WHILE IT WAS STILL DARK

A Sermon for Easter Day 2010

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleuia!

Christ is risen indeed – all around us! In the singing birds, in glorious trees, in the flowers that adorn gardens and churches. In the baptism of children - SEVEN of them, last night! In the hope and promise of new life that abides and abounds. Christ has died, yes, but Christ is risen! Death no longer holds Jesus. Death has no more power over him. This is the mystery of faith we as Christians proclaim. Dying and living. Suffering and rejoicing. Death and resurrection.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleuia!

Yes, new life is all around us. Day after spring day, resurrection is busting out all over, in plain view. But so is death. Death, also, is all around us. In Haiti and in Russia. In Michigan and in Maryland. In slums and in suburbs. In homes and schools, offices and churches. Death is also here, in plain view – and not just in all that terror and trauma we see so far away from us. Death is close at hand. That’s why we need resurrection. When we suffer the loss of a job or a loved one, when we lose our mobility or our dreams, where’s the resurrection we need? When we fear we can’t go on in this stress-addicted, orange-alert world, where’s the resurrection we need? When we’re angry with all those institutions we thought might give us some new life, especially when we grow older – when we are just plain fed up with the worlds of medicine, government, even religion. . . where’s the resurrection we need?

Those who have been to Haiti since the earthquake say they are overwhelmed by what they see. Destruction still holds that country in its grip. It’s unbelievable. What is also hard to believe, they say, is the attitude of the children. The children of Haiti laugh and sing! Part of us thinks, how dare they sing, when their lives likely will be so short? Is this an escape from their relentless tragedy? Another part of us wonders, What do they know that we do not? Can we get some of that?

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleuia!

Yes, Christ is risen, all around us. But is Christ risen IN us? Can we say, Christ is risen indeed, IN US? I wrote in the March newsletter that “Jesus is our vision.” I do believe that Jesus is all we need to see, all we need to be looking at, all we need to be looking for – as Christians, as a church. But if Jesus is our vision, we need to see Jesus more clearly, we need to look for Jesus more carefully, more lovingly. So . . . where’s Jesus? Where’s the risen Christ? Where’s the resurrection, the new life we need?

While it was still dark . . . Our story of resurrection, taken from the gospel of John, begins with those words. While it was still dark. Mary Magdalene and Peter and the “beloved disciple” (that’s John, the gospel writer) – they were all in the dark. Peter, in this account, sees evidence of resurrection, but it does not actually say that he believes. John, we are told, does believe, but he’s in a race with Peter to the tomb. Is that more about belief or ego? Mary Magdalene clearly believes, but she is in so much grief that it takes Jesus several attempts to convince her. Each one of them, each in their own way, is still in the dark.

When we look at yet a different version of the Easter story, the one we find in the gospel of Luke, we see there are only women at the tomb. They go to the disciples and tell those eleven men and all the rest about Jesus’ resurrection. But then, nothing happens. These words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them (Luke 24:11). They are still in the dark. And so are we. We are still in the dark. Each one of us, each in our own way.

This year, for the season of Lent my wife and I took on a new spiritual practice: watching television. Actually, we’ve been renting, watching and getting thoroughly hooked on a TV series no longer on the air, now on DVD. It’s called Joan of Arcadia. It’s the story of a high-school girl named Joan Girardi, a modern-day Joan of Arc. In this show, as in the real life of that 15th century saint, God keeps showing up. Every day, God is revealed to Joan in someone else. The lyrics to the show’s theme song begin, “What if God were one of us?” Sometimes God is someone she’s seen before. More often than not, God shows up in someone Joan never expected. A punk rocker. A dog walker. A dreamboat of a guy. One cute little girl. She never knows where or in whom she will find God.

Joan is always in the dark. She has no clue how God will appear to her on any given day. She argues and gets angry with God about this. Even more frustrating, God tells Joan to do things that make no sense. She is totally in the dark about why God tells her to join the debate team or take piano lessons, to volunteer with troubled children or to care for her brothers or mother or father.

Joan is in the dark, but somehow, she tries to trust God and to do the things God wants her to do. And she keeps helping God create new life, even in the darkness. Through Joan, a debater with a speech problem discovers his own voice. Through Joan, a piano teacher finds her way back from the depths of depression to reclaim her musical gifts. Through Joan, her parents and siblings realize how hard it is to live in a new place with so few friends. They find new life in learning just how much they really need each other.

On this glorious Easter Day, the sun is shining brightly, but we are still in the dark. The Good News is that being in the dark is OK. Peter and Mary and John were in the dark. Teenagers and adults and children of all ages are in the dark. And it doesn’t matter. Even when we are in the dark, even when we’re clueless, God still comes and speaks to us. The Good News is that God in Christ IS risen, IN US. The Good News is that, like the children of Haiti, we can still laugh and sing.

Dear All Saints’ family, dear people of God, Christ is alive and risen – even in the likes of us! In each one of us. Each in our own way. Even when we’re in the dark. Can you and I actually believe that? If we can, that’s all the resurrection – that’s all the new life we need, this Easter Day and every day of our lives.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleuia!