The Birthday of a Whole New World

Isaiah 25:6-9
Mark 16:1-8

Friends, Easter is the birthday of a whole new
world – 
a whole new life – 
a whole new way of living – 
a whole new way of looking at the world –
a whole new religion!

    Every year now, for some twenty centuries,
Christian people have come together at this time of
year to celebrate the single most important event of their history!

     It was quite natural for the first Christians to
tie this Easter event with the traditional Passover
Celebration –  which had been celebrated each year for centuries to remind people of their unique history and of their unique relationship with their God.

    You understand, it wasn't until after the Resurrection that the disciple's eyes were opened and they saw for the very first time that what they had been experiencing with this man from Nazareth was indeed a whole new thing. 
It was after the Resurrection that they began to call him the Christ and saw him to be the fulfillment of the Passover –  the promise that had been made each year over and over again for centuries. 
So they began to meet together each week at dawn to celebrate Easter – 
the coming of the new time – 
the new week –
remembering the fulfillment of the Passover.

    In order to understand the full significance of what they were celebrating, I think we have to go back  to the Hebrew poetic expression of God's relationship with people. 

Again, we are all familiar with the creation stories in Genesis. 
The familiar story with its rhythmical structure of seven days occurs in chapter 1. 
And chapter 2 of Genesis begins another story of creation. 
Now, really, both of these accounts were actually written fairly late in Jewish history –
most probably at the time of King David,
when for the first time people had the leisure to sit down and write the stories that had been handed down by word of mouth for centuries.

   Verse 7 of the second chapter of Genesis appears to express one of the earliest, most primitive concepts of  the Jew's relationship to God. 
Here, God is pictured as a potter: 
Then the Lord God formed (molded) a man from the dust of the ground, and breathed (a loud breath) into his nostrils the breath of life. 
Thus man became alive!  (Gen2:v7)

    It seems that from the beginning,
they understood every person's breath is God-given –  life itself – 
for the human is critically related to Yahweh,the God that shared his breath – 
the symbol for life itself. 
You see, the thing that made the body alive was God. 
God was intimately related to your life experience. [Therefore, a life without God was an absurd proposition.]

    Actually, by the time these stories were written down (at King David's court) the understandings of God had changed somewhat. 
I’ve talked about this before. 
Through the years a concept of God developed that they could put in a box. 

At a risk of over-simplifying it:
you may recall that they were a nomadic people, they traveled a lot –
they traveled through lands occupied by people with other religions. 
They saw that these religions had their holy places:
they had holy mountains,
there were holy caves,
and there holy wells. 
Well, having no geographical references for themselves these wandering Jews knew that their God could not be confined to geography. 
Their God was a traveling God – 
but they came to feel that he needed a home –
God needed a place to be,
a place to rest. 
So they built him an ark, a throne, so he could be comfortable. 
And they carried this ark wherever they went. 
It became a symbol of assurance:  that God was with them as long as they had the box for him. 
(We have a lot of stories about people stealing the ark. So history began to be recorded in terms of who has the box –  who had God on their side.  God was wherever the ark was.)

    This, then, became a real issue with David as he set out to bring together two nations of people  –  each with their own traditions and history. 
David thought: The way to unite the country is to unite their religion. 
So, let's build a house to put the ark in. 
It will be a temple and will stand in the capital city as a symbol of God's presence in our new nation and people will always know where they can come to meet the Lord. 
We'll put his box there and everyone will come to know that's where he sits!

    And the temple was built, and became the house of God. 
His box was placed in one end of the building and a curtain was put in front of it – the reredos. 
It was called the “Holy of Holies”. 
[The curtain was loaded with symbolism –
it protected the people from perishing should they see the Lord face-to-face. 
It served the function of keeping God's presence shielded from the people.]

    Now, all of this had become quite institutionalized by the time of Jesus. 
The temple with its curtain, and the ark, was an important part of the religion. 
For the Jew, there was no question what one had to do in order to be religious, to fulfill the law. 
Leaders, Rabbis, spent their entire lives studying the law – 
and as new situations and questions came up, they wrote new rules to amplify the old law. 
The Rabbis were the authority and it was unquestioned  (except maybe for a few splinter groups from time to time.).

    Of particular significance is that Jesus came preaching and teaching on his own authority – 
far outside the established authority of his tradition. 
They would say to him:
you totally disregard our tradition. 
How can you go around preaching such contemporariness?

    And he would say: 
It seems to me that I don't come to put an end to your traditional ways, so much as I come to fulfill the promises of our tradition. 
For instance, look at me. 
I live in the same relation with my Father (your God) as described in the ancient poem of our tradition. 
I live and breath because God lives and breathes in me. 
God is in me as long as I'm alive.
As long as I breathe, he dwells in me and I dwell in him – so, in this sense, my body is more of a temple in the traditional sense, than that building is where you go to worship and hope to find God. 
This is what I preach. 
And whenever the religious law encourages this understanding – it is valid – and whenever it hinders it, it is invalid. 
You think you know how to be religious? 
You don't! 
Your organization gets in the way of your faith!

The New Testament writers took great pains to point out to us that Jesus came to fulfill the scripture – 
he quotes the Old Testament and interprets the tradition anew. 
His respect for tradition and history is not questioned. 
Neither is his authority, 
and his authority is unquestionably contemporary to his time.

    Now today, ironically, most of us Christians have the same concepts and attitudes about our Church and our  religion as the Jews did about their  temple and their  religion at the time of Jesus, don’t we?
 
We have fostered the concept that the church building is God's House – 
we should come here hoping to find God – 
and we should enter, then,  with appropriate reverence
and appreciate the use of music, prayers and ceremony that will uplift our hearts and inspire our souls so our faith may grow. 

There are things we expect from our religion, aren’t there? – 
and there are things we are comfortable with – 
and we identify those things as "traditional" when the tradition may be not really be very old.

    In a real sense,  my call as a laborer among God's people is to seriously come to grips with tradition (religion) that goes back beyond the past 50 or 60 years, even beyond the past 400 years, and beyond the past 2000 years – 
attempting to see the contemporary situation our fathers and mothers in the faith faced,
and how they expressed themselves the way they did (and why they did it that way). 
And then, facing the situation today, [the world around us in the year 2021],
attempt to react in the same manner and express the same faith – 
the same hope for life – 
that was expressed in those old situations. 
This manner informs the things we do here in our worship service on Sunday mornings.

The Easter story is one of encouragement,
of hope,
of enabling dreams and visions of what could be – 
if only.... 

For the story is that Jesus lived as a Son of God –  God lived inside the physical confines of the man Jesus of Nazareth. 
And that was the message the disciples were finally beginning to understand – until Good Friday. 
[Now understand that at this point, Jesus was no different than a dozen other God-men in religious history.]

