Easter thoughts

If there was ever a day for our church to celebrate and laugh and have a party, today is the day!

Today is Easter, the day we celebrate the fact that God changed the rules of a broken world by bringing Jesus back to life. God’s power is greater than death, greater than evil, greater than human wisdom and power! Jesus Christ is alive today! He lives in the power of God!

And our hope and trust is in what Paul wrote to the Ephesians long ago:

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

God’s power lives in us! That Easter power is for US who believe!

It’s a great thought…but what does it look like?

I asked several people over e-mail this week just that question. What does Easter hope look like in day-to-day life? I’d like to read what two of them wrote as we begin our Easter celebration today. Maybe the words of one of them will speak to you today.

From Mary Lou Willett:

I’ve been walking with a friend who has a pretty horrendous past.  As she was telling me about it, I thought: “I don’t really care what she did before except maybe for getting it behind her.”  Then I thought about that as it relates to all of us: Jesus does not care about our pasts; He’s forgotten it; our relationship today is what matters.  All those wrongs and the ones I do daily are all on the cross.  So I am FREE to work on and think about my walk with God.  We were given the humanness of Jesus---that personal connection--Grace---Love--Freedom---Hope.  “ I have come that you may have life”--abundant life.

But, as you ask, how does that play out in my life? I think it’s the quiet awareness, confidence, and reassurance that God is with me.  It is the sense that whatever I’m doing–like driving while absorbing the beauty around me, thinking about whatever, listening to the radio–all the while being aware that God is there at work within me, praying for me, leading me, changing me.  It is the serenity of knowing from experiences in my past that He will  walk me through whatever I have to go through  and that I have nothing to fear.  It’s LOVE --having it and sharing it with others.

From Matt Kaufman:

Your question got me thinking of my experience two years ago at Surfside. It was during my first year at [my job], and due to work-imposed constraints I wasn't able to do what was planned for me and instead I just was there to hang out and help.

Anyway, I had the opportunity to gradually meet with one of the highschoolers who was there that week who didn't think that I, or especially God, would accept her for being who she was (colorful language was just the start).  As the week went on her questions got more specific and personal and I just answered the best I could.  This all culminated on the last night of camp where she wanted to go home, but I convinced her to talk to me for a while before she did.  

We talked for over two hours and it was the most vivid experience I have ever had of God reclaiming one of his children.  It was INTENSE, a real curtain-ripping experience where all the barriers are ripped away and God makes himself known in an awesome Old Testament “fear the Lord” sort of way.

Now this sprung to mind for multiple reasons, but the main one is I think sometimes we get sucked into thinking that God is a boring old gatekeeper who waits for us to use a heaven-entrance ticket.  This was a God-in-power experience where he ninja-kicked everything out of his way to rescue someone that was His.  I am a pretty practical person, and I think that there are a lot of coincidences that get spun into more of a story, but there is no doubt in my mind that I was at camp and had a crappy week just so this one girl could be saved at the end.  That is pretty amazing.  

It might become general or boring to think of the Easter story as just part of God's plan, with God being boring or sidelined and going through the motions.  It is easy to forget the lengths that God will go to reclaim a lost sheep.

These reasons and so many more are why Easter is worth celebrating! Jesus is alive!

Do you remember what it was like to play as a child?

I watch my kids sometimes, and I remember. I remember starting off on some play-acting with no idea how it was going to end up, and absolutely loving it when I could change the plot lines in bizarre ways.

I could almost die a hundred times in an afternoon, and still come out on top. I would count down the final seconds of a playoff basketball game…5….4…the ball in my hands…3…2 ready to make the final shot to win…1…and miss. But wait! The ball careens off the rim…3/4 second, off the head of the defender…1/2 second… I get it…1/4 second…shoot…IT GOES IN!!! Right at the buzzer!

If things don’t work out how you like, you just figure a way to keep changing the scenario until it does work out right!

One of my favorite comics has someone who is the master of crazy plotlines [CLICK Slide]

Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes is the master.

“Here comes Mr. Jones out of his attractive suburban home. He hops in his red sports car. Off he goes to work. 80…90…100 miles an hour! [PAUSE]

ALONG THE EDGE OF THE GRAND CANYON! Suddenly his steering locks and his brakes fail! He careens over the edge! Oh no! Down he goes! His only hope is to climb out the sunroof and jump! Maybe, just maybe, he can grab a branch and save himself! He unwinds the sunroof! Can he make it??

NO! The car explodes in mid-air, propelling millions of tiny shards into the stratosphere! KABLOOIE! [PAUSE]

The neighbors hear the echoing boom across the canyon. They pile into a minivan to investigate. What will happen to them?”

And you just know Calvin will come up with something even more bizarre.

If we weren’t so familiar with it, the story of Easter would sound a whole lot like one of Calvin’s elaborate, imaginary role-plays.

Imagine, say, trying to sell the story of Jesus to a movie producer.

“Ok, so, the hero is a guy who says to love your enemies, give people the coat right off your back, who constantly refuses to let people make him a king or a ruler.”

Huh. Exciting hero.

“No, wait, it does get exciting! He comes into town, and the whole town gives him this huge parade, they’re shouting, they love him, it’s great!”

Ok, now we’re getting somewhere! Then he becomes king, right?

“Uh, actually, no. Four nights later he gets arrested at night, and the next day he gets convicted in a trial on trumped up charges.”

That’s a plot twist.

