Harned’s Chapel UMC - Parrottsville, Tennessee
John 20:1-18
“Christ is risen, and life reigns!”
First of all I bring you grace and peace from our Lord Jesus Christ, and greetings from the Lutheran Parish of Parrottsville, and also greetings from Bishop Julian Gordy and more than 54,000 Lutherans in the 170 congregations of the Southeastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, in which we say we are a resurrection people who pray first, walk together, and change lives. And you never thought you were so important here in little old Parrottsville.
Today we rejoice that congregations in Parrottsville can come together on this Easter morning to proclaim with one voice the one word that ties all Christians together as one body of the Lord around the world and throughout time, and that is the proclamation: “Christ is risen.”
Later this year we will celebrate our oneness in Christ when we finalize an ecumenical agreement with our brothers and sisters in the United Methodist Church. Upon acceptance at our Church-wide Assembly in August the ELCA will enter into a new partnership with the United Methodist Church when our two faith communities enter into full communion. I don’t know about Pr. John Wilson, but I know that I have a Bishop and a Conference Dean and a whole lot of colleagues who would be tickled pink if we could celebrate that here in Parrottsville when the time comes. It will be a living sign of the resurrection in our lives today. It will be a living sign that Christ lives and that he lives in our lives. It will be a living sign that we are, together, a resurrection people who pray first, walk together, and change lives. It will be a living sign of the really terrific and cool changes that can happen when we let Christ be Christ and the Lord of our life, and it is something that could not possibly happen were it not for the death and resurrection of Christ the Lord.
The ELCA pastor Rolf Jacobson is the editor of a really neat book that came out last year called {Crazy Talk}; the subtitle is, “A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Theological Terms.” My kind of book. In {Crazy Talk} Pr. Jacobson reminds us that resurrection is the “act of God by which new life is given to the dead,” and that:
"…every single day, we are being resurrected. … In a very real way, we die in our sins every single day. Our lives are dead and worthless through our constant sin and rebellion. However, in the act of continual forgiveness granted us through God’s grace, we are reborn new, forgiven, resurrected humans. This is an actual resurrection. Our sins kill us, but God’s forgiveness makes us alive again." (Jacobson, Rolf A., ed. {Crazy Talk}: A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Theological Terms, Augsburg Books, 2008, pp. 143, 147.)
God’s forgiveness is made real for us through the death and resurrection of Christ.
Christ’s death has set us free:
Christ’s death has set us free:
He that was held prisoner by death has annihilated it.
By descending into death, he made death captive.
He embittered it when it tasted of his flesh….
It was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was mocked.
It was embittered, for it was slain.
It was embittered, for it was overthrown.
It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains.
It took a body, and met God face to face.
It took earth, and encountered Heaven.
It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen.
Now, Death, where is your sting? Where is your victory now?
Christ is risen, and you are overthrown!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Now, Death, where is your sting? Where is your victory now?
Christ is risen, and you are overthrown!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
(excerpt from St. John Chrysostom’s Easter Homily.)
Christ is risen, and we are a resurrection people, praying, and walking together and changing lives as we live ever more into the reality of the Kingdom that Christ has prepared for us.
There is the Good News for us today, but there is a catch. It means that lives are changed. Are we not a resurrection people? Do we not pray first, walk together, and change lives?
If we are the people of Christ, if we are a resurrection people, then lives change. When we are truly a living sign that Christ lives and that he lives in our lives then it means our lives change. It means our families change. It means our churches change. And it means our world will change.
If we do not want to believe that, if we do not want that change to happen and fight against it, if we choose to believe that we are too good for it, if we want to turn our backs on the resurrection that is the ultimate change then we are not a resurrection people; we are dead; and we roll the stone back over the entrance to the empty tomb, and we tell Mary Magdalene and Peter and the disciples to go home and hang it up; its all over with, we’re just playing church this morning, we don’t really mean it.
The Good News is that change does not mean death! To the contrary! It is the lack of change that is death because:
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
And isn’t this not just the Easter proclamation of the Good News, but also the challenge of the Good News that is being presented to our very own parishes even as we speak?
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
To be bluntly honest about this: it means the time for individuals trying to control the destiny of their own lives, their friends, their neighbors, their families, their businesses, their schools, their congregations, and their world has come to an end. As Dr. Kildare used to say, “It’s out of our hands now.” Christ has suddenly and swiftly intervened and taken matters into his hands.
It’s in Christ’s hands now because he is risen.
It’s in Christ’s hands because his hands bore the nails of the cross for the world.
It’s in Christ’s hands because he alone is Lord of the Church and the Church is his alone, to do with as he will.
It’s in Christ’s hands because his hands alone direct the destiny of his Church.
It’s in Christ’s hands because his hands are the ones open and inviting each one of us to be the living Church in this community.
It’s in Christ’s hands because,
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
(excerpt from St. John Chrysostom’s Easter Homily.)
Trust Christ. It’s still not too late. There is still time to put agendas, and dreams of money, and desires for control, and fears of loosing control aside and to trust Christ enough that he alone will take center stage in life.
Trust Christ to take our life into his hands. His nail scarred hands remain open to receive one and all.
Trust Christ, who was crucified and rose for us all.
Trust him because he alone is our Lord and we are his Church, to do with as he will.
Trust Christ because he is risen, because he is Lord of your life, because he brings change to your heart, and because in Christ life reigns.
Thanks be to God.
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