    But, the significant difference comes when Jesus dies. 
There, on the cross, we are told, he gives a loud cry –
all that was in his lungs comes out. 
He dies. 
The presence of God escapes from his body. 
Jesus the man, then, is lifeless – 
the body is dead
(and later disappears). 
God left the confines of this "body temple."

    Not only that, but each Gospel writer carefully records the message that, when this happened
the curtain in the temple was torn in two – from the top to the bottom. 
God came out of the stone temple –
through the curtain.
No more to be separated and encapsulated in a box or a house. 
No.  He's not there any more.
He is no longer in the body of the man from Nazareth. 
And he is no longer in his box in the temple!

    Where did he go?

    The message was – into Galilee –
back into the world where his followers lived and interacted, as he said he would. 
And his disciples were to go there. 
That's where they would find him. 
Where he said they would:
feeding the hungry,
clothing the poor,
healing the sick,
involved in making the life around them more human,
more hopeful,
more enabling.
They were to join him in his work, and when they did, they knew and experienced the Presence of Christ – just like the old days – even better than the old days!

    You see, Easter tells us of a whole new way of religion –  a whole new way of religion that's new to us even 2000 years later! 
The question should be put to each of us today: "Why do you come looking among the dead for the one who lives?"

    You are looking in the wrong place. 
If you want to see the presence of Christ today, get up! 
Get out of here...

    Go.   Go into Galilee. 
Go back home. 
Look around you. 
Go into your worlds and into your neighborhoods. 
Go amongst your friends and family,
the people you encounter during your daily do.
Go find the poor and hungry and needy.
There you will see him. 
Join him in his work. 
Then, then, come back and celebrate Easter every Sunday –
because you enjoy it,
and because you can't wait to share your experiences of the risen Christ with the others in your Church. 
Oh what a church that would be!

   Maybe that kind of church was lost forever in the
2nd century.  Maybe.
But I continue to see glimpses of it with you –
and I continue to stand before you to testify that I've seen this happening here at this church.

    And although some say it is not in the realm of probability for us –
I am going to continue to work and to preach for the possibility. 
For I am convinced that we are at the beginning of a whole new world...
the birthday of love and wings
where the ears of ears can awake
and the eyes of our eyes can open
and we can participate in it.

    Friends, the resurrection is for you and for me – 
and we can participate in it – 
by living in a new day in a new way.

    Alleluia!  And amen!


 [The congregation of Christ Presbyterian Church in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, experienced the essence of this sermon during worship on Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006]

The Birthday of A Whole New World

Isaiah 25:6-9
Mark 16:1-8

    Friends, Easter is the birthday of a whole new
world – 
a whole new life – 
a whole new way of living – 
a whole new way of looking at the world –
a whole new religion!

    Every year now, for some twenty centuries,
Christian people have come together at this time of
year to celebrate the single most important event of
their history!

     It was quite natural for the first Christians to
tie this Easter event with the traditional Passover
Celebration –  which had been celebrated each year for centuries to remind people of their unique history and of their unique relationship with their God.

    You understand, it wasn't until after the
Resurrection that the disciple's eyes were opened and they saw for the very first time that what they had been experiencing with this man from Nazareth was indeed a whole new thing. 
It was after the Resurrection that they began to call him the Christ and saw him to be the fulfillment of the Passover –  the promise that had been made each year over and over again for centuries. 
So they began to meet together each week at dawn to celebrate Easter – 
the coming of the new time – 
the new week –
remembering the fulfillment of the Passover.

    In order to understand the full significance of
what they were celebrating, I think we have to go back  to the Hebrew poetic expression of God's relationship with people. 

Again, we are all familiar with the creation stories in Genesis. 
The familiar story with its rhythmical structure of seven days occurs in chapter 1. 
And chapter 2 of Genesis begins another story of creation. 
Now, really, both of these accounts were actually written fairly late in Jewish history –
most probably at the time of King David,
when for the first time people had the leisure to sit
down and write the stories that had been handed down by word of mouth for centuries.

   Verse 7 of the second chapter of Genesis appears to express one of the earliest, most primitive concepts of  the Jew's relationship to God. 
Here, God is pictured as a potter: 
Then the Lord God formed (molded) a man from the dust of the ground, and breathed (a loud breath) into his nostrils the breath of life. 
Thus man became alive!  (Gen2:v7)

    It seems that from the beginning,
they understood every person's breath is God-given –  life itself – 
for the human is critically related to Yahweh,
 the God that shared his breath – 
the symbol for life itself. 
You see, the thing that made the body alive was God. 
God was intimately related to your life experience. [Therefore, a life without God was an absurd proposition.]

    Actually, by the time these stories were written
down (at King David's court) the understandings of God had changed somewhat. 
I’ve talked about this before. 
Through the years a concept of God developed that they could put in a box. 

At a risk of over-simplifying it:
you may recall that they were a nomadic people, they traveled a lot –
they traveled through lands occupied by people with other religions. 
They saw that these religions had their holy places:
they had holy mountains,
there were holy caves,
and there holy wells. 
Well, having no geographical references for themselves these wandering Jews knew that their God could not be confined to geography. 
Their God was a traveling God – 
but they came to feel that he needed a home –
God needed a place to be,
a place to rest. 
So they built him an ark, a throne, so he could be
comfortable. 
And they carried this ark wherever they went. 
It became a symbol of assurance:  that God was with them as long as they had the box for him. 
(We have a lot of stories about people stealing the ark. So history began to be recorded in terms of who has the box –  who had God on their side.  God was wherever the ark was.)

    This, then, became a real issue with David as he
set out to bring together two nations of people  –  each with their own traditions and history. 
David thought: The way to unite the country is to unite their religion. 
So, let's build a house to put the ark in. 
It will be a temple and will stand in the capital city as a symbol of God's presence in our new nation and people will always know where they can come to meet the Lord. 
We'll put his box there and everyone will come to know that's where he sits!

    And the temple was built, and became the house of God. 
His box was placed in one end of the building and a curtain was put in front of it – the reredos. 
It was called the “Holy of Holies”. 
[The curtain was loaded with symbolism –
it protected the people from perishing should they see the Lord face-to-face. 
It served the function of keeping God's presence shielded from the people.]

    Now, all of this had become quite institutionalized
by the time of Jesus. 
The temple with its curtain, and the ark, was an important part of the religion. 
For the Jew, there was no question what one had to do in order to be religious, to fulfill the law. 
Leaders, Rabbis, spent their entire lives studying the law – 
and as new situations and questions came up, they wrote new rules to amplify the old law. 
The Rabbis were the authority and it was unquestioned  (except maybe for a few splinter groups from time to time.).

