Easter: Hope of Knowing Oneself and Others after Death

Easter Sunday      March 27, 2016

Isaiah 65:17-25  Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15:19-26  Luke 24:1-12

Lectionary Link 

  One of the most important issue of personal identity is the issue of personal continuity.  I have included in the bulletin pictures of seven people who appear to be different people. 

But I also give you the information that the seven people who appear to be different are the same person.  There is a continuity of personal identity even though the appearance of difference could make an outsider say that these people are not related.

  But if in fact, these pictures are pictures of me, I cannot personally verify the continuity between all of the persons represented in these pictures.  Why?  I have very few memories in of my life before I was five years old.  My first five years of life are foggy in my memory so when I look at the baby pictures I have had to take my parents’ word that I am the person in the picture.  So as a person my continuity with my early years is pretty foggy; I have to rely on my significant community to convince me and let me know that the later pictures of me are in fact in continuity with my baby and early childhood pictures.  My foggy memory could create a sense of discontinuity between how I appeared as a baby and young child and who I am now if I did not have the community to let me know of my connection with the past.   What if I were to develop amnesia or other conditions of adult onset dementia which affected my memory?  These conditions would also create a discontinuity in me from personally knowing that I have always been the same person.  Again in the failure of my memory, I would be dependent upon my community to uphold my continuity as being the same person.  When I can’t remember who I was in the past to connect it with my present time, I then become the passive actor in the scripts of other people who can retain the fact that I am still the same person.

  There is a further more profound and pronounced event of human discontinuity which all members of the human race who attain a certain age have to ponder.  Perhaps the most profound event of human discontinuity is the event of death.

  Will I know myself after I die?  Will I have memory of my entire life when I am dead?  Will there be a community who will know me beyond my death?  Will that community be those who remain alive and those who have already died?  Is my death a physical discontinuity and also  mental and spiritual discontinuity?  Is death a wall for my human consciousness or does my personal consciousness of myself continue in some way after I die?

  This issue of personal continuity after we die is a very important issue for us because I believe that all of us live with a great internal hunch.  We are born with this internal hunch that in some way our consciousness of being will always be.  Yes, we can conceive of our bodies wearing out and dying, but we are born with this internal hunch that once I am conscious, then I will always be conscious in some way.  Various religious psychological systems have arisen to deal with the hunch of everlasting consciousness.  Perhaps each person has an essential self called a soul or a spirit and this essential self is eternal because it is the mark of the eternal image of an eternal God upon the human life.

  The aging process and the great losses in life can bring us to disbelieve the evidence of God’s image within our lives.  We may even doubt this internal hunch about us always having a continuing consciousness.  We get so drawn into our bodies and into our external world that we begin to disbelieve our internal evidence of the image of God upon us.  When disbelief of our true nature sets in we need signs which will inspire us to recover the awareness of our essential selves.

  And this is what brings us to the significance of this day.  In the time of Jesus one of the most absolute way of experiencing death was by Roman crucifixion.  Roman crucifixion was a very public death; death was made into a public spectacle to discourage all insurrection movements.  The Roman authorities in putting Jesus on the cross wanted to bring about a discontinuity in the life of Jesus.  They wanted to end his physical life.  They wanted to end his social influence among his followers.  They wanted to discourage anyone who would become popular like Jesus and make them think twice about going public.  The purpose of Roman crucifixion was to cause a social amnesia, the immediate forgetting of Jesus as a significant person of influence in the lives of people.

  As we know, this Roman crucifixion while successful in being executed, ended up failing miserably.  Why?  Because many people discovered Jesus to have continuity with himself after he died.  Many people discovered Jesus still had personal consciousness of himself and others after he had died.  And this caused quite a bit of excitement.  It energized an entire movement which eventually took over the Empire which was once responsible for his crucifixion.

  The death of Jesus came to be known as a bridge into a new kind of conscious awareness which Jesus had of himself.  In the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, we have evidence that Jesus knew himself again after his death but Jesus also knew again his friends who had witnessed his death.  The evidence of the continuity of the life of Jesus after his death was so profound that it was confessed by his followers to be both physical sightings and tactile interaction.  The life of Jesus after his death had the appearance of a newly re-constituted psycho-social-spiritual-physical being.  It was so new that people began to confess this unique sort of resurrection.  This resurrection was not like the assumptions of Elijah and Enoch; this resurrection was not a belief in a general resurrection of all people at some future time, it was a personal dynamic and real manifestation of a new life of Jesus to his followers which continued until his disappearance in the event which came to be called his ascension.

  We need not be embarrassed that empirical verification seems to fail when we talk about this.  What we know is that unique events cause the birth of new language to account for the realness and profound impact of the experience.

  Now what does this mean for you and me today?  It means that you and I can believe with confidence this great hunch that we have about the image of God being buried somewhere inside of us as an essential self.  It means that instead of forgetting about our essential selves because of all of the harshness of the temporal world, we can begin to feed the eternal fire within our souls. Because we have the witness of Jesus knowing himself and others beyond his death, we can believe that we will have future continuous selves beyond our deaths.