“Yeah, but he’s not guilty! He’s completely innocent!”

Cool! So, there’s like a great trial scene, where he stands up for himself and shows where they’re wrong?

“Well, no. He doesn’t say a thing, he doesn’t defend himself. The crowd shouts for him to die, and the false charges stick.”

No courtroom drama, huh? I’m not getting this.

“It gets better. The next day, they take him out of the city for the execution, and…”

Oh! I get it! Like one of the old westerns, huh? Somebody comes riding in on a white horse and rescues him in the nick of time? Some unexpected trick shooter or something?

“Well, no. No one rescues him. He cries out for help, but...he just…dies.”

He just dies?

“He just dies.”

GREAT story. Sure. Why exactly is he a hero? I don’t get this at all.

“Well, see, NOW it gets kinda crazy. They bury the body…”

Yeah, THAT’S crazy. Bury a dead guy. Sheesh.

“…they bury the body, and the bad guys remember he said he’d come back to life, so they put guards by the grave.”

Oh please. This is getting ridiculous.

“No, hang with me here! They put guards by the grave, but it doesn’t do any good, because this angel comes, and the guy comes back to life, and the guards get knocked out, and…”

So now we got guys in white robes with wings flying around? And the boring dead guy comes back to life? Is he finally gonna go knock some heads and become king?

“No…no. This one woman is the only one who sees him at first, and then he appears to a couple of his friends, but some of them don’t believe at first, and then they do, and then after 40 days he goes back to heaven.”

So he just comes back to life and hangs out with his friends? No battle? No big finale? Why would anybody care about this story, let alone believe it?

“Because, see, because this guy coming back to life means everyone in the world can live differently. Everybody in the world now doesn’t have to be afraid of death because he’s broken the power of death. It’s great news!”

Look, thanks for wasting my time. Don’t let the door hit you on the backside on the way out.

Maybe it sounds a little bit weird for a pastor to be talking about how crazy and ridiculous the story of Easter sounds.

But I think we need to face the fact that we believe something that doesn’t fit the way our world works at all. The way Jesus came back to life, the way we who follow him have staked our whole lives on the fact that Jesus’ death and resurrection make all the difference in the world to us…I think we ought to be honest with ourselves and everybody and say that it is little bit hard to swallow. It’s not exactly the most logical way God could have gone about helping us.

From his birth in a stable to an unwed mother…to the audacious claim that this man executed by the political authorities in a small Middle Eastern country is the savior of the world; from start to finish, the life of Jesus is the tale of the unexpected.

And I’m not the only one who has noticed. In fact, Saint Paul, the one responsible for dozens of churches beginning around the known world of the first century, put the foolishness of the cross front and center in his message to the Corinthians, as we read together earlier.

But there is power in this craziness, friends!

The reason we are here today, the reason we exist as a church, is that the power that burst forth long ago, emptying Jesus’ tomb and breathing new life into broken hearts is a power that still shakes and quakes our lives today.

The whole story of Jesus goes against everything that is normal and expected and logical in the world we live in. It’s flat-out crazy according to the everyday rules of common sense.

But I stand with Paul to shout out loud that what seems crazy and foolish is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

It’s not the way we would have done it in our wisdom. It is not what we desire, because I think most of us would love a story that made more sense, where Jesus in much more dramatic fashion conquered the bad guys instead of meekly suffering and dying.

But this is the center of our faith. This event is the hinge pin of the cosmos. For us who are being saved, God’s power is at work against the normal and expected and inevitable pain in our world, and God’s power will completely overcome it.

Our joy this morning is seen as naïve and foolish by those who are looking for a spirituality that makes sense in the world we live in.

Our trust and our hope is in a God who died. Paul invites us to look hard, look right at the ridiculousness of the scandal of the message he is bringing. In fact, he resolved to speak nothing else to the Corinthians and to us than this foolish cross.

These Corinthians are people who are a mess. They squabble among themselves, live immoral lives, and complain that Paul is a foolish preacher without much sophistication or wisdom.

They want something that makes sense, that impresses them, something new and novel that will make them feel oh-so-important for unraveling the mysteries of spirituality, and Paul isn’t cutting it. They want Paul to preach better, to come up with wisdom that will impress their friends. They want a faith that is palatable and understandable to share with others.

And Paul says controlling and managing and understanding a spirituality like that will be death.

We don’t need a faith that makes sense in the world we live in, because the world we live in is destroying us while we are in the middle of destroying it.

What we need is a power outside the death-bound rules of destruction. What we need is an unexpected God who can join this world, submit to its rules of death, and overcome it with an outside power that cannot be stopped.

This is the Easter faith we celebrate-a trust and a hope and a confidence that this foolish, alien way of going about our salvation leads to a power to change our lives.

Have you lived in this power?

Or are you looking for a nice, logical, systematic faith that gets summed up in cute phrases and logical statements?

If we can give up our need for God to make sense to this world that is destroying us…if we can give up our need for the new, the novel, the words that will impress us and make sense to us…if we can get past our offense and stomach the nonsense…then we can start living in the power of God.

Easter is not just a crazy story. Because of Easter, God’s power has been unleashed in the world, and can come and live in you and in me.

We serve a God who is outside the constraints of our broken world!

And his power can live and breathe in us!

Oh, God, may the message of the cross of Christ not be blocked by our wanting something fancier! May the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ come in power to our lives today! Help us live in Easter hope and power, Lord Jesus Christ!