    Of particular significance is that Jesus came
preaching and teaching on his own authority – 
far outside the established authority of his tradition. 
They would say to him:
you totally disregard our tradition. 
How can you go around preaching such
contemporariness?

    And he would say: 
It seems to me that I don't come to put an end to your traditional ways, so much as I come to fulfill the promises of our tradition. 
For instance, look at me. 
I live in the same relation with my Father (your God) as described in the ancient poem of our tradition. 
I live and breath because God lives and breathes in me. 
God is in me as long as I'm alive.
As long as I breathe, he dwells in me and I dwell in him – so, in this sense, my body is more of a temple in the traditional sense, than that building is where you go to worship and hope to find God. 
This is what I preach. 
And whenever the religious law encourages this understanding – it is valid – and whenever it hinders it, it is invalid. 
You think you know how to be religious? 
You don't! 
Your organization gets in the way of your faith!

The New Testament writers took great pains to point  out to us that Jesus came to fulfill the scripture – 
he quotes the Old Testament and interprets the
tradition anew. 
His respect for tradition and history is not questioned. 
Neither is his authority, 
and his authority is unquestionably contemporary to his time.

    Now today, ironically, most of us Christians have
the same concepts and attitudes about our Church and our  religion as the Jews did about their  temple and their  religion at the time of Jesus, don’t we?
 
We have fostered the concept that the church building is God's House – 
we should come here hoping to find God – 
and we should enter, then,  with appropriate reverence
and appreciate the use of music, prayers and ceremony that will uplift our hearts and inspire our souls so our faith may grow. 

There are things we expect from our religion, aren’t there? – 
and there are things we are comfortable with – 
and we identify those things as "traditional" when the tradition may be not really be very old.

    In a real sense,  my call as a laborer among God's people is to seriously come to grips with tradition (religion) that goes back beyond the past 50 or 60 years, even beyond the past 400 years, and beyond the past 2000 years – 
attempting to see the contemporary situation our fathers and mothers in the faith faced,
and how they expressed themselves the way they did (and why they did it that way). 
And then, facing the situation today, [the world around us in the year 2009],
attempt to react in the same manner and express the same faith – 
the same hope for life – 
that was expressed in those old situations. 
This manner informs the things we do here in our worship service on Sunday mornings.

The Easter story is one of encouragement,
of hope,
of enabling dreams and visions of what could be – 
if only.... 

For the story is that Jesus lived as a Son of God –  God lived inside the physical confines of the man Jesus of Nazareth. 
And that was the message the disciples were finally beginning to understand – until Good Friday. 
[Now understand that at this point, Jesus was no different than a dozen other God-men in religious history.]

    But, the significant difference comes when Jesus
dies. 
There, on the cross, we are told, he gives a loud cry –
all that was in his lungs comes out. 
He dies. 
The presence of God escapes from his body. 
Jesus the man, then, is lifeless – 
the body is dead
(and later disappears). 
God left the confines of this "body temple."

    Not only that, but each Gospel writer carefully
records the message that, when this happened
the curtain in the temple was torn in two –
from the top to the bottom. 
God came out of the stone temple –
through the curtain.
No more to be separated and encapsulated in a box or a house. 
No.  He's not there any more.
He is no longer in the body of the man from Nazareth. 
And he is no longer in his box in the temple!

    Where did he go?

    The message was – into Galilee –
back into the world where his followers lived and interacted, as he said he would. 
And his disciples were to go there. 
That's where they would find him. 
Where he said they would:
feeding the hungry,
clothing the poor,
healing the sick,
involved in making the life around them more human,
more hopeful,
more enabling.
They were to join him in his work, and when they did, they knew and experienced the Presence of Christ – just like the old days – even better than the old days!

    You see, Easter tells us of a whole new way of
religion –  a whole new way of religion that's new to
us even 2000 years later! 
The question should be put to each of us today: "Why do you come looking among the dead for the one who lives?"

    You are looking in the wrong place. 
If you want to see the presence of Christ today, get up! 
Get out of here...

    Go.   Go into Galilee. 
Go back home. 
Look around you. 
Go into your worlds and into your neighborhoods. 
Go amongst your friends and family,
the people you encounter during your daily do.
Go find the poor and hungry and needy.
There you will see him. 
Join him in his work. 
Then, then, come back and celebrate Easter every Sunday –
because you enjoy it,
and because you can't wait to share your experiences of the risen Christ with the others in your Church. 
Oh what a church that would be!

   Maybe that kind of church was lost forever in the
2nd century.  Maybe.
But I continue to see glimpses of it with you –
and I continue to stand before you to testify that I've seen this happening here at this church.

    And although some say it is not in the realm of
probability for us –
I am going to continue to work and to preach for the possibility. 
For I am convinced
that we are at the beginning of a whole new world...
the birthday of love and wings
where the ears of ears can awake
and the eyes of our eyes can open
and we can participate in it.

    Friends, the resurrection is for you and for me – 
and we can participate in it – 
by living in a new day in a new way.

    Alleluia!  And amen!


 [The congregation of Christ Presbyterian Church experienced this sermon during worship on Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006]

Take A Time Out

For me, when we get beyond the familiar outward trappings, the main purpose of Lent is to encourage us to take a time out. 

Biblically, there are some specific things we can do with this time,
but what we do is of less importance than to commit to taking the time –
to get closer with our God.
 

We are told that before Jesus began his ministry he took a time out.

He went off by himself – for 40 days – and 40 nights.

Jesus must of thought that this was completely necessary for him to do.

He did this to get his head right,
to get more completely in tune with God’s will and purpose for his life.     

For centuries the church has said it was important to remember what Jesus did here,
and it is important for us to take a time out as well.

Jesus took 40 days for his time out,
the church said we should take 40 days each year before Easter for our time out –
a time out from the routine of our regular normal life to consciously focus on getting our heads on right,
to get more in tune with what God is concerned about and wants for us to do with the rest of the days of our lives.

Lent is a fascinating time in the church year that Presbyterians are only beginning to appreciate.
Used to be, as you know, we never observed Lent in Presbyterian churches. 
But, today we see this time as an opportunity to attend to the parts of our lives that we often neglect.
During this time before Easter we are challenged to open ourselves in new ways to the Spirit’s transforming power –
not unlike Jesus did at the beginning of his ministry.

From the very earliest times, Christians took time out before Easter to reflect on their faith, cultivate it, and prepare for a most joyous celebration of Easter.

