Henrietta United Church of Christ

Scripture: John 20, dramatized

Mary: Hi, I'm Mary Magdalene. Some would say I was Jesus’ most loyal follower. I do believe I was Jesus’ most distraught follower the weekend of Jesus’ death. I stayed and watched Jesus’ life slowly, slowly drain from his body with every agonizing breath. The men couldn’t take it–they all ran away. That terrible sight of Jesus helplessly hanging on the cross was burned into my memory and seared into my heart.

Early Sunday morning, the other women and I went to the tomb to wrap Jesus body with spices, which was our custom. We hadn't been able to do this Friday evening or Saturday because of the Jewish Sabbath. When we got to the tomb, my deep sadness turned to shock. The heavy round stone had been rolled away, and Jesus’ body was gone! Not only had his enemies tortured his body to death, but now they had taken away his right to a decent burial! This was more than I could bear. I ran to get Peter and John, sobbing all the way.

John: I'm John. When Mary came and told us that Jesus’ tomb was empty, I ran like I have never run before! I'm not sure what I thought. Grave robbery, or maybe Mary had made a mistake and gone to the wrong tomb. When I got to Jesus’ tomb, it sure was empty. My head was spinning in confusion. Then Peter caught up, and as usual he rushed right into the tomb!

Peter: As I ran to the tomb, all I could think of was that mob of thugs who came to arrest Jesus in the garden. They had probably stolen his body! I was furious! Jesus hadn’t wanted us to fight for him that night in the garden, so what could we do about it? But when I got there something made me wonder if that really was what happened. I didn't know what to do. So I just said to John, "Come on, let's go." And we went back home.

John: I went home with Peter, but my feeling was somewhat different. I thought about the way the grave clothes were lying--mostly in a pile except for the head cloth which was rolled up, off by itself. I can't tell you why, but somehow I knew this wasn't the doing of grave robbers. This was much bigger, and much better than that. I kept my thoughts to myself. I wouldn't have been able to explain it to Peter anyway.

Mary: And I sat down in a heap and began wailing and crying. Jesus was the only person who had ever really loved me. His love was so big, it had opened up my heart, my soul, my mind...my whole life. Now he was gone, and I couldn't even give him a decent burial. Then I heard someone come up to me. I thought it was the gardener, and I asked him if he had seen what had happened to the body. But he spoke my name: “Mary.” I peered through my tears. It was Jesus! Even after everything that had happened, somehow he was alive and with us! I felt his comforting presence stronger than I had ever felt it before! He told me to go and tell the others what I had seen--to be a witness. I couldn't wait to tell Peter and John!

Peter: Unfortunately, we didn't know what to think of Mary's story. It did seem pretty far-fetched.

John: But then we had an experience similar to Mary's! Jesus appeared to us in a room where we had gathered later that day. The doors were locked, because we were all afraid Jesus’ enemies might come after us too. But suddenly, there he was in our midst! Thomas wasn't with us.

Peter: When we tried to tell Thomas what had happened, we knew how Mary must have felt trying to tell us about her experience. It's not easy to believe that death isn’t...you know, death!

Thomas: I was raised to be a questioner. I don't believe things just because someone else says it's true. So Jesus invited me to touch him for myself. I really appreciated that. But then I was as ready to help spread the Good News like all of the others.

Because of what happened, we weren't afraid of anything any more! We had been through the worst, and God had changed the worst thing into the best thing that had ever happened! Even the threat of being persecuted and killed couldn't hold us back now. Jesus had taken onto himself the worst evil human beings could dish out, and he had come back victorious over death itself! We were ready to spread the good news to everyone! We wanted them to experience this same amazing joy and freedom that we had found. It was like being reborn!

We hope you come to taste it and feel it for yourselves today. It’s really true! There is nothing to fear. Because Christ is alive, we can be fully alive too!

Sermon:

The Easter story we just heard may not be that appealing for people who just want a cheerful spring holiday that focuses on spring flowers, new clothes and chocolate crosses. This Easter story happened to people whose hopes had just been shattered by Jesus’ brutal death at the hands of the authorities. Their faith had been severely shaken by God’s failure to rescue His own Son from this unspeakable atrocity. Their hearts had been broken by losing such a powerful source of love, life and truth. Their lives had been plunged into fear and despair.

Now I happen to be very grateful for spring flowers, I don’t mind trading my dark winter clothes for a colorful new look, and you know me--I’ll eat chocolate crosses, bunnies, or any other form they make it in. But those things don’t help me a bit when my hope gets pummeled by life’s tragedies, when my faith falters, when my heart gets wounded, or when death casts its pall over my life. I need this Easter story. Do you?