  This is a comfort to me because I know that I will leave this world unfinished.  I will leave this world with desires and hopes to have done more things and become more than I will actually achieve. I will leave this world with everything that I have forgot to remember.  I will leave this world with many uncompleted relationships.  Many people have already left my world and left me feeling that my relationship with them was not yet complete.   I want to know that I will have continuity after my death with my pre-death life, not because I deserve to live eternally, but because it is really honest to the eternal hope for there always being a future.  And this deep hope seems to be planted within me.

  Let us be grateful that the death of Jesus and his continued state of being after his death has been played out before the eyes of human history because it draws out of us the full permission to keep hoping.

  The resurrection of Jesus Christ is  a narrative of hope and we need not be embarrassed with that great sense of hope deep within us which tells us that we will always have a future.  We have a future of knowing ourselves as ourselves in the future after our deaths.  We also know we are connected with others who will remember us as well.  We live in communities which know and define us and give us our personhood.  Our communities which outlive us will remember us for a short time after we have died.  But we will enter into our next welcoming community of people who have gone ahead to keep personhood alive and well in the next life, and we can know this because of Jesus the resurrected Christ.  And we can also know that the greatest personal computer memory alive is found in the eternal memory of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The memory capacity of the Holy Trinity is able to preserve us and keep us as persons with continuity and reconstituted being in our afterlives.

  The resurrection of Christ is a message to us that we will always have continuity with ourselves.  Nothing can ever end us or separate us from ourselves, or with each other, not even death.  And I think this is worth a great shout.

  Alleluia.  Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia.  Amen.

Candle, Story, Citizenship and a Meal

Easter Vigil         March 26, 2016

Ex.14:10 Canticle 8, Ez  36:24-28 Psalm 42:1-7
Rom.6:3-11         Luke 24:1-12

 Lectionary Link

  A Candle, A Story,  A Citizenship Ceremony, and a celebratory Meal.  These are the events of this evening, the most important evening in the life of the Church.

  Why a Candle?  A candle is the symbol of light piercing the darkness.  Jesus Christ was called by the early church, the Light of World.  Why did we need this light?  Because the world lived in the darkness of half a life.  The world lived in only the natural world; it was not enlightened about another world, the interior world of the kingdom of God.  Jesus Christ came to awaken the world to the spiritual world.  Jesus came to show us that we are spiritual beings and in knowing this we suddenly have lights turned on in our darkness.  When we are awakened to our spirits we are awakened to our everlasting essence and this enables us to live in the world of time where everything is changing and passing away.

  Tonight is a night of our story.  The Light of Christ happened within a Story.  And we read a portion of that Great Story tonight.  We read about Moses and the Red Sea about Ezekiel and the Dry bones.  If we did all of the readings, we would read 12 long readings.  Jesus is not just drop out of heaven in a vacuum, he arrived in a family with a genealogy and a story.  Jesus was continuous with a spiritual tradition but the people needed a boost of light to highlight what had been missing in the lives of people.  We read the story of the past as a way of tracing the genealogy of our human experience and remembering how our identity has been formed.

  Next, tonight is a citizenship ceremony.  When one becomes an American citizen, one has studied and then one takes an oath and one is received as a citizen of our country.  Tonight is the chief occasion of baptism in the Church.  It is a heavenly citizenship ceremony.  So you think that you have only been born into a human family; no, you are also a son or daughter of God.  You were born into the kingdom of God since God is the creator of the world.  So baptism is a celebration that each of us can know ourselves to be a son or daughter of God and our family invites us to God’s family in baptism as a citizenship ceremony.  Tonight we welcome persons into this wonderful experience of being known as children of God.  Everyone is always a child of God but in Baptism the church has a celebration ceremony of this primary fact of human identity, namely, we are all made in the image of God.  We have God’s DNA as a part of us; God’s Spirit is in us.  Tonight in our citizenship ceremony we are welcoming Jaiden, Adam and Melina.

  Now what do we do when the family gets together?  We eat the family meal together?  And so tonight we move from Baptism to Eucharist.  The Eucharist is the family meal.  It is the meal of our gathering.  When we gather for the Christian meal we are being renewed in our family identity as members of the body of Christ.

  Finally, why is this evening important?  Why is lighting the Paschal Candle important tonight?  Why is reading our family Story important tonight?  Why is Baptism important tonight?  Why is Eucharist important tonight?

  All of these are important tonight because tonight is when we celebrate the perpetuity of what we do?  Why do all of these things have perpetuity?  Because the Resurrection of Christ has given us evidence of our afterlife?  We will continue our identity as sons and daughters of God forever, even beyond our mortal lives. And so with great joy we offer again the Easter Shout.

  Alleluia.  Christ is Risen.  The Lord is Risen indeed.  Alleluia!  Amen.

Sunday School, March 27, 2016 Easter, C

Easter Sermons for Children

In this sermon, have the entire congregation, one by one share the Easter Message "Christ is Risen."  Make a baton and write on it the traditions that the church has passed on.  This is to illustrate to the children the transmission of the Easter message for all of these years.

Sermon One: Passing the Baton in the Great Relay Race

   What Christian Feast Day is more important? Christmas or Easter?  They are both very important but Easter is the most important Christian day of the Christian year.  Why?  If Jesus had not come back alive, we would not celebrate Christmas and we would not even exist as a church

  When the resurrection of Christ happened, the friends of Jesus who saw him alive again after his death began to share the story.  And now that story has been share for about 2000 years.  If the church is about 2000 years old, that means that there has been about 100 generations using 20 years as the average length of a generation.  So how has the message of the life, the death and resurrection Jesus been remembered for 2000 years?  By one parent sharing the message with their children and their children share the message with their own children. 