Remembering that Jesus took 40 days off to prepare for the beginning of his ministry, the church sets aside these 40 days prior to Easter for us to get ready.
This is a time for us to explore the mysteries of the universe,
looking beneath the surface –
within ourselves –
examining our own motives and desires,
and ascertaining exactly what our commitment is:
to what,
to whom,
and what it means.

Lent is meant to remind us that the days are getting longer now –
Spring is right around the corner.

Actually, the word Lent comes from an ancient word that meant "springtime," – 
that period of the calendar during which the days lengthen.
Because the church season always fell at that time of year, the name came to apply there as well.

All around us new life is preparing to break out as the weather turns. 
Signs of life are preparing to bud right before our eyes.
And, our task during this season is to prepare ourselves to see these signs when they occur.

Like I have said before, I believe we need Lent!

Lent encourages us to look within ourselves to see how we have confused popular cultural values with Christian faith.
Through sustained focus on the life and ministry of Jesus, Lent can help us resist the pressures of this culture.
Lent can remind us that we are called to continue his ministry:
“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

Consequently, Lent prepares us for an Easter that is more than bunnies and eggs –
an Easter that begins a whole new reality –
a whole new world.

As you know, 40 days is almost a sacred number with strong Old Testament associations. 
40 days seems to be a long time when you think about it.
[It is more than the 30 days we get to accept the special offer of the day that is in our daily mail.] 
It seems that God is saying:
“take up to forty days to decide – 
40 days to make up your mind – 
which side are you going to be on.” 

The Gospels say Jesus was given 40 days to decide  whose side his life would be spent on. 
40 days to come to a decision to align with God or accept the worldly enticements of the Devil.   

40 days seems to be God's time for allowing
significant decisions to be made. 
Moses was on Mount Sinai for 40 days getting the 10 commandments. 
Elijah spent 40 days in the wilderness encountering God. 
An extended time was given people of Noah's time to make up their mind before it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. 
The 40 days of Lent gives us sufficient time to make up our minds again: 
to decide for life – or death,
to decide for God – or the ways of the world around us.

For me, when we get beyond the familiar outward trappings, the main purpose of Lent is to encourage us to take a time out.

For us with our total dependence upon clocks and schedules and appointments and meetings and deadlines, taking time for a time out is probably the most difficult thing any of us could be called upon to do.
And yet, here it is.
The call goes out each year during this time before Easter,
and our response is usually no more than an acknowledgment of a quaint – if not somewhat ancient, antiquated tradition – that we may give a passing nod to in church,
but having very little to do with anything in our home, or at work, or how we spend our time.

Most of the days of our lives we are pretty much self absorbed in our lives and our obligations and our health and perhaps in the caring for another or two or three or four or . . .
We live in response to stimuli from outside of ourselves.

Lent calls us to take time for a time out from all of that.
Take time now – just commit to only 40 days – this time leading up to Easter –
take time each day to focus on something other than on what we usually spend our time on.

It is important to take the time.
Jesus did it.
Moses did it.
Isaiah did it.
Many many others did it.
And, today many many others are doing it.
You can do it as well.

Traditionally, Biblically, there are some specific things we can do with this time,
but what we do is of less importance than to commit to taking the time –
to get closer with our God.
The pattern is,
the experience is,
the promise is,
that when we do,
we become more aware of God’s presence
and more aware of God’s purpose
and more aware of what we are to do with the rest of the days of our lives.

And, of course, that’s the scarey part, isn’t it?
Because we’re not sure we want to discover that we should be doing something we aren’t doing, right?
For years I have been compiling a file of stories of people who after a time out,
changed the direction of their lives because it became clearer to them that this is what God would be having them do.
It’s a thick file containing many many stories.
Someday it would be worth sharing in some way just to see the stories one after the other after an other after an other.

Taking time for a time out can have a powerful affect on a person.
Norman Vincent Peale – and many other preachers – was convinced that by taking time out to concentrate on certain scripture lessons, folks could experience a power and wholeness and wellness that they never knew possible.

Of course, I think that, too.
Each Sunday between now and Easter, I will be focusing on specific practices that have proven to put us more in tune with the ultimate power and purpose of the universe.

Aligning our lives with the moral direction of the universe is probably the most primal of all our activities –
and that is something we cannot do with a compass or a clock.
It is something we can only do in a community like this one.

For your sake, each day during this time before Easter, take time for a time out.

And be here next week as we explore certain practices proven to lead us in the right direction.
Amen.

The congregation of Christ Presbyterian Church in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, USA, experienced this sermon during a worship service, the First Sunday in Lent, February 17, 2013.

Easter: The Birthday of A Whole New World

It is very clear that none of those early followers of Jesus expected Easter.   

Resurrection was not a part of their daily experience.  


Jesus’s closest friends and disciples didn’t believe the women. 
Because the story was too far fetched.

If we are honest, those apostles on that first Easter were really not much different from us, are they? 
We know what’s real, don’t we? 
We know the limits of the physical universe.  

The real miracle of Easter is that Jesus continues to be alive and continues to come to us and continues to empower us –
just as he came to those apostles, and just as he empowered them.

Like the apostles, like those women early in the morning on that first Easter,
we usually fail to recognize the living Lord and his restoring power for our lives,
because we look in the wrong places. 

Easter is a conviction that says that something extraordinary is loose in our world, and compels us to live our lives into glory. 

So, I have this cartoon that shows two Roman soldiers guarding Jesus' tomb on the first Easter morning. 
Each has a mug of tea in his hand, and the sun is just rising above the horizon.
One is encouraging the other:
"Cheer up, it's Sunday morning.
As I see it, we have one more day of guarding the tomb.
By Monday the whole thing will blow over."
 
Of course, the whole thing didn’t blow over, did it?

The world is still astonished that millions of Christians celebrate Easter with such excitement. Like those guards at the tomb they assume that  "by Monday the whole thing will blow over."
But, it doesn't, does it? 

After some 2000 years, we still come to hear the story told once more. 
While we may not comprehend the actual story –  and the events the stories recall –
we have a hunch that it is an important story
and so we come to hear it again,
to sing the festive music,
to take in the colorful flowers, 
to see who else is here,
and, maybe, to be inspired somewhat.

The Easter story is central to each of the Gospels.   
Each of the Gospels has a little different slant on the story, but each one is very clear about the significance of what happened that day.  

Mark lets us know that it was the women who were there first early in the morning. 
[It seems like the women are always there first, doesn’t it?]
And Mark names the women.
When they got to the tomb they became frightened.  
What they saw was not what they were expecting to see.  

