Easter Redux

Morning Dawns

Darkness

Then light

A new day

In the garden

They hid

As the light grew

The image of the sacred

Was damaged, twisted

Lost in a bite

A craving

On too many days I wake

And it seems

As if I am hiding in that paradise

Living another day lost

Life lost in the living

In the trudging down the same path

Trudging, trudging across the same beaten ground

Yet with each dawn

I can celebrate one who rose with the dawn

To bring back

That deeply hidden

Created to be me

Image of God

Rebirthed

Rescued

Reborn

Rebirthed

Remade

Reconciled

Renewed

Each morning I can rise with the dawn

And looking in the mirror

See a hint

Of my original face

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If anyone is in Christ, that person is a new creation! (or perhaps a "renewed creation" )

Back in the Garden again!

Easter is about change -  Radical change

Obviously.  Think about the resurrection.  What is the resurrection all about?

Well it is about the resurrection of Jesus, Jesus coming to life after being really really dead!

That’s change.

It is about our resurrection.  I think many of us think of Easter in terms of life after life.  It means the end we call death is not an end.  Another big change.

But today I want to think about what Easter means for us now!

Not in terms of what it meant for Jesus

Not in terms of heaven -  not in terms of hope for life after death

But now - today – day by day

I think we get a great clue as to what this change is about in the setting of the stories about Easter morning.  Where does it all take place?  John tells us, it’s a garden.  And in fact there is a wonderful little story about Mary Magdalene and Jesus in the garden

Mary comes to the garden and finds the tomb empty

She panics, for a moment, and then she sees him…..Here Jesus is… the risen Lord!

This is amazing, impressive wonderful stuff!  Wow, a dead person back to life!

And…She has no idea who he is!

“Say, you!  Do you work here?”  “I’m looking for Jesus in aisle 3”

She sees Jesus, but she doesn’t see him.  She thinks he is the help.  A gardener

That actually makes me smile.  Imagine being the risen Jesus.  The most amazing miracle ever has happened.  You present yourself to someone you knew very very well, and they don’t even know its you!

But the big point is the emphasis John puts on the fact this is a garden… with a gardener.

Where else do we have a garden play a big part in the story?  Right at the beginning.  In the garden of Eden, back where everything goes wrong  --  back where the choice of humanity wreaked havoc upon creation.  In the garden things went wrong.   Now in the garden, things get set right

Paul puts it this way in Romans 5:   “For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!”

The resurrection of Jesus reverses the garden of Eden.  Just as through one man, death, so through one man life.  Through the cross,  God  is working to reclaim us, working to make us the people we were created to be

The point of the cross isn’t forgiveness, although that is one step in the process.

Forgiveness leads to something bigger….restoration

God isn’t just interested in the covering of our sins.  God wants to make us into the people we were originally created to be.  It’s not just the removal of what’s being held against us, it is God pulling us into the people God originally had in mind when he made us…

Paul talks about the old man, and the old woman,  and as we heard earlier, he talks about new creations

Because of Easter we are new creations.  Or perhaps it might be equally valid to say we become “renewed creations”.  Christ died and rose, and we die to that old self, and that new self, which is really our original self is born.  The old self dies with Christ, but our created to be self, our authentic self, our real self is  resurrected

This means essentially, that we can be, ourselves.  So first, we no longer have to beat ourselves up over all the things we are not, and all the things we are not doing, and all the things we are doing poorly, this it the forgiveness part.

But second, we are being restored.

Our sin, our weaknesses, the twistedness of our being is, in a real way no longer an issue

Old person Gone!  New person here!

Now

Rebirthed

Resurrected

Rescued

Reborn

Rebirthed

Remade

Reconciled

Renewed

Yes, we may still make mistakes at times

We may stumble.  No, not may, will

The old person will come back from the dead for a few moments

But we admit it --Confess it… the cross says we are forgiven

We let it go

and move on…

God made us in God’s image

We were created to reflect the beautify and creativity and wonder of God

Somewhere in us is that person, the person we were created to be

Jesus calls us to return to our true selves

And the cross, and Easter

Says we can do just that

And Christ died that the first you.  The original you

The created to be you…Can be!

Yes, the image of God is deeply scared in each of us. But in the cross and the resurrection God shows God’s ability to bring that created to be self back to life.  The ability, the power God has to repair, raise up the scarred and broken image

Because the cross is not about our accomplishments, its about God’s love.  It is not about our earning our way into God’s good graces.  It is not about us leveraging our works and our righteousness so that we can look down, in any way on other people.  It is about us knowing that we aren’t worthy, but about us accepting the good news that in spite of that - we are accepted, and loved.  And that through the cross, we have a chance.  Moment by moment, to be who we were created to be. 

