because he is risen, death does not have the last word.

Christ is risen. And because he is risen, love will not be defeated.

Christ is risen. And because he is risen, the future belongs to God.

So go into the world as Easter people – people who know how the story ends. Not people who are certain of everything, but people who trust the One who has overcome all things. He is risen. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen. Thanks be to God! Amen.

¹Sermons, Peter Gomes, p.78.