It is very clear that none of those early followers of Jesus expected Easter.  
Although the signs may have pointed to it, it was not expected. 
[At this point, they were no different from you and me, were they?] 
Resurrection was not a part of their daily experience.  
They actually thought their movement was over.  They were afraid for their lives. 
They took to hiding, lest  the authorities would find them and kill them too.  
 
So, while the men hid,  the women went to the tomb carrying spices they had prepared, presumably for a ritual cleansing of the body of their friend Jesus.

Just two days before they were there as the body of Jesus was placed in the unused tomb that had been dug out of solid rock.  
And so, they were surprised to find the stone that blocked the entrance to the tomb rolled away from the doorway. 
And, then they saw this man –  and then they were frightened.  
Why was this stranger there? 
And why is he in the tomb of their friend? 
What did he want? 
Who was he? 
Who did he work for?  

Of course, they were too scared to ask these questions out loud. 
They had witnessed the way the authorities and the crowds treated their friend a couple of days before, and they must of feared for their lives now.  
They bowed downed to the ground. 
They cowed. 
They turned their heads. 
They averted their eyes. 
As if to say, “I didn’t see you. 
Spare me and I won’t tell anyone you were here.”   

But then, the unusual happens – the real surprise of the story. 
The man in his bright shining clothes spoke to the women. 
He said, “So, Why are you looking among the dead  for the one who is alive?” 
Those women must have wondered what that meant as much as we do. 
Then the man said, “He is not here!”
What do you mean, “He’s not here?  
What have you done with him?”  
“He has been raised.  Remember what he said?” 
“Well, yeah, but . . . .” 
Mark says that then they remembered.  
Then it began to dawn on them. 
It must be true. 
All that he said before. 
It must be true.  
Blessed are the peacemakers --
the last shall be first --
love your neighbor as yourself --
a place is prepared for you at the table in the Kingdom --
worry not about the cares of the world, God will take care of you.  
It all must be true! 
They immediately returned to where the apostles were hiding and told them what had happened. 
“It all must be true, don’t you see?”  
But, the apostles thought the women were a little touched in the head
–  they thought they were crazy
– they thought the women were nuts
– they didn’t believe them. 
 
Jesus’s closest friends and disciples didn’t believe the women. 
Because the story was too far fetched –
even for them – 
especially for them. 
They had seen their leader totally defeated,
mocked even,
tortured,
ridiculed,
killed,
dead to the max. 
And no one helped him.

He died alone –
apparently despised and rejected by all who may have been able to help him –
apparently even abandoned by his God.  

The authorities had won. 
If they had thought of it, they would have said, “The devil was victorious.” 
Clearly, their lives as they had known them, were over. 
Things had changed now. 
And, they weren’t sure just how it was all going to be sorted out.  
So the women must be hallucinating. 
 
If we are honest, those apostles on that first Easter were really not much different from us, are they? 
We know what’s real, don’t we? 
We know the limits of the physical universe. 
We experience the reality of life within boundaries of space and time, right? – we are born, we live, and we die. 
And so we hear the Easter account as those disciples did on that morning – except . . . .

Except, we know the rest of the story.  
The disciples came to believe only after they experienced the Risen Christ –
the disciples came to believe only after they met the Risen Christ --
the disciples came to believe only after the encountered the Risen Christ.  
And so it is with us. 

The real miracle of Easter is not that the tomb was empty. 
The real miracle of Easter is not that Jesus was raised as the two men announced  to the women that morning. 
But, the real miracle of Easter is that Jesus continues to be alive and continues to come to us and continues to empower us –
just as he came to those apostles, and just as he empowered them. 
 
They came to find and experience the presence of Christ wherever they went. 
Wherever they went, whatever they did, he was already there –  ahead of them.  

Like the apostles, like those women early in the morning on that first Easter,
we usually fail to recognize the living Lord and his restoring power for our lives,
because we look in the wrong places.  
[Why do you look among the dead, for the one who lives?]   
When we seek the living Lord among the dead, as they did,  what we do here and what we celebrate is little more than a history lesson.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, what Easter proclaims is that Jesus refuses to stay buried,
refuses to stay undercover,
refuses to stay entombed,
refuses to stay in the container. 
He keeps getting out of the  tombs in which we keep trying to bury him. 
It would be much more comfortable if we didn’t have this to deal with, wouldn’t it? 
We keep trying to put Jesus in a box, don’t we?  – a tomb –
like the Jews tried to keep their God in a box. 
But, it didn’t work for them. 
And it doesn’t work for us.

    A preacher-friend  told me a story about his little league days. 
In 1953 there just four teams in his little town. 
Their uniforms were just baseball caps and T-shirts dyed different colors. 
They didn’t have much of a playing field –
there was barely discernable grass in the outfield, and there was nothing defining the base paths –
except for chalk lines down the first and third base lines.  
He remembers playing two and three games a day on that beaten lot. 
And every single time they played, he remembers Jack being there. 
Jack was a man of no last name,
but Jack was the faithful soul who was always there and always laid down the chalk base lines for every game. 
It didn’t take long for the chalk lines to be obliterated, but Jack would remark the lines after the third inning of each game to ensure the integrity of the playing field.  
He said, “Jack, the chalk man was always there to mark the baselines of our play.”

    And I thought, you know, that’s what this Risen Christ is always doing:
lining the pathways for us to follow. 
He establishes the pathways between human beings and God,
pathways that are frequently obliterated by the struggling enthusiasm, and stubborn resistance of people like you and me. 
The Risen Christ opens passages of love among people,
among cultures,
among nations again and again. 
It happens when people feel the deep conviction of the love of Christ in their lives and know that they live under the command to share the gospel story of love. 
 
There is a Gaelic legend that tells about an eagle swooping down and carrying a little baby off to his lofty nest up as high as the eagle could go on top of the mountain. 
Needless to say, the people of the village were extremely upset about this. 
And the strongest of the young villagers chased after the eagle. 
They tried to scale the high rugged cliff to reach the eagle’s nest on top. 
But, alas, one by one, each of the rugged young men fails. 
Each one starts to lag. 
Each one starts to draw back.  
And as they languish, they see a thin young woman coming up the steep cliff behind them,
slowly and deliberately,  finally overtaking them,
and even passing them, and going on to reach the nest on top.
The eagle is not there. 
The baby is – and appears unhurt.
She picks up the baby, carefully wraps him up in her shawl and starts down the treacherous precipice carrying the unharmed baby in her shawl. 
Needless-to-say, the men were astounded.  
They asked, “How can you do that? –  when we failed?”  
And she tells them her secret: “I’m the baby’s mother.” 

The point is that she had a conviction in her heart and soul which propelled her up the cliff to reclaim her child.  