As Jesus’ amazed followers looked at their risen Lord and listened to him and even touched him, the words that he had said before his death suddenly took on a compelling new power. “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26). “In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:2). The risen Christ was a visible, tangible bridge between this mortal world of suffering, injustice, loss, and fear, and the eternal realm of indescribable hope, love, peace, and joy. As Jesus had told them before, “In this world you have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Jesus had triumphed over tribulation, suffering, and death itself. If they were in him and he was in them, they knew that they could too.

You see, the Easter story is not just about a remarkable thing that happened to Jesus–at least one person made it out of the grave; good for him. The Easter story is also about the remarkable thing that happens to anyone who lets that story get inside them, and who lets the Risen Christ call forth their spirit from the dark tomb of hopelessness and fear. After Jesus’ followers saw the risen Christ who had triumphed over death, they began to see themselves and each other, not just as sinful mortals, but also as spiritual sons and daughters of the eternal God. They courageously stood up to the oppressive political system of their day, because they realized it held no power whatsoever over their essence or their final destiny. And they were no longer satisfied by scrambling for their own security and pursuing their own comfort. Now their life purpose was to embody and create as fully as they could something of heaven’s love, heaven’s peace, and heaven’s joy on earth. In a world of rampant prejudice, divisions and oppression, they set about creating communities of extraordinary unity, compassion, forgiveness, healing, and shalom.

They now lived in this world while knowing they were not of this world. And so their lives also became a bridge between this earthly realm and eternity. In their fearlessness, compassion, all-embracing love and irrepressible joy, they were rehearsing their own resurrection. That is to say, they were living in the world as eternal beings created in the image of God. This way of living was so contagious, it attracted many, many others to do the same. In fact, the more they were persecuted, the more obvious it was how free their spirits were from fear and oppression. Their faith spread like wildfire.

Would you like to live something like that, as you deal with your own self doubts, anxieties, troubles, losses, and fears? We can, you know, because the same truth that they discovered 2000 years ago is just as true today. As a matter of fact, it is being rediscovered all the time by people today who are open to a dimension of reality that is mostly, but not entirely, hidden from our earthly eyes. The truth is, there is a love that is greater than all our human failures and sins. There is a life that triumphs over death. There is a light that nothing in all creation can extinguish.

Paul said that we can perceive this truth only dimly, but then we will behold it face to face. I recently read a description of that face to face encounter that we’ll all eventually experience once we leave our earthly bodies behind. This description comes from a book by Neale Donald Walsch, titled Home with God in a Life That Never Ends. This book is a continuation of his Conversations with God series. In all of these books, Walsch has conversations with a higher wisdom that is beyond his own personal consciousness, and that he understands to be God. I wouldn’t ordinarily put a lot of stock in books that claim to be co-authored by God. But much of what is recorded in these books echoes so much of what Jesus taught us about God, and what deep pray-ers, mystics, ordinary people, myself, and people who have had near death experiences experience of God.

So, let me share what Walsch hears God saying about what awaits us when our bodies die. In the book God describes the stages that souls go through, which largely reflect their own expectations, attitudes, and openness to God’s Light and Love. But eventually, when the soul is ready, every soul moves closer and closer to a powerfully warm, glowing spiritual Light that seems to fill everything.

[This Light] is radiating pure love, and the soul before it experiences what can only be described as an enveloping sense of being ... covered.

Imagine a pancake being covered in warm syrup, or ice cream being covered in warm chocolate. It feels like that. It feels like a flow of sweet heat to the...soul. It is a gentle warmth, covering the soul entirely.

Together with this heat comes a feeling for which there is no single word in the world of physical sensation. It is the feeling of being seen, utterly and completely. Nothing can now be hidden, nothing can now be overlooked or missed, nothing can escape notice. Everything "good" and everything "bad" that the soul may have thought of itself is now spread before it, and, astonishingly, all of it—the "bad" and the "good"—is slowly being absorbed by the Light ... ("accepted as its own," is how it feels) ...through a kind of energy osmosis that melts even the smallest sense of shame or pride, leaving the soul with a beautiful emptiness, holding nothing at all within itself, and experiencing nothing at all of itself, save Openness.