  If we have about 100 people here let us see how long it takes to share the message. One by one, let’s share the message, one time for each generation.  Let’s see how long it takes to say Christ is Risen around this entire gathering.  Okay start.

   But the church has not just passed on spoken message.  We have passed it on in things that we can see and touch and feel.  And so I have made a baton for a relay race and I’ve written some things on the Baton.  The Bible.  The Old Testament Stories.  The New Testament Stories.  Creeds. Holy Spirit. Water of Baptism. Oil of Baptism and Confirmation.  Fire of Baptism.  Bread and Wine of Eucharist.  Prayers for the Sick.  Bishops, Priests, Deacons and Lay Persons.  Marriage Rings.

  These are things of the church that have been shared for 100 generations.  These things have been passed on from family to family for 2000 years.  And that is why we are here today, because someone told us the message about Jesus Christ and because the church has passed on the various things that have helped us to remember that Jesus rose again.  And because the Holy Spirit is inside us giving us the hope that we are going to live beyond our deaths.  And why do we believe that we will live beyond our deaths?  Because Jesus Christ lived beyond his death; he did it to show us what will happen to us after we die.  We will live beyond our death and we will live with God.  That is why this day is such a happy day and it is why we shout: Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!  Amen. 

Sermon Two:  The empty Easter Egg

  Let me tell you today about an Easter Egg hunt that took place on Easter Sunday in a church.  And the Sunday School teacher wanted to teach a lesson to the children on Easter Sunday.  So Mr. Jones during Sunday School on Easter Sunday, said to his class, “Today is Easter Sunday and so we want to do something special.  We are going to have an Easter Egg hunt.  I’ve have already hidden the eggs.  So let’s go outside and look.  And I want each of you to find only one egg.  And when everyone has found one egg, then we will come back to the classroom and each of us will open our egg in front of the entire class.  So the entire class of twelve children ran outside to look for the eggs in a place on the lawn where Mr. Jones had hidden the eggs.  One by one each child found an egg.  One child said, “I’ve found my egg.”  Another child said, “Please help me find my egg.”  And finally after about 10 minutes each child found an egg.  Mr. Jones rang a bell and said, “Come into the classroom.”  And so the children came back into the classroom each holding an egg.  Now these eggs were not real eggs, they were plastic hollow eggs so that there could be a hidden treat inside of the egg.

   When they were seated in the classroom, Mr. Jones said, “Now one by one we are going to open each egg to see what’s in the egg.  And let me tell you, there is a surprise in one of the eggs and whoever has the surprise will get something special.”

  One by one the eggs were opened.  Johnny said, “I have a dollar bill in mine…I bet I won the prize.”  Mary opened hers and she found some very nice chocolates so she said, “No, these are really the best chocolates, so I bet I won the prize.”  Jimmy opened his egg and he had a little Lego man so he said, “I think I got the best prize.”  Grace opened her egg and she had a cute little furry bunny rabbit and she said, “I won!”  Gloria opened her egg and found a silver dollar and she said, “Wow!  I hit the jackpot!”  Jeremy opened his egg and he found a lovely ring that fit his finger and it had a red jewel on it, so he said, “Surely this must be the best prize.”  Betsy then opened her egg and she found a cute little baby chick, and she was thrilled because she knew she had won.  Todd opened his egg and found a shiny whistle and he blew the whistle because he thought he had won.  Everyone who heard the loud noise, said, “Stop blowing the whistle, it hurts our ears.”  Joey opened his egg and he found a little race car…just what he wanted, and so he believed he was the winner.  Margaret opened her egg and she found a cute little teddy bear and she was happy.  Harry opened his Easter Egg and he found a porcelain little Dalmatian.  And he just loved those spotted dogs.  And then there was only one person and one egg left to open and it was Lucy’s egg.  Everyone said, “Hurry and open it let us see.”  But Lucy got very shy and so she hid her egg under desk so that no one could see her open it.  She looked down as she opened it and when she got it opened, her face turned red and said.  Everyone shouted, “What did you get Lucy?  Did you win?  What did you get?”  And Lucy looked up and said, “I lost…I did not get anything…my egg is empty.”  And the children laughed at her and said, “Mr. Jones really played a joke on you.”

  Then the children asked Mr. Jones, “Tell who won the best prize?”

 And Mr. Jones said, “Children, Lucy won the best prize and so she get this special prize, a new Bible.”  The children said, “Why did Lucy win?  Her egg was empty?”

  Mr. Jones said, “Today is Easter.  And when the women went to the tomb of Jesus what did they find?”  They found that the tomb was empty and because it was empty they were winners, because that meant that Jesus was still alive.

  And so Lucy’s egg was empty.  And she wins the prize on Easter to remind us that the empty tomb of Jesus means that Christ is alive and that he is still with us today. 

   So as winners today let us be happy about the empty tomb of Jesus.  Let us say, Alleluia, Christ is Risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia! 

Sermon Three

Children do you know what imagination is?  Do you ever use your imagination?  Do you

think that imagination was used to make Disney movies?  And to write books?  And to

invent things?

