Easter Sermon 2012

Easter Year B
I Corinthians 15:1-11
Preached at St. John’s Lancaster, 8 April 2012

With our brother Saint Paul, “I remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you… that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.” Today we come together to celebrate the accomplishment of God’s great plan for each of us, and for his church and indeed the entire world. Imagine if you can the implications of this feat. The Kingdom of God has come among us in power, and we have seen the first fruits of that resurrection which is the birthright of the elect. In less theological language, that means that God is among us. He lives with you and with me, and is in the process of sending his grace into all the world through you and through me. Just as Jesus came into this world from his Father to share God’s love and to model the life of true holiness, he now calls us, his people, to do the same.

What does it mean to share God’s love? Certainly those things are included which we sometimes call the social gospel. We must give of ourselves to assist those who suffer in this world. We must welcome the stranger in our midst. We must feed the hungry and clothe the naked. We must show kindness to everyone we meet. We must insist that all people ought to have the freedom to follow their consciences and to reach their full potential economically, politically, personally, and spiritually. We must comfort those who mourn and visit those imprisoned and alone. We must bring hope to those who have given up. There are so many ways that we are called to share God’s love with the people around us, and most of us are willing to agree with most of these categories most of the time. But the more we think about loving our neighbor, the more the implications of such a life commitment can trouble us. The more personal the work becomes, the more difficult it is to maintain the sort of attitudes and actions to which God calls us. You see, God calls us to love people even if they might not seem to deserve it. He calls me to love and pray for the soldier who shot my son, and for the politicians who created the situation which put him in harm’s way, and for my fellow citizens who insist that we must fight in so many places for so many things. And those prayers must not be for their punishment or their defeat or that their minds might be changed to be like mine. They must be prayers in which I offer myself to the work of genuine reconciliation with those who differ from me and probably always will. They must be prayers which genuinely seek for those people to have God’s blessings in their lives, and that they might enjoy the same blessings I enjoy. God calls me to feed the person who I know is taking advantage of me if he has no food. He calls me to seek housing and clothing and a job for the person who is lazy or parasitic and always the player. He calls me to make myself vulnerable to be used even as I used Jesus, even as all of us used Jesus. And so you see, sharing God’s love is a hard thing to do, because it means that we must work through our own emotions and prejudices and beliefs and find a way to genuinely care for those who have different emotions and prejudices and beliefs. It means sharing love with them even if they never come to share my presuppositions and values. It means coming to those I like, and to those I dislike even as Jesus came to me. It is a hard thing to do, and yet it is the call of Easter. It is the duty of us who are named as the soldiers of Jesus Christ. Our war is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of wickedness in high places. It is a spiritual war which employs the weapons of prayer and faith and love and salvation and sacrifice. It purposefully eschews those weapons which are the common currency of mankind: control, force, violence, coercion, and hate. Jesus calls us to love those who persecute us and utter all kinds of calumny against us, for so did the prophets which were before us.

And what of true holiness? Holiness is that quality of being set apart for God’s purpose. And God’s purposes are modeled for us in the life of Jesus. By his grace, we are expected to circumscribe our desires and keep our passions within due bounds. The Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes give us some pretty good lists of what this holiness should look like in our lives, but holiness is not just a list of rules to observe. It is an attitude of appreciation and desire which is our rightful response to the wonderful gift of salvation which God gave us through Jesus- even when we didn’t deserve it. We were all among the number of those people who always seem to be on the lookout for someone to take advantage of, those people we are called to love. Sometimes we are still among that number. But Jesus shows us a better way. He came and died on a tree so that we could be made right with God, so that his justice might be honored even as his mercy and love blazed forth to transform this fallen world. And our appreciation ought to be so incredibly great this day that we want with all our hearts to be given over to being like Jesus. We should like him want to feed the poor and heal the sick and give sight to the blind. We should have compassion for those in prison and visit the fatherless and the widow. We should dedicate our lives to see justice roll down like a mighty river for all people, even those who don’t really seem to deserve it. Because Jesus did all of those things for us when we didn’t deserve them. Holiness is at the end of the day a state of mind and heart which inspires us to walk in the way of Jesus Christ, even if it means that we will be abused, and misunderstood, and taken advantage of, laughed at, scorned, and yes, even killed. Holiness is to walk with Jesus the way of the Cross, in the full faith and knowledge that it is the way to eternal life.

Because of Easter, the Kingdom of God has come among us. Because of Easter, we are called, each and every one of us, to live as if heaven is here among us on earth, now and every day. We are the Saints of God. Through us and our actions and our attitudes men and women ought to see the Risen Christ. They should through us know his mercy and experience his love. They should have the same confidence when they approach us for help or comfort or deliverance that the blind and deaf and leprous had when they approached Jesus some two thousand years ago in Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. For that to happen, our lives and our attitudes must be like those of Jesus. We cannot allow ourselves to view people made in God’s image as faceless members of some group to which we have already ascribed inalterable characteristics or patterns of behaviour. We must never turn our backs on any human being in need, even if it is obvious that their level of understanding or experience leads them to approach us only for what they can get from us. We must never seek to control or bully another human being by with-holding our love and concern, or God’s love and concern from them, especially if we disagree with them on fundamental issues of faith, politics, morality, or culture. We must be known as the people of God, and by our lives we must model the love and holiness of Jesus Christ for every man, woman, boy, and girl we meet. It is through such lives, such faithful witness to the risen Jesus, that people will be drawn to join us and proclaim him as Saviour and Lord, as Brother and as Friend.

Today, we acclaim the Lordship of the risen Christ. We confess our sins, bring our needs to God, and gather around this Holy Table to participate in the foretaste of the Heavenly Banquet prepared for all of God’s people. Might we solemnly consider the implications of this sacred day as we continue in the presence of God. Might we all look within our hearts and open our minds to ask what God would have us to change in our lives, what he would have us to do as we leave this blessed place today. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. AMEN.