We have the chance, because of what Christ has done, to just be, our First selves –

no longer at the mercy of other people,

or the pressures of the world, or hate, and greed, and bias, and anger…

We have a chance to be so secure in our relationship with God,

that we can dare to give, and forgive, and care, and listen.

And that is truly new!

Thoughts on Good Friday

The crucifixion seems like an odd way

For god to save the world.

I can think of many other ways God could have done it…

So why this way?

Why the cross?

The cross that is such a ridiculous plan that Paul called it a scandal

It may be odd, but when I think of the cross I think of an AA meeting.  If you’ve ever been to one you know that it is like.  An AA meeting is a room full of people who are done pretending.  There are no facades, there is not acting.  And it is overwhelmingly powerful.  Everybody in that room is in recovery and they all know each other’s games.  You are there because you have hit bottom, at least most of the time, and you need others who know how it feels.

Ann Lamott says that the most powerful sermon in the world is two words:  me too

The cross, in a way is God saying, me too.

I am with you, all the way

Not partially

Not is an abridged manner

I am with you all the way

All the way through pain, rejection, loneliness,

Sin, alienation, ridicule, and yes, death

Me too

When you are struggling

When you are hurting

Wounded, imping, doubting

Questioning , barely hanging on

Moments away from another failure

God says, me too

And we know, because of the crucifixion

That those words are true.

magnificent defeat

I always loved a parade

But today I stand

Surrounded by the flotsam 

Torn cloaks and beaten branches

Dust and rocks

and the empty echoes of excited shouts

Hooray! We had cried

Here he comes!  He is on his way!

The miracle man!

The one!

Here's the one who will set things straight.... VOTE FOR HIM!

A vote for him is a vote for Jewish values!

He'll be tough on our enemies!

We shouted

Danced

And generally made fools of ourselves

For what?  A scruffy guy from the sticks

Riding on a baby donkey, for God's sake!

 

He smiled gently

and simply moved down the road

down the road into confrontation

rejection

betrayal

into the shadows

 

Lord I am confused!

I thought I knew what you were about O God

and now I am confused

I am less sure about everything

About you.  About what you stand for and how you work

About myself, who I am, and who I am called to be!

 

So I stand in the dust

and gaze after one small figure

as it moves through the dust

toward the darkness

 

dazed and confused

I wonder

 

Perhaps it is time to quit trying to figure it out

and just follow

just follow

down that road

into the hungering dark

into that magnificent defeat

 

 

When it comes to faith, its OK to have questions!

Today was Palm Sunday.  Most of us know the story of this day.  Many of us have heard it every year for a life time.  It’s a familiar story.  About Jesus, and palms.  About a donkey and adoring crowds.

The Bible is full of stories.  And I am going to say something that I happen to believe, and happen to believe is very important.  That we make a mistake if we think these stories are just stories about times long long ago.  They are not

Yes, they are stories that reflect historical realities

But they are also stories about now, today, they are our stories

That is the way the Bible is.  Think about another big story, the story of Adam and Eve.  Is the great truth about Adam and Eve and the fruit that it happened, or that it happens?  This story, one of the first in the Bible is true for us to a great degree because it is our story.  Isn’t it?  We have all taken the fruit.  We have all crossed boundaries.  We have all made choices, and then later looked back and said to ourselves… are you kidding?!!  What was I thinking?

Their story is our story.  We see ourselves in them.  The story is true for us because it happened, and it explains a lot about why the world is the way it is  --but it also explains the way the world is – now.  It is an accurate description of our lives.  And we can put ourselves in that story….

So I started to think about the Palm Sunday story….From my perspective….

I decided to try and make it my story, and see where that kind of dynamic interchange with the living word took me.  Now mind you… this means it is very much my way of thinking.   My perspective….

But that is always how it is when one preaches.  I am just giving you my interpretation….

So here goes…

It is the week before Passover in Jerusalem and the city is crammed with people from all over.

Jerusalem is where all the action takes place.   And this is the week that celebrated what the Romans feared worst, revolt.  Passover fueled the hope of the Jewish people that God was going to do to the Romans exactly what God did to the Egyptians who enslaved their ancestors.  That with huge signs and wonders and with a mighty arm God would send the Romans back to Italy with their tails between their legs…

But who would be God’s new king to do this???

Enter Jesus and his gang.  The disciples are so excited about entering the city, they are telling everyone -

“This guy is it!  This guy is the one you have been waiting for!  He’s coming!  Come on!  He’s coming!”