  So today, I am going to ask you to join me in using our imaginations.  With our imaginations we can do magical things.  Did our first president George Washington drive a Cadillac?  No, he didn’t, but with our imagination we can pretend that he did.  And wouldn’t it be kind of funny to thing about George Washington driving a car among all of the other horseback riders and people in carriages pulled by horses?  We can do this with our imagination.

   I would like for us to imagine Jesus living in a home in Jerusalem.  But his home has also become his office.  It is his office and the sign on the door says, “Welcome to Jesus Ministries.”

  And when go into the office of Jesus, we see him sitting at a desk and there are lots of desks and with phones on each desk.  Jesus is talking on the phone.  He finishes one phone call and he has to take another phone call.  And his disciples are also taking phone calls.  And there are so many calls, they have to bring in people to answer the phone in the evening and throughout the night because phone calls are coming in from people who live around the world.

  And the disciples are getting worried.  They go to Jesus when he has a break and they say, “Jesus, there are too many people calling.  People are asking for all kinds of things.  A little girl needs some medicine.  And  a family does not have enough food, but they live too far away.  We cannot get the food to them.  And there is a sick man who wants to be healed, but he lives so far away.”

  Jesus said, “Yes, we have thousands and thousands of requests for help, but I am located here in Jerusalem.  I can only be here in one place at one time.”  One of the disciples said to Jesus, “How can we clone you Jesus?  Can we make a million copies of you?  And then one of your clones could be in places all over the world.  If we could clone millions of copies of you, you could be everywhere and then lots more people could get the help which they need.  Jesus what are you going to do about all of the problems of people in this world when you only live in Jerusalem?”

  Jesus said, “Well, I’ve got a plan.”

 So you know what happened?  Jesus went out on the street and he began to heal and preach good news.  He told the Romans citizens and the Jews they had to love for one another.  He told them that God was near to them and God was coming to them.  And you know what happened?  Jesus made the Romans and the religious people angry.  “What do you mean Jesus, that God’s kingdom is coming?  This is the Caesar’s kingdom or this is the kingdom of King David where someone great like David will come back and be a powerful king.”  So the people got so angry at Jesus for preaching about God’s kingdom.  They were worried that God’s kingdom would be a threat to the kingdom of the Emperor Caesar.  They were worried that this kingdom of God would not be another great military king like King David.

  So do you know what they did to Jesus?  They did not like his message about the kingdom of God’s love, so they put him to death on the cross.  And they thought that this was the end of Jesus.  They thought that Jesus would be gone forever.

  But you know what?  When the friends of Jesus went to the grave and tomb of Jesus, they found it empty.  And you know suddenly people saw Jesus popping up all over.  People suddenly saw him in Jerusalem.  And some saw him on the Emmaus road and on the same day some saw him way up north in Galilee, quite a distance from Jerusalem.

  And the disciples got together and they said, “This Jesus is really clever and he has found the perfect solution to the problem of so many people needing the help of Jesus.  When Jesus died, he has come back and he has had the life that was inside of his body cloned to go into the lives of us and many people.

  And since the insides of Jesus have been cloned and put inside the lives of millions and millions of people, the work of Jesus can get done all around the world.  Jesus is no longer limited to being in just one body in Jerusalem; now Jesus can be the risen Christ in the lives of people everywhere.

  And you know what?  The insides of Jesus have been cloned and is inside us too.  I see it in you.  I look at Wes, and Jackson and Cole and I see Christ is risen and in them.  I look in your eyes and I can see the risen Christ in you and I know that your hands perform the works of kindness and love that allows Christ to do so much in this world now that he is not just limited to the one body of Jesus in his Jerusalem office.

  I look at you and I know that Christ is alive; I know that Christ has risen from the death and I know that the life that was inside of Jesus, his Spirit, has become cloned and is in you and me.

  Isn’t that wonderful?  To know that Jesus is not limited to just one time or place but that the risen Christ can now be everywhere.

  Let me hear you say, “Alleluia.”  Can’t hear you.  Christ is Risen!  Can you say that?  Now say, “Christ is risen, in me!”  Can you say, “Christ is risen in you!”  Now can you say?  I am a Christ-clone.  Because the Spirit of Christ is alive and well in me.  Amen.

Puppet Show for Easter Sunday

 

Delivering Alleluia back in time for Easter

Gospel Puppet Show

Easter Sunday

Characters:

Hairy the Profit

Fr. Phil

Father Phil:  Boys and girls, I received a phone call from Hairy the Profit and he was very worried and anxious.  He said that he wanted to see me right away.  He said it was important.  Hairy are you around?  Where are you?

Hairy: Hello boys and girl.  Have you seen the Padre?  Is he sleeping again?  Where is the Padre?

Father Phil:  Hairy, I’m right here.  And of course, I’m not sleeping; it’s Easter Sunday.  Though I will be preaching later and that might help some get some sleep.  You look terrible Hairy, what’s wrong?  And by the way is your name Harry, short for Harold?

Hairy:  No, my name is Hairy, H-A-I-R-Y.

Father Phil: Could of guessed that from the amount of hair on your body.  But what’s the matter why are you worried?

Hairy:  I have special delivery that needs to arrive for Easter Day and if it doesn’t come, we won’t be able to start Easter.