Now, into this Openness where shame and pride once coexisted, a new feeling is being poured. First it felt as if the outside of the soul was being covered, now it feels as if the inside of the soul is being filled....A feeble attempt would call it the feeling of being warmly embraced, deeply comforted, dearly cherished, profoundly appreciated, genuinely treasured, softly nurtured, profoundly understood, completely forgiven, wholly absolved, long awaited, happily welcomed, totally honored, joyously celebrated, absolutely protected, instantly perfected, and unconditionally loved—all at once.

Releasing without the slightest hesitation or regret any and all sense of individual selfhood, the soul moves into the Light. There, it is submerged in something so wondrous that it loses all desire to ever know anything else, melting into the breathtaking glory of unending magnificence, unparalleled beauty, and unequaled completeness of being.¹

God goes on to explain that this state of pure completeness and oneness with God lasts as long as the soul wants it to. But eventually, the soul desires to experience itself as an individual again, because it is the nature of Spirit not only to be, but also to become, to create, to express itself. And so the cycle moves back into the phase we call “birth.”

On some level, we have a deep, distant memory of being filled with God and at home in God. This is why we feel something deep awakening in us when we believe and trust that, in spite of all our failures and mistakes, God loves us unconditionally as God’s beloved child. That feels like home to our souls. That’s why we feel a deep sense of purpose when we live out of our true divine nature of love, creativity, generosity, wisdom, and forgiveness. That’s why we feel a deep sense of power when we realize that we aren’t the victims of any circumstance, but that we are the creators of much of our own experience–through our beliefs, assumptions, attitudes and responses to any situation. This is why some people who “have it all” live in perpetual anxiety, inner loneliness, and emptiness, while others who have next to nothing live in gratitude, generosity and joy.

In this world we will have tribulation. Where are you experiencing trouble, anxiety, loss, or injustice these days? Will we be defeated by it, or will we take heart and see that Jesus has overcome the world, and realize that when he is in us and we are in him we can overcome it too? We too can be a visible, tangible bridge between this mortal world and eternity. As we face temptations, trials, losses, and injustices, we too can take heart, rehearse our resurrection, and manifest the eternal Truth of who we are when we are in Christ and he is in us.

So I invite you to begin rehearsing your resurrection today, and practice it every day of your mortal life.

When self doubts or shame come up in your mind, don’t show them a seat and invite them to live with you! They have no real Truth in them. You are supposed to learn by trial and by error, as you wrestle with the temptations and losses and limitations of this world. Remember who you are and Whose you are–and that nothing in life or death or all creation can separate you from the love of God. Nothing. So let yourself be forgiven and loved just as you are, by God and by your holy, precious self. That’s rehearsing your resurrection

When someone else bugs the heck out of you or hurts you, don’t invite hatred or vengeance to take up residence in your mind and heart. Seething anger and resentment poison your own body, mind and spirit. The person who hurt you is also learning by trial and error, and will have to deal with the consequences of his or her actions, even if on a level you can’t see. If others have forgotten who they really are, you can bless both them and yourself by remembering that they have a God-created soul hidden inside them. Which is more likely to call forth that hidden part of them–your blaming judgments of how bad they are, or your steadfast belief in their higher potential?

We can also rehearse our resurrection by opening ourselves to all of life, accepting it all, embracing it all, even loving it all–the hard parts as well as the joyful ones. It’s all part of a plan that is beyond our understanding now, but not beyond it forever. Each gift of life is an opportunity to savor and to share. Each challenge is an opportunity to stretch and grow. Each mistake is an opportunity to learn. Each heartache is an opportunity to open in compassion for the world’s suffering, and discover the force of life and love that is deeper then pain or loss. Creation Each world problem, each social injustice, each assault on creation, each “military solution,” is a call to us to envision a higher order, and to manifest our God-given wisdom, vision, and courage, so that we can become like leaven in the loaf, and help it rise a little higher.

Mary Magdalene, Peter, John, Thomas, and all of Jesus’ followers had felt like powerless victims of oppressive domination, victims of human selfishness and sin, and victims of the relentless ultimate destroyer--death. When the victorious risen Christ appeared to them, he blew all of that away. He stood as a visible, tangible bridge between this mortal world and another realm. This wasn’t so they could hunker down and longingly wait to be taken away from this world in the sweet by and by. It was so they would take heart and have the courage to do as he himself had done all of his earthly life–rehearse his resurrection by bringing into this mortal world some of God’s eternal love, eternal truth, eternal vision, and eternal power to make things new.

“In this world you have tribulation,” Jesus told them. “But take heart; I have overcome the world.” By following Jesus in rehearsing our resurrection, we can follow Jesus in the heavenly business of overcoming and transforming this world, beginning right where we are.