He has been Raised

I’m a great fan of bluegrass music. I like Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley and Earl Scruggs, and all the old-time performers. I also like some of the current performers. I’ve actually heard Rhonda Vincent perform twice – the first time right here in the Ariel Theater. One of my favorite bluegrass recordings is a two-CD set entitled, “O Sister,” which showcases some of the great women singers: Rhonda Vincent, Hazel Dickens, Maybelle Carter, Allison Krauss, and many others. If you know these artists, you know that their music is at best bittersweet. There are always a few Gospel songs, typically at the end of a CD or concert, but most of their songs, just like those of the bluesmen and the jazz singers, are about pain and loss of all kinds. In unforgettable songs like “Mama’s Hand,” Pathway of Teardrops,” or “It Rains Everywhere I go,” we hear of leaving home, unrequited love, failed relationships, loneliness, depression, dysfunctional families, even murder and imprisonment.

Betrayal, loss, grief, execution -- isn’t that where we’ve been this week? Last Sunday, we welcomed Jesus in triumph into Jerusalem, but, as soon as the strains of “All glory, laud, and honor” died away, we felt a chill. And then we heard again the agonizing story of Jesus’ Passion. After sharing that painful last meal with Jesus on Thursday, pondering the fate of Judas, walking with Jesus to Jerusalem, and then mourning his death on the Cross, haven’t we too experienced almost unbearable pain and darkness – literally and spiritually? And isn’t the pain and darkness of Good Friday where most of us live out our lives? Pain, loss, grief, death – we know that territory well. We too leave our childhood homes, our children also grow up too fast, we see loved ones move away, we miss opportunities to do the good God calls us to do, we make mistakes, we spend time in prison, we get divorced, we lose sisters, brothers, children, and spouses to sickness and death. Perhaps that’s why bluegrass music is so powerful. It speaks to who and where we are, right now, “in the midst of life.”

But here, in this place, today, we hear a different word. Perhaps you’re here because, in your heart of hearts, you long to hear that different word. You want to hear that loss, pain, darkness, and death are not the whole story. Perhaps you are looking for a different ending to the story of your life. My friends, open you ears and hear that new word! That new word is resurrection! Hear that, contrary to what everyone expected that first Good Friday, death was not the end of the story of Jesus. Beyond the Cross, beyond Jesus’ descent into hell, beyond a stone rolled away from a tomb in the rock, stands a risen Lord. Hear again that, “He is not here, for he has been raised as he said.” Resurrection happened. And happens. The women who witnessed that first Easter, those who experienced the surge of joy when they fell down at Jesus’ feet and worshipped him, those who delivered Jesus’ message to his friends, those disciples who began to proclaim the good news to others, all of them suddenly realized that they were now living in a new reality. They were no longer living in the old reality of pain and death, but, because of what God had done in Jesus, they were now living in a new reality, a new reality of life and hope

Isn’t that the word you came to hear? My friends, we don’t always want to hear about resurrection! Lutheran theologian Karl Barth reminded us that resurrection is “a difficult, dark truth, and a word that can scarcely be tolerated by our ears.” Indeed, Barth said, we are “threatened by resurrection,” by the very thought that we need resurrection. We don’t want to admit that we are powerless, broken and sinful. We don’t want to face how short our lives are. We don’t want to admit that whatever we have comes to us not of our own efforts but by the grace of God. We don’t want to admit that we need God’s merciful rescue. But God says to us, “Rise up! You are dead, but I call you to live. I have already acted, I have triumphed!” “This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes,” shouts the psalmist. “Don’t be afraid,” says Jesus, “Go forward into new life.”

That new way of living, that new plane of life, that gift that God offers us through Jesus is truly ours. “So if you have been raised with Christ,” Paul writes to the Christians at Colossae, “seek the things that are above.” Actually, the first part of that command is declarative. And the word “above” doesn’t mean “up in the sky.” It means “beyond this world of pain and death.” What Paul declares to the Colossians is, “Since you have been raised with Christ, fix your minds on where Christ is now, i.e., beyond this world of pain and death.” And why can the Colossians do this? Because they have been baptized into Christ’s death. Since they have been raised with Christ in baptism, the Colossian Christians are now empowered by Christ to live in a way that is already “beyond” death. They are now an “Easter people,” and they can live knowing that loss, pain, and death are not the end of their story. They don’t have to live as if this life were all there were, they don’t have to numb their pain with addiction, they don’t have to be bound by outmoded traditions, and they don’t have to despair. Because their lives are now “hidden with Christ,” because they partake of Christ’s own risen life, they can live knowing that their identity is not bound up with this perishable world, and that earthly things do not demand their ultimate loyalty. They can live with hope, rejoicing in the knowledge that God in Christ has triumphed over all that would defeat them, and that they are now safe from the powers of darkness and death.

We too can live like the Colossians. As baptized people, we too are heirs to the hope that was born that Easter morning. Reverse your own descent into hell. Experience the shocking turn of events that occurred in that long ago dawn, and embrace that life-giving hope. Say, with the Colossians, “Yes, there is more to life than this earthly life.” We have been to Cross and the grave this week. Perhaps some of us are still carrying heavy crosses, or are still grieving painful losses. Two days ago, it was Friday. But now it is Sunday, it is Easter, and, once again we experience the miracle. We may not know how it happened, but we can still say with the women, “Yes, there is hope, and there is resurrection.” Our lives are now hidden with Christ in God. We no longer have to depend on our own efforts. We can trust in God’s saving power for the rest of our lives and beyond. We can sing “alleluia” with true joy.

And our Easter joy doesn’t end on the other side of the red doors. It doesn’t end with this day. We can celebrate the gift of our new life in Christ for fifty days: from today, through our celebration of Jesus’ Ascension, to his gift of the Holy Spirit in Pentecost. But we can also celebrate Jesus’ gift of new life every day. In a sense, every day is a gift of God, and every day gives us an opportunity to praise God for all that God has done for us. Every day gives us a chance to live with the certainty that life has conquered death.

e.e. cummings is one of my favorite poets. I began reading cummings’s poetry as a teenager – even before I knew anything about bluegrass music. I’ve liked his poem “i thank You God for most this amazing” for a long time, but I realized only recently that it is really about seeing Easter as a daily experience, about understanding that resurrection isn’t something we experience once a year in church but is ultimately part of all of God’s creation. Hear cummings’s reminder that God is “everything that is yes:”

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any -- lifted from the no
of all nothing -- human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

What could be more joyful news than God’s “yes” to us? This Easter day, may the ears of your ears awake to God’s promise, and may the eyes of your eyes see God at work in your life. Shout with me once again, “Alleluia, Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!”