Fr. Phil:  That’s terrible; what is so important that would delay Easter.

Hairy: You will soon know; but if it doesn’t show up.  I’ll be leaving town in embarrassment.

Fr. Phil:  Well, Hairy, it must be very serious.

Hairy: It is and I do not want to delay Easter.

Delivery Person:  Excuse me, is there a Hairy Profit here?  I have a package for him from the Postal Service.

Hairy:  I’m Hairy Profit.  Whew! You saved the day.  Please give the package to Father Phil.

Delivery Person:  Let me verify your identity, Do you really spell your name, H-A-I-R-Y  P-R-O-F-I-T?

Hairy: Yes, do you have a problem with that?

Delivery Person:  No, your mom and dad sure got the name right.

Hairy: Father Phil, hurry and open the Package.  What’s in there?

Father Phil: Okay, there is a letter in here and the letter says, “Dear Hairy, please get a haircut.  Love, Mom.  Is that what you were expecting?  How was that letter holding up Easter?  If you get a haircut can we start Easter?

Hairy: No that was not what I was expecting.  I am so disappointed.  That was not what I needed to start Easter.  I am so embarrassed.

Delivery Person:  Hello, there is a special delivery for Hairy Profit from UPS.  Is there a Hairy Profit here.

Hairy:  I’m here.  Hurry up.  Maybe this is what I was expecting.  Please come and give that package to Father Phil.  Father Phil open it up and tell me what it is.

Fr. Phil:  Okay be patient.  And here it is.  It is a special delivery from before the season of Lent.  Do you know what it is?  It is the Word Alleluia.  And it has arrived just in time for the Easter.

Hairy:  Yes, now we can begin Easter because Alleluia has returned just in time for Easter.  Alleluia.  Alleluia.  Alleluia.  Aren’t you happy that we can say Alleluia again?

Fr. Phil:  Yes, we are and thank you Hairy for getting Alleluia to us on time, and as a friend could I say something to you?

Hairy:  I guess so.

Fr. Phil:  Get a haircut.  And Good bye! 

Easter Puppet Show

Gospel Puppet Show

Easter Sunday

Scene: The Tomb

Characters:

Soldier guarding the tomb: 

Jesus:

Young man (angel): 

Mary Magdalene: 

Salome: 

Peter: 

Miss Debbie (in front of the puppet theatre)

There is a tomb with a round stone on it hanging from the curtain at the back of the theatre

Miss Debbie:  Boys and girls let us visit the tomb of Jesus.  His friend Nicodemus gave this tomb so that Jesus could be buried there.  It was so sad for the friends of Jesus when he died.  They loved him.  He was a special friend and teacher.  Look there’s someone at the tomb now.

Soldier: (pacing back and forth) Stop young lady.  You cannot go near the tomb.  The chief priests told me to guard the tomb.

Miss Debbie: Well, why are you guarding the tomb?

Soldier: Well, I’m just doing my job.  Those chief priests were jealous of this man Jesus and they think that someone might come and steal his body.  That’s strange thinking, but I’m just doing my job.  Just run along.  You can’t be hanging around here.

(Miss Debbie moves to the side)

(Multiple Flashing camera lights in the puppet theatre)

Soldier: Oh my!  I’m blinded!  I can’t see what has happened.  I think that I’m going to faint. Oooooooooooooh!

(Soldier falls off scene)

The stone has been taken off the tomb a grave cloth hangs on the opening of the tomb

Miss Debbie: Children did you see some flashing lights?  I wonder what is happening at the tomb.  Maybe I should go back and check it out.  Do you think the soldier is still there?  Maybe I can sneak back and take a peek.  Will you take a peek with me?

(Mary Magdalene and Salome are now coming to the tomb before they look at the tomb Mary Magdalene says)

Mary Magdalene:  Salome, we’ve got to get to the tomb of Jesus.  We collected so many more spices from our friends to help prepare his body.  He had to be buried so quickly, but now we have more spices.  But I’m worried Salome.

Salome: Mary, why are you worried?

Mary Magdalene:  There is a big stone that is on the entrance of the tomb.  It is too heavy for you and I to roll open.  Maybe there will be some one there to help us open the tomb.

Salome:  Mary, you don’t have to worry.  The stone is already rolled away.

Mary Magdalene:  Oh, no!  Something has happened?  Where’s the body of Jesus?  All I can see is his empty grave cloth.  Who stole his body?   This is terrible.  Why would someone steal the body of Jesus?

(Young Man sticks his head out of the tomb)

Mary Magdalene(seeing the young): Oh, you frightened me!  Did you do this?  Did you take the body of my friend Jesus?  Where did you take him?  Why did you do this?

Young Man: Calm down and don’t be afraid!  Your friend Jesus is not here.  He has been raised from the dead.  You can see his empty grave clothes.  Now I want you to go and tell the disciples and tell Peter that Jesus has risen from the dead.

Mary Magdalene:  Wow!  What does this mean?  When will I see Jesus again?  Let us go quickly and tell Peter.

(Peter shows himself in the left panel)

Peter: Mary Magdalene and Salome…slow down, why are you running?  What has happened?