And that’s what Easter does for us. 
That’s why we celebrate Easter each year at this time. 
That’s why we celebrate Easter each and every Sunday when we gather in here in worship. 
Easter is a conviction that says that something extraordinary is loose in our world, and compels us to live our lives into glory. 
Christ is alive! 
Christ is present today.
 We see it again and again.  If we only look. 
If we only use the senses that have been given to us. 

    We encounter the presence of Christ through people who are ready to help one another through difficult times. 
We encounter the presence of Christ through those who care for one another.
We encounter the presence of Christ through those who work for justice and are willing to protect the sacred rights of every person.
We encounter the presence of Christ among people who seek peace with a fervent desire to live in a world that is transformed by human action and divine love.
We encounter the presence of Christ with people who joyfully share the gift of love no matter the circumstance or cost.

    And the kicker is, friends, you and I are called to be those people –
each and every one of us, is called to be – 
helpers,
caregivers,
protectors of justice,
pursuers of peace
and witnesses to God’s love at work in the world.

You can look all you want among the dead for the one who lives. 
But, you’ll never find the Christ there.  
The direction was given to those women on that first Easter morning –
and the direction is given to you and me –
“He is not here. 
He has been raised. 
Go back to where you came from. 
Go back to the communities, to the streets and byways where you live your lives. 
That’s where you will find him.” 
 
It’s a new world now. 
It’s a new day!  
There are new rules to play by! 
Joy to the world!  
Joy to you this Easter day!
Amen.

The congregation of Christ Presbyterian Church in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, USA, heard this sermon during a worship service on Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013.

The Story of A Whole New Religion

The question should be put to each of us today: "Why do you come looking among the dead for the one who lives?"
You are looking in the wrong place. 
If you want to see the presence of Christ today, get up! 
Get out of here...
Go.  
Go back home. 
Look around you.

Isaiah 65:17-25
Mark 16:1-8

    Friends, Easter is the birthday of a whole new world – 
a whole new life – 
a whole new way of living – 
a whole new way of looking at the world –
a whole new religion!

    Every year now, for some twenty centuries,
Christian people have come together at this time of year to celebrate the single most important event of their history!

     It was quite natural for the first Christians to tie this Easter event with the traditional Passover Celebration –  which had been celebrated each year for centuries to remind people of their unique history and of their unique relationship with their God.

You understand, it wasn't until after the Resurrection that the disciple's eyes were opened and they saw for the very first time that what they had been experiencing with this man from Nazareth was indeed a whole new thing. 
It was after the Resurrection that they began to call him the Christ
and saw him to be the fulfillment of the Passover –  
the promise that had been made each year over and over again for centuries. 

So they began to meet together each week at dawn to celebrate Easter – 
the coming of the new time – 
the new week –
remembering the fulfillment of the Passover.

In order to understand the full significance of what they were celebrating, I think we have to go back  to the Hebrew poetic expression of God's relationship with people. 

Again, we are all familiar with the creation stories in Genesis. 
The familiar story with its rhythmical structure of seven days occurs in chapter 1. 
And chapter 2 of Genesis begins another story of creation. 
Now, really, both of these accounts were actually written fairly late in Jewish history –
most probably at the time of King David, when for the first time people had the leisure to sit
down and write the stories that had been handed down by word of mouth for centuries.

Verse 7 of the second chapter of Genesis appears to express one of the earliest, most primitive concepts of  the Jew's relationship to God. 
Here, God is pictured as     a potter: 
Then the Lord God formed (molded) a man from the dust of the ground,
and breathed (a loud breath) into his nostrils the breath of life.  Thus man became alive!  (Gen2:v7)

It seems that from the beginning,
they understood every person's breath is God-given –  life itself – 
for the human is critically related to Yahweh,
the God that shared his breath – 
the symbol for life itself. 

You see, the thing that made the body alive was God. 
God was intimately related to your life experience. [Therefore, a life without God was an absurd proposition.]

    Actually, by the time these stories were written down (at King David's court) the understandings of God had changed somewhat. 
I’ve talked about this before. 
Through the years a concept of God developed that they could put in a box. 

At a risk of over-simplifying it:
you may recall that they were a nomadic people, they traveled a lot –
they traveled through lands occupied by people with other religions. 
They saw that these religions had their holy places:
they had holy mountains,
there were holy caves,
and there were even holy wells. 
Well, having no geographical references for themselves these wandering Jews knew that their God could not be confined to geography. 
Their God was not to found in a particular place.

Their God was a traveling God – 
but they came to feel that their God did need a home –
God needed a place to be,
a place to rest. 
So they built him an ark, a throne, so he could be comfortable. 
And they carried this ark wherever they went. 
It became a symbol of assurance: 
that God was with them as long as they had the box for him. 
(We have a lot of stories about people stealing the ark.
So history began to be recorded in terms of who has the box –  who had God on their side. 
God was wherever the ark was.)

This, then, became a real issue with David as he set out to bring together two nations of people  –  each with their own traditions and history. 
David thought: The way to unite the country is to unite their religion. 
So, let's build a house to put the ark in. 
It will be a temple and will stand in the capital city as a symbol of God's presence in our new nation and people will always know where they can come to meet the Lord. 
We'll put his box there and everyone will come to know that's where he sits!


    And the temple was built, and became the house of God. 
His box was placed in one end of the building and a curtain was put in front of it – the reredos. 
It was called the “Holy of Holies”. 
[The curtain was loaded with symbolism –
it protected the people from perishing should they see the Lord face-to-face. 
It served the function of keeping God's presence shielded from the people.]

Now, all of this had become quite institutionalized by the time of Jesus. 
The temple with its curtain, and the ark, was an important part of the religion. 
For the Jew, there was no question what one had to do in order to be religious, to fulfill the law. 
Leaders, Rabbis, spent their entire lives studying the law – 
and as new situations and questions came up, they wrote new rules to amplify the old law. 
The Rabbis were the authority and it was unquestioned  (except maybe for a few splinter groups from time to time.).

    Of particular significance is that Jesus came preaching and teaching  on his own authority – 
far outside the established authority of his tradition. 
They would say to him:
you totally disregard our tradition. 
How can you go around preaching such
contemporariness?

    And he would say: 
It seems to me that I don't come to put an end to your traditional ways, so much as I come to fulfill the promises of our tradition. 
For instance, look at me. 
I live in the same relation with my Father (your God) as described in the ancient poem of our tradition. 
I live and breath because God lives and breathes in me. 
God is in me as long as I'm alive.
As long as I breathe, God dwells in me and I live in God – so, in this sense, my body is more of a temple in the traditional sense,
than that building is where you go to worship and hope to find God. 
This is what I preach. 
And whenever the religious law encourages this understanding – it is valid – and whenever it hinders it, it is invalid. 
You think you know how to be religious? 
You don't! 
Your organization gets in the way of your faith!