And the crowd is whipped into a frenzy! I mean, people are cutting of branch from trees and throwing them down on the road like he’s royalty…In essence people are laying out a red carpet for Jesus to walk down.  In fact people are literally taking off their clothes and throwing them down where Jesus will be riding in.  It’s Jesus mania and the crowd is amped up.

Then, he makes his GRAND ENTRANCE!  Here comes the King!

But…. he doesn’t look and act much like “the king”

It a little confusing….. “Look, your king’s on his way, poised and ready, mounted …

On a stallion?   On a war horse?   On a chariot?  Nope!  On a donkey, on a baby donkey

And the whole crowd is saying, “Hooray! Hooray!  … then…

Wait, who is this?  I thought he was that powerful miracle man?  Who is this guy?”

As Eugene Peterson’s version of the Gospel of Matthew says, “All of Jerusalem was UNNERVED.“

And this is where I come in.  Jesus passes, and after the enthusiasm, I am standing there, with the flotsam of the parade lying around me, and I am like totally bummed.  I don’t like being unnerved. I like my nerves exactly where they are.  I like being able to feel like I have it all figured out.  But Jesus has thrown me a curve.  And I find I have no idea what is going on!

So I can just picture myself standing there at the side of the road on Palm Sunday

I’ve gotten into it!  I have bought into Jesus mania

Maybe I’ve tossed my best coat our there for Jesus to ride over

Or maybe I’ve been a crazy fool, scrambled up a tree, cut branches

And laid them out….

But then the moment comes -  and it’s just this guy from Nazareth, riding on a stupid donkey..

So this is how this story is my story.  Me trying to define God and his action.  And God in Christ, being way too big for my attempts.

This is the amazing, annoying, unsettling thing about Jesus:  At every turn Jesus defies my assumptions about God.  and makes me throw out what I think I know about who God is, and how God thinks, and how God acts, and how God feels.  Jesus makes me re-evaluate everything that I ever thought about God. 

It is often like that with Jesus and I.  Jesus, is often unnerving me….. Switching things around

Just when I think I have got Jesus figured out… surprise

Just when I think I have got life figured out, a little, surprise

Just when I think I know where things are headed

When I think I know where I am headed

Just when I think I have made the right decisions… surprise

Jesus it appears, will continually disrupt my assumptions about God

I never know where God is going to take me.  How God is going to work in my life.  Ever work that way for you?

If were standing by the road outside Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, I would have been dazed and confused

I would have felt less certain about who God was, less certain about what God was up to….

Perhaps that is how it should always be.  Remember the story where Moses asks God for his name ?  Moses wants certainty.  He wants to be able to put a label on God.  God replies… “I am”  Or some would say “I am who I am”.  Helpful huh ?!  It is as if God were saying… “If your goal is to figure me out, and get me defined, it is not going to happen!”

Palm Sunday would have left me with more questions than answers.  And frankly that is OK!

Rob Bell suggests that Questioning God is central to the Christian experience.   “Not belligerent, arrogant questions that have not respect for our maker,” he notes, “ but naked, honest, vulnerable, raw questions, arising out of the awe that comes from engaging the living God.” 

“This kind of questioning” he states, “frees us.  Frees us from having to have it all figured out.  Frees us from having answers to everything.  Frees us from always having to be right.  It allows us to have moment when we come to the end of our ability to comprehend.’

With God we will always come to “the end of our ability to comprehend.”  God is huge!  The way God works is rooted in his very INFINITE nature.  They second we think we have God defined, we no longer have God.  And so in our lives with God, we seek answers.  But even though we get answers, we will never run out of questions.  We get answers.  But those answers only plunge us into even more questions.

Bell gives this example!

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.  So why did God give his son?

Because God loves the world?  But what does it mean for God to love the world?  Does God love evil people?  Mean people?  People who don’t think that God exists?  People who think that God loves only them?  And why does God love the world? What motivates God to love like this? 

John would say because God is love….But how can God be love?  Is every experience of love an experience of God?”  You get the idea.

Bell concludes.  Its like a pool that you dive into and you start swimming toward the bottom, and soon you discover that no matter how hard and fast you swim downward the pool keeps getting…. Deeper.

The more we learn about God, the more we know God is a mystery we will never figure out.  So as the Palm Sunday story becomes my story… the lesson I learn is that I will never ever figure God out.  God will always surprise me.  God will do things I don’t expect in ways I don’t expect

But… God is God.  God’s strange plan, played out on Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter, worked.

It worked, scandalous and unexpected as it all was. 

And I can trust, that even when I don’t get it.  Even when I don’t understand what God is up to, or why God is using the strategy God is using, that God will get me, and those I love, and this church, and, indeed, all creation, where we need to go….