Mary Magdalene:  We went to the tomb to put more spices on the grave clothes…but the tomb was already open and the grave clothes were empty.  And a young man or angel told us that Jesus had risen from the dead.  He told us to come and tell you.

Peter: Wow!  You know what this means don’t you?

Salome:  What does it mean?

Peter: It means that everything that Jesus told us is true.  He said that he would come back to life after three days.  This is so wonderful.  God did the most special thing ever on this day.  I can’t wait until we see Jesus.

(They disappeared in the left panel and reappear in the middle panel and Jesus pokes out from behind the curtain)

Jesus: Greetings my friends!  Peace be with you!

Peter:  Thank you Jesus for coming back to us.

Mary Magdalene:  We were so worried.

Jesus: Remember this day.  All you will be witnesses to tell everyone what happened.

Salome:  Now I know why Alleluia returns on Easter Day.

Miss Debbie: Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!  Can you say that?

Everyone: Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!

Miss Debbie: The Lord is Risen indeed.  Alleluia!  And now all of us are witnesses too of the resurrection of Christ.  Because Christ lives in us too.

Cross Inscriptions: Billboard for the Risen Christ

Good Friday    March 25, 2016         

Gen 22:1-18        Ps 22
Heb.10:1-25        John 18:1-19:37

Lectionary Link 

   In the Passion Gospel of John the Inscription that was written above the head of Jesus on the Cross by Pilate, in three different language states:  Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. It was written in the language of the Jewish Scripture, and in the lingua franca which followed the conquering of the world by Alexander the Great, a simplified version of Greek and in the up and coming lingua franca of the Western Roman Empire, Latin.

  This inscription is both ironic and is a proclamation device within the Gospel of John.  In the lead up to the cross in the Gospel of John, Jesus said, “If I be lifted up, I will draw the world unto myself.”  And what languages did the immediate world of the Gospel audience of the time speak?  Hebrew, Greek and Latin.  So the Gospel of John presents the Cross as a sort of bill board to the world for Jesus Christ.

  And this is ironic because the text was assigned by Pilate who was presented as a cynic about what kind of king Jesus was.  “You want to be a king, Jesus, okay, we’ll let you be a legend in your own mind.  We’ll preside at your death even while we mockingly make your cross a billboard for your delusion and the delusion of your followers.”

  Another characteristic of the writer of John’s Gospel was making fun of those who took words “literally.”  Pilate wrote mocking words upon on the cross about Jesus being a king and the literalist Jews said to him, “Don’t write that he is a king but that he said he was a king.  Pilate we don’t want people to take the words literally.  They won’t understand your mocking irony.”

  So Pilate believed that Jesus was a phony delusional king and he mocked Jesus with an inscription which contradicts the dead body of Jesus upon the cross.    Can such a dead man upon a cross really be a king?  Pilate and many other Roman citizens and soldiers believed that the Caesar was the king of their world and Jesus could not be a king.  The community from which the Gospel of John wrote also knew that the Caesar was the king of the world.  They knew that Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Roman army.

  Most of the Jews who remained in the synagogues and who excommunicated the followers of Jesus did not believe that Jesus was the king of the Jews.  They did not believe Jesus was like another King David because Jesus did not liberate Israel and restore its independence.

  The Gospel of John was written by writers in the last part of the first century and in the first part of the second century.  They had witnessed the Jesus effect in the cities of the Roman Empire.  Jesus was beginning to take over neighborhoods one person at a time.

  Jesus as the Risen Christ was experienced within very effective communities which were integrating new people into their gatherings.  People of diverse backgrounds were finding social identity within these religious social clubs called churches.  The informal gatherings were gaining cohesion and were already proto-institutional.

 These churches had become so successful one wondered how such successful social groups could derive from the dead body of Jesus upon the cross.  Can you get the sense of how the writer of John was completely savoring the irony of Jesus on the Cross?  The Gospel of John was written by people who were confident about the social revolution caused by people who had post-resurrection experiences of Christ.  They could go back and write with great confidence that the Cross of Jesus was the necessary plan of God in bringing about the transformation of lives within the Roman Empire.

  So Jesus on the Cross was seen by many Romans to be the delusion of Christians who did not understand what real kingly power was.  Jesus on the Cross was seen by Jews who remained in the synagogues as one who could not be confessed to by a messiah king like King David.

  But for Christians who lived in two worlds, the natural world where Caesar was the worldly king, and the spiritual kingdom of God, the Cross of Jesus was like the experience of an elevator of learning that we live in both the world of the kingdom of Caesar and the kingdom of Christ.   Christians had learned from Christ to lives as children of God and children of human families at the same time.  The Cross of Jesus was an event of dying to the limited view of being only in the world of Caesar; it provided the way for resurrection ascension into the kingdom of Christ.

  In the Gospel of John, Pilate and the Jews were treated as those who understood only the literal natural world of what could be verified by the common understanding of what a king was.  The writer of the Gospel of John lived and witnessed the lives of many people gradually coming into an internal transformation and conversion by another kind of power which was not understood by Pilate or the Jews who remained within the synagogue.

  The Passion Gospel of John was not written by people who viewed the Cross as a site of suffering defeat; it was a billboard which proclaimed with secret irony that indeed, Jesus was and was becoming the king of many, many souls.