The New Testament writers took great pains to point  out to us that Jesus came to fulfill the scripture – 
he quotes the Old Testament and interprets the tradition anew. 
His respect for tradition and history is not questioned. 

Neither is his authority, 
and his authority is unquestionably contemporary to his time.

Now today, ironically, most of us Christians have the same concepts and attitudes about our Church and our  religion as the Jews did about their  temple and their  religion at the time of Jesus, don’t we?
 
We have fostered the concept that the church building is God's House – 
we should come here hoping to find God – 
and we should enter, then,  with appropriate reverence
and appreciate the use of music, prayers and ceremony that will uplift our hearts and inspire our souls so our faith may grow. 

There are things we expect from our religion, aren’t there? – 
and there are things we are comfortable with – 
and we identify those things as "traditional" when the tradition may be not really be very old.

In a real sense,  my call as a laborer among God's people is to seriously come to grips with tradition (religion) that goes back beyond the past 50 or 60 years, even beyond the past 400 years, and beyond the past 2000 years – 
attempting to see the contemporary situation our fathers and mothers in the faith faced,
and how they expressed themselves the way they did (and why they did it that way). 
And then, facing the situation today, [the world around us in the year 2012],
attempt to react in the same manner and express the same faith – 
the same hope for life – 
that was expressed in those old situations. 
(This manner informs the things we do here in our worship service on Sunday mornings.)

The Easter story is one of encouragement,
of hope,
of enabling dreams and visions of what could be – 
if only.... 

For the story is that Jesus lived as a Son of God –  God lived inside the physical confines of the man Jesus of Nazareth. 

And that was the message the disciples were finally beginning to understand –      until Good Friday. 

[Now understand that at this point, Jesus was no different than a dozen other God-men in religious history.]

    But, the significant difference comes when Jesus dies. 
There, on the cross, we are told, he gives a loud cry –
all that was in his lungs comes out. 

He dies. 
The presence of God escapes from his body. 

Jesus the man, then, is lifeless –  the body is dead
(and later disappears). 

God left the confines of this "body temple."

Not only that, but each Gospel writer carefully records the message that, when this happened the curtain in the temple was torn in two –
from the top to the bottom. 
God came out of the stone temple –
through the curtain.
No more to be separated and encapsulated in a box or a house. 
No.  God is not there any more.
God is no longer in the body of the man from Nazareth. 
And God is no longer in that box in the temple!

    Where did God go?

    The message was – into Galilee –
back into the world where his followers lived and interacted, as Jesus said he would. 
And his disciples were to go there. 
That's where they would find him. 
Where he said they would:
feeding the hungry,
clothing the poor,
healing the sick,
involved in making the life around them more human,
more hopeful,
more enabling.

They were to join him in his work, and when they did,
they knew and experienced the Presence of Christ – just like the old days –
even better than the old days!

You see, Easter tells us of a whole new way of
religion – 
a whole new way of religion that's new to us even 2000 years later! 
The question should be put to each of us today: "Why do you come looking among the dead for the one who lives?"

    You are looking in the wrong place. 
If you want to see the presence of Christ today, get up! 
Get out of here...

    Go.  
Go into Galilee. 
Go back home. 
Look around you. 
Go into your worlds and into your neighborhoods. 
Go amongst your friends and family,
the people you encounter during your daily do.
Go find the poor and hungry and needy.
There you will see him. 
Join him in his work.
 
Then, then, come back and celebrate Easter every Sunday –
because you enjoy it,
and because you can't wait to share your experiences of the risen Christ with the others in your Church. 
Oh what a church that would be!
 
   Maybe that kind of church was lost forever in the
2nd century.  Maybe.
But I continue to see glimpses of it with you –
and I continue to stand before you to testify that I've seen this happening here at this church.

    And although some say it is not in the realm of
probability for us –
I am going to continue to work and to preach for the possibility. 
For I am convinced
that we are at the beginning of a whole new world...
the birthday of love and wings
where the ears of ears can awake
and the eyes of our eyes can open
and we can participate in it.

    Friends, the resurrection is for you and for me – 
and we can participate in it – 
by living in a new day      in a new way.

    Alleluia!      And amen!


The congregation of Christ Presbyterian Church experienced this message Easter Sunday, 2012.

Risus Paschalis: Easter Laughter

Jesus must have been grinning from ear to ear! – grabbing his friends by the neck, hugging and rustling hair. . . .

There is no doubt in my mind that these disciples happy people when they encountered the Risen Christ.

They must have been laughing and carrying on.
They knew the joke was on them, because they hadn’t believed what they had been told.

Long ago in southern Germany, in Bavaria, during the late middle ages there was a custom in many of the Christian churches of that region that seems quite unusual to us.

At the end of the Easter church service, the Easter Mass, the priest would leave the altar and come down among the people and lead the congregation in what was called the Risus Paschalis – which means "the Easter laughter."

It was a time for telling funny stories
and a time to sing comical songs,
and the church would ring with laughter.

Of course the point was obvious, the laughter echoing through the church was a tangible testimony to the merriment born out of the tidings of Easter:
Jesus is alive and loose among us.
All the forces that conspired to lay him in his tomb, the fury, the lovelessness,
the violence, the vaunted powers of kings and empires, they are all made a laughing stock.

Do you get it?
It's a thing to ponder:
the laughter of God,
the laughter of God’s people rolling out into the spring time world from doors and windows of churches where the story is told on an Easter day.

Laughter is a great gift of God,
and I think those ancient medieval Christians in Bavaria were right to give a space for mirth and laughter in the Easter worship of the church.

And so, each year on this Second of Easter we come and celebrate that utterly unique thing that is the Risus Paschalis, the Easter laughter.

Certainly the most obvious element of this laughter is joy.

But, I think there is a great deal more than just joy.

You see the laughter of this day is the laughter that bursts forth when the totally unexpected,
the completely unanticipated,
the utter surprise of a thing strikes us.



OK. Well, here’s the deal:
I have three sets of sermon notes up here.
The 30 minute version cost costs a dollar a head,
And, I have 20 minute version for 10 dollars a head,
And, I have a 10 minute version for $50 a person!
So if the ushers will come forward and pick up the offering and count it, we’ll see which version you paid for!

I think it was Mark Twain, that supposedly told about his idea of a good sermon.
He said, in his mind, a good sermon would have a great beginning and a great conclusion – and they would be as close together as possible.

