Come!
Live in the Light! (3/27/16)
Qi He, Empty Tomb
My sermon title this morning comes from one of my favorite hymns, "Come! Live in the Light! (We Are Called)," which we sang in worship. I drew my Easter message from Acts, because I wanted to focus on what it means to live in the love and the knowledge of the resurrection.
Sermon
Good morning!
He is risen!
I
don’t have any jokes or funny stories to share with you this morning. I love to
get you laughing at the beginning of the sermon, but today I hope that the joy
of living in the love and the knowledge of the resurrected Christ is better
than any clever remarks that I could offer. I believe that joy is in short
supply these days. I think joy is distinct from, though related to, happiness
and pleasure. Happiness and pleasure can fade quickly. Joy endures. Joy goes
hand-in-hand with hope. Hope and joy are essential parts of the Easter story;
they are the antidotes to fear and anxiety. Hope and joy are the fruits of the
life in Christ.
To be
fair, over the last several weeks, a lot of my messages have been about
anxiety—the anxiety of what it means to be the church in this time and place. I
have spoken into the changing realities of the church and the grief over what
has been lost. I’ve also spoken of the things in our world that divide and
confuse us, scare us and cause anxiety. But this morning, the story has changed.
The tomb is empty!
I
believe that the story of the church in our society is the Easter story. Of course, that’s always been true, but the
context in which we receive that truth and live into that truth has changed
greatly over the last two generations. And I am very specifically talking about
the institutional church—the place we go on Sunday mornings, and the community
that develops in a particular place where believers gather to worship.
Palm
Sunday represents the church that many of you remember from thirty or forty
years ago. It was great while it lasted, but when the context changed, when the
external realities changed, some of the very same people who shouted,
“Hosanna,” also shouted, “Crucify him!”
In
recent years, we have been the church of Holy Week, when we focus on the events
of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. We don’t want to believe that we are going
to be like Peter and deny Jesus before the rooster crows, but we are reminded
that we have already done so and we will do so in the future. That’s a very
uncomfortable place. We don’t want to see Jesus arrested or suffering or dead,
but we know that we must watch. And that, too, is a very uncomfortable place.
Frankly,
we don’t know what to do with the suffering and the grief. We want to go back
to the way things were, but we can’t. That doesn’t stop us from trying, from
being like Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary (the mother of James). They went to
the tomb to prepare Jesus’ body, according to Jewish custom. They were
upholding the old form, like those of us who still come to church every Sunday.
And there, they were met by two men in dazzling white robes who told them that
the context had changed, that the old realities had gone away: “Why do you seek
the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.”
“He
is not here, but has risen.” He is risen, indeed!
That
is the new reality that we see in the Book of Acts, where we meet Peter, who is
no longer a disciple, but now an apostle. Peter is speaking to a Roman
centurion named Cornelius, who had summoned Peter to his house. Cornelius is an
outsider. He is described as being a God-fearing man, but he is a Gentile, not
a Jew. Cornelius is aware of the message, but he doesn’t have it quite right;
he doesn’t know what it truly means to be in Christ. Before Peter tells the
good news of Jesus’ resurrection to Cornelius, Peter reminds Cornelius that he,
Peter, is violating Jewish customs: “You yourselves know that it is unlawful
for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I
should not call anyone profane or unclean.” Of course, Cornelius must know
this, but Peter is proclaiming a new reality!
In
this morning’s reading from Acts, Peter tells the gospel story to Cornelius:
Jesus’ baptism, Jesus’ life, the people who were healed by Jesus, the
crucifixion, and the resurrection. Of course Peter wants Cornelius to know the
details of the gospel story, but there’s more to this story, to the sermon that
Peter is preaching:
The whole sermon
proceeds from what is a new confession: “God shows no partiality.” This does
not describe God as indifferent or detached; Peter means that God does not play
favorites among people. Put positively, God has concern for all humanity and
welcomes all peoples.[1]
By saying, “God shows no partiality,” Peter is
saying that the message of God’s love, through the incarnation of Jesus Christ,
the life and work of Jesus Christ, and the death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ is for everyone! This is a
radical message of inclusion. This is how the message of the gospel was spread.
Earlier
in this same chapter of Acts, Peter has a vision in which God showed him that
nothing—no animal or no person—was unclean. Thus, Peter came to understand that
the gospel message does not just apply to the house of Israel, but it applies
to everyone. And if it applies to everyone, then the Apostles must go out and
take the message to everyone.
For
too long, we have listened to the Easter story and believed it was just about
us, those of us who were gathered here in worship. What’s more, we came here
and listened and many of us believed that was all we had to do. We just had to
come to church, where we would hear a comforting story and that was it. We
could leave this place and go on about our lives. We forgot that this story
calls us to act.
As
Peter tells us, “God shows no partiality.” The message is for everyone. God
does not love us more because we are gathered in His house on Sunday morning.
If you believe that God loves you more, then you are mistaken! God loves all of
His children and all of creation; God weeps when any of us turns away. If Jesus
came to call back the lost sheep of Israel, then we, too, must call back the
lost sheep of the church. That’s no small task, but we’ve got to do it.
That
means we have to go outside of these walls and offer our witness of the
resurrected Christ to everyone we meet. That means that we have to love the
lost and the least and the people we don’t like. At the Last Supper, Jesus gave
the disciples a new commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.” This
is our commandment, too; it is our mandate.
If we
stay inside these walls, then we take possession of the Easter story. And if
the Easter story belongs only to us, the faithful remnant of Christians who
come to church every Sunday, then eventually, this place changes from a
sanctuary to a tomb. Jesus doesn’t like tombs. No grave can contain Him. We are
called to live in the light of Easter morning, not the shadows of the tomb. We
are called to go forth and shine with the light of Christ’s love! We are called
to live in the hope and the joy of Easter morning! We are called to share that
message with those who have lost hope, with those who are lonely, with those
who are broken and hurting.
The
women who came to the tomb on Easter morning were expecting to see the reality
they had always known. In their world, the power of the Roman Empire was
without equal. The forces of sin and death had broken Jesus’ body, and they
went to the tomb, responding in faith, as pious Jews, obeying all the laws and
customs of their people. What else could they do, now that Jesus was dead? But
the tomb was empty! God had done a new thing!
The
hope and the joy of the resurrection is that God’s love can overcome the forces
of sin and death here on Earth. Now we have to leave the tomb and tell people
about this new thing. We have to preach this story with love, compassion,
mercy, and humility. For people who were raised outside of the church, this is
a strange message. For people who have left the church, it is a message that
rings hollow. In order to preach, we will sometimes have to listen before we
speak. That’s why humility is so important—we can’t let ourselves get in the
way of the message. We must go forward, doing Christ’s work and witnessing to
His love. That’s what it means to be an Easter people! We must go forth and live
in the light of Easter morning! Thanks be to God. Amen.
Benediction
Now,
beloved, as you depart from this place, remember that we are an Easter people. We
are called to be Christ’s church in the world, the world today. We are called
to live in the light of Easter morning! We are called to love one another; to
act with justice and mercy; to walk humbly with God. So go forth and be
instruments of God’s peace and reconciliation. Do not return evil for evil to
any person, but know that we are all loved by God, and that we are called to
reflect that love to everyone we meet. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord,
let all God’s children say, Amen!
[1] Matt
Skinner, “Commentary on Acts 10:34-43,” retrieved from: http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2834
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