     Just remember today on Good Friday that the Passion Gospel of John was written by people who were witnessing the power of the Risen Christ to convert the lives of people and to form them into growing and successful Christian Clubs.

  We accept the cross of Christ as glorious providence now because we think it was resolved and reconciled by the subsequent events of the resurrection appearance.

  Today we live in a world of many events of suffering, loss, pain are not yet resolved or reconciled because we do not yet know the full future.

  As we return to the Cross of Jesus, let us bring to it all of the current suffering in the world which does not yet have resolution or reconciliation.

  Let us accept that Jesus is a king because he represents God suffering with us now.  And let us in the suffering Christ, have faith to believe that in Him there will be future resolution and reconciliation of all things.   Amen.

Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday  March 24, 2016   

Ex. 12:1-14a       Ps. 78:14-20, 23-25
1 Cor 11:23-32      John 13:1-15

 Lectionary Link

  Many people believe that the reason one becomes wealthy and powerful is so that one does not have to do the little things, like drive one’s car, take out the trash, wash dishes, clean the house, or take care of the children.

   Maundy Thursday is a night when we remember that Jesus said that our lives of faith involve being constituted by lots of little things, things so obvious that one might forget them or neglect them.

  The early Christian gathering was a table meal.  People have to eat and eating is also a good time for renewing friendship and family relationship.  The central Christian gathering is the Holy Eucharist and long before it became a stylized meal of unrecognizable bread and a sip of wine, it was an actual fellowship meal.  Jesus hosted a meal and served; he told his disciples to continue this simple practice.  “Continue to get together and eat and fellowship and when you do it as I ask, you will realize that I am there with you.  When you eat this meal which I asked of you, in this meal you will be connected with this very night when I first asked you to do it.”

  Peter and his disciple friends were often concerned about their position in the kingdom of Jesus. If Peter were thinking out loud he would be saying, “ Jesus, you are the kingly messiah and this is not just an ordinary meal among some friends.  This is like a banquet of a great king.  And since you Jesus are going to be our great king.  You can’t be putting a towel on and washing our feet.  That is not kingly work.”  And Jesus said, “Well guys we’ve set down to eat and no one has offered the basic hospitality of washing our dusty feet before we eat.  No one saw the obvious thing to do.  And there were not servants here to perform it. So I am going to set the example.  Your gathering in the future is going to be very basic; eat, discuss and fellowship together and serve each other doing the little things and the obvious things which need to be done.”  99% of life is obvious, ordinary maintenance things.  Too boring for you?  Well, if you only want to do big and heroic things you will miss doing them if you don’t do the basic things really well as a part of the formation of your character.”

   The Holy Eucharist is the continual grace of the gathered church sharing a meal, reading our family tradition as found in the Scriptures and making sure that the basic needs of the community are fulfilled.  Because if we live really well together, then that in itself will be the best evangelism.

   If we really live well together, then others will say, “I want what they have.  I want to be with them.  I want their good news.  I want their fun.  I want their peace and joy.  I want to be with them because they share it all, they rejoice with each other, they work with each other, they pray with each other, they mourn with each other, they comfort each other.”

  In 2000 years the church has become pretty good at hiding the basic stuff of the Holy Eucharist into church laws or obligations.  What we need to remember tonight is to return to the basic.  A fellowship meal together with the sharing of our best words of our traditions, prayers and encouragement and just really basic, basic fix the meal, take out the trash, do the laundry type of service.  Does it sound too boring?  Too ordinary? 

  I believe if we do the basic things of service very well we will also find that some extraordinary things will happen because we practice belonging to each other in the name of Jesus Christ.

  Let this meal tonight return turn us to basic, basic Jesus Movement Christianity.  A meal together, prayers, passing the peace, wishing each other the very best, and the basic service which will keep us together and help us to pass on these habits of fellowship to another generation of people who need to be connected to the original Last Supper.

  May God let us know that we are connected to the original Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples tonight.  Amen.