I think I told some of you about this strange call I got not long ago(?)
Do you remember?
This distraught lady told me her cat had just died and he had been with her for some 18 years.
That cat was family to her.
The only family she had.
And, she wanted to know if I would do a memorial service for the dead cat.

I told her that really, we didn’t do that sort of thing here, maybe she should try one of the Roman Catholic churches nearby and I gave her the phone numbers of two of them.

She thanked me gratefully and said this was all pretty new to her, and that she knew they would want her to make some sort of contribution to their church – what did I think was appropriate for her to offer them?
Would $30,000 be appreciated?

Being no dummy, I immediately blurted out,
“Oh, you didn’t tell me your cat was Presbyterian!”
Let’s talk this over . . .

Imagine, if you can, being part of the group of disciples on the evening of that first Easter day. They had witnessed a disturbing set of events.
Their leader, the one to whom they had sworn their allegiance, the one they thought was going to lead them and the world into a new tomorrow, was tortured, ridiculed, crucified, dead, (for sure,) and buried.
And then, on this third day, they found the tomb in which he was placed, open, and his body missing –
taken by whom?,
removed to where?,
and why?

They suspected sadism, I’m sure.

The authorities or some enemies just wanted to make sure this troublemaker would never be heard from again.

They were afraid.

What did all of this mean for them?

For sure, the authorities would be coming after them now.

What to do?

They gathered behind locked doors – fearing the worst.

So, there they were, wringing their hands, sighing “Ain’t it awful?”
When, lo and behold, the-e-e-e-re was Jesus.
Can’t you just see and feel what happened?

“Oh man, you really did it this time!
You really put one over on us!
You got us good!
And what about the others?
Just wait until they get a load of this!”

You see, the Risen Christ was the punch line of God’s Great Surprise.
The resurrection of Jesus is the greatest surprise in the history of humanity.
Until then, once people died and were buried, they stayed put.

There is no doubt in my mind that these disciples happy people when they encountered the Risen Christ.

They must have been laughing and carrying on.
They knew the joke was on them, because they hadn’t believed what they had been told.

And now the joke is on all those who refuse to believe.

This is the Easter surprise, the Easter laugh, the Easter joy.

C.K. Chesterton wrote that “surprise is the secret of joy.”

And, far from being so solemn and placid like he is portrayed in so many pictures, Jesus must have been grinning from ear to ear! –
grabbing his friends by the neck, hugging and rustling hair.

Zig Zigler writes that “the most destitute person in the world is the one without a smile.”
This is when the disciples broke out of their situation – no longer were they feeling destitute.

A church historian has pointed out that in days of yore, every Easter sermon began with a joke.

Somehow, we have misguidedly equated somberism with Christianity.

Clearly, this was not the case in the very beginning.

Those early Christians were so surprised by their Risen Friend that they must have been ecstatic! – totally joyous –completely joy-filled.

Today in many parts of the world, many Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox countries celebrate Easter Monday as a day of “joy and laughter” with parties and picnics to celebrate Jesus’s resurrection.
It is called White Monday,
Bright Monday,
Dyngus Day,
and Emmaus Day in various countries.

It is a time for the faithful to play practical jokes on one another,
a time to sing silly songs,
a time to dance.
It is a time for clergy and lay people to tell jokes and to have fun.

The custom of Easter Monday and Holy Hilarity Sunday celebrations are rooted in the musings of early church theologians like Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa and John Chrysostom that God played a joke on the devil by raising Jesus from the dead.
You see, Easter is seen as “God’s supreme joke played on that old imposter, death.”

The early theologians called it “risus paschalis” – the Easter laugh.
This theme has been passed down through the ages.

Francis of Assisi advised: “Leave sadness to the devil. The devil has reason to be sad.”

Meister Eckhart, a 13th century theologian, wrote:
“God laughed and begat the Son.
Together they laughed and begat the Holy Spirit.
And from the laughter of the Three, the universe was born.”

Martin Luther wrote: “God is not a God of sadness, but the devil is.
Christ is a God of joy.
It is pleasing to the dear God whenever one rejoices or laughs from the bottom of your heart.”

Easter is the morning when the Lord laughs out loud,
laughs at all the things that snuff out joy,
all the things that pretend to be all-powerful,
like cruelty and madness and despair and evil,
and most especially, the great pretender, death.

Jesus sweeps them away with his wonderful resurrection laughter.

Norman Vincent Peale wrote:
“laughter sweeps away the cobwebs from the mind.”

Paul talks about a resurrection appearance of Jesus before an audience of over 500 people.

One writer ruminates:

“[Now how would you think] 500-plus people react to an appearance by Jesus, the one who had been crucified and buried?
Would they applaud politely? (With a proper Presbyterian clap.)

My guess is that 500-plus folks rose to their feet with a standing ovation.

This was the most incredible comeback story of all time.

They would have jumped for joy and hugged their neighbors.

These 500-plus folks, because of Jesus, had the best belly laugh of their lives.

Easter had taught the 500-plus how to celebrate.”

We ought to pay attention, don’t you think?

Church historians indicate that there is considerable evidence that during the early centuries of Christianity, Easter celebrations went on for days – even weeks.

This picture on our bulletin is very appropriate for today.
Today, many churches all over the country are trying to lift up the hilaritas of the Easter season -- celebrating the risus paschalis: the Easter Laugh.

Laughter has been called God's holy medicine –
the ancients thought it to be exercise for the soul.

What a great idea, don’t you think?
Laughter is exercise for the soul!

In fact, there is a tremendous body of evidence being
accumulated today in schools from Johns Hopkins to
Stanford University Medical Schools and in countries
all over the world – evidence that supports this ancient idea:
that laughter is exercise for the soul and
actually affects our physical and mental health.

Today we celebrate the risus paschalis – God’s easter laugh.

The joke is on the devil.

The joke is on all who still think that life is defined by birth and death.

Jesus taught the early church how to laugh:
how to laugh at death.
how to laugh at appearances,
how to laugh in the face of all manner of difficulty.

Today, we remember God’s great surprise – and the word for each of us:

Turn to John 15:11

Like those early disciples, when you experience the risen Christ – joy is yours.

Paul can say:
“rejoice in all things.
Again, I say, rejoice!”

Easter is a time of deep surprise, the surprise of suddenly realizing that God makes all things right in ways we can never imagine.

On this second Sunday of Easter, I hope you can continue to feel the joy of encountering the Risen Christ for a long time to come. Amen.

Let’s stand and sing the disciple’s song:
I’ve got that joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart.

[If they didn’t know this particular song, they made up one just like it that first Easter night.]

The congregation of Christ Presbyterian Church in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, heard this sermon amidst an hour of hi-jinks, bloopers and gremlins during the worship service May, 1, 2011.