Reading the Passion into Our Lives

Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday  C      March 20, 2016

Is. 50: 4-9a        Ps. 31: 9-16         

Phil. 2:5-11       Luke 23:1-49  

Lectionary Link

  By following our Palm Sunday Procession with the Passion Sunday liturgy, we perhaps pack too much into one Sunday.  The events highlight two opposing crowds.  One crowd, the friends of Jesus formed a  parade and proclaimed him as a king.  The other crowd gathered by the parties of those resident in the Jerusalem rallied at his sentencing and shouted "Crucify him, he can't be a king because we have no king but Caesar."
  As you know, I have the ability to take a straight forward reading of the Gospel and make it very complicated by looking into the actual time when the Gospels were written.
  True to my habit I will do the same for us today and I would like to look at three different ways of reading the Passion Gospel.  I would also like to show the various consequences of reading the Passion Gospels in different ways.
  The three ways of reading are the following:  First, an immediate face-value reading of the Passion.  Second, the reading of Passion Gospel with information about when and why it was written.  And finally, reading the Passion Gospel as a way of making specific connections with our lives today.
  First, a face value reading of this Passion presentation involves treating it as if it had happened exactly in the way in which we have read it.  Let us be aware that writing is a form of time lapsing long before time-lapsed photography.  The Passion Gospel presents events which took place over a couple of days and we can read them in less than five minutes.  The Passion Gospel is time lapsed.  Literary art time lapses and it is magically an illusion because if the magic is successful it emotionally transports us to be there.  It is the illusion of events "as if" they actually happened.  But all writing of history or a story is a "time-lapsed" presentation of something that is done presented in written words.  Events are reduced to words upon a page.  And yet these artistic words can so engage our participation that we can imagine ourselves into an emotional presence with the events themselves.  This "as if" magic evokes some emotional responses from us.  And we make judgments, we feel empathy and we may even get angry.  We may get angry at Pilate, or at Herod or at the Jews who are presented as those who plotted the arrest and conviction of Jesus.  We get angry at Judas for his betrayal and we think, "let Judas be an everlasting symbol of betrayal."  We are put off or mildly amused at the blow hard Peter who was so confident and yet denies Jesus out of fear of what identification with Jesus might cost him.  We look at the irony of the women being those who are unafraid and who stay with Jesus during his Passion.
  We see that the face value reading has the value of arousing emotion, feeling and passions.   Those feelings can be beneficial if they promote our empathy and identification with the "all too human" characters who are presented in the Passion Story.
  But the face value reading which stokes the fires of emotions can also be dangerous.  Historically, the reading of Passion led to victimization of the Jews.  The reading of the Passion has in various times and places of Christian history led to Christians mobs under the emotions of a face value reading of the Passion Gospel to go out and persecute the Jews.  Angry people transfer their anger response to the story and have persecuted Jews who lived long after Jesus. And this indeed is the irony of evil; the Christ who loves and forgives from the cross is used as an excuse to promote persecution and violence.
  Let us accept the immediate face value reading as evocative, but remember we still are responsible for how we react emotionally to the Passion Reading.
  The second level of reading of the Passion involves giving some historical context for the writing of the Passion Gospel.  This second level of reading can in fact actually falsify the face-value reading because the context of writing contradicts the meanings of the face-value reading.
  Let me explain.  The Passion Gospels were written after the writings of St. Paul; they were written after the destruction of Jerusalem.  They were written after St. Paul encouraged the church to pray for the Roman authorities and regard them to be as God's agents.  The Passion Gospels were written after the post-resurrection appearances of Christ.  If these post resurrection appearances had not happened, the accounts of the death of Jesus never would have been written.  The Passion Gospels were written when the Christian communities had become separated from the synagogue and when more Christians were Roman Gentile citizens than they were Jews.  The Passion Gospels were written after the often painful and angry separation of Christianity from Judaism.  This accounts for the fact that the Passion Gospels make it seem as though the Jews had more power to crucify Jesus than did the Roman governor in Palestine.  This Passion accounts were written to ameliorate the Gentile and Roman Christians who had become members of the churches and so in the Passion Gospel there is subtle displacing of the blame, implicating the Jews more than the Roman authorities.  This Passion Gospel was written after the Cross had become a glorious event of power for the churches of St. Paul. and others.  St. Paul said that he was crucified with Christ.  So the crucifixion was changed into a metaphor of spiritual transformation, far from the bloody and gory details of the actual event.  The cross as a metaphor of spiritual transformation meant that the Passion Gospel was written as a necessary event of God's providence in bringing the experience of spiritual transformation to the lives of all people.
  Now that we appreciate something of these first two ways of reading the Passion Gospel, where does that leave us today in how we can find correspondences in our own lives today?  First we don't to be angry at the Jews like the Gospel writers were who had been excommunicated from the synagogues.  We can accept the fact that Jewish mission in this world is different from the Christian mission, even while we can share many common religious and spiritual values with them.  Next we approach the death of Jesus and all events of hurtful death and loss from the perspective of the resurrection.  We live with faith to know that we are holding a trump card to play in the game of life when all of the cards which have been played seem to point to our loss and demise.  Slam.  We play the resurrection card and all of those bad cards lose their threat.  I am not suggesting that we ever deny or minimize or avoid the poignant experiences of loss and death;  I am suggesting that we can have the experience of faith which means that no matter what happens there will be something "after" the events of loss and death and that ultimately the afterlife of Christ will give a different perspective on everything which happened before the afterlife.  You and I need this imagination of faith to help us to live today with a continuing sense of hope in the face of the the great losses in life, especially the great loss known as death.
  We can embrace today the theology of the cross that St. Paul used when he said, "I am crucified with Christ, yet I live, yet not I, for Christ lives within me."  We can look to the Cross of Christ for the real power to actually check our egos at the door so as to give us the ability to love God with all our hearts and to love our neighbor as our selves.
  Finally, we can project upon all of the characters in the Passion Gospel since it was also written as a Parable of the early church to illustrate the personality types in various phases of spiritual progression.  We can be betrayers of Christ by our life styles, unwitting accusers just like St. Paul had been in his former life, mob shouters who can change with political crowds with great fickleness, we can be those who represent the banality of evil like  Pilate and Herod who were just doing their Roman jobs in ridding Jerusalem of this Jesus who could draw a crowd. Or we could be those women who were faithful even when their hero and his heroic values seemed to be losing.  We also can know that Christ is still on the cross when all who love justice get sacrificed by people, governments, and powerful people who get rid of people who pose a threat to those who exploit others for their own advantage.
  There are plenty of insights and meanings for us to find in our readings of the Passion Gospel today.  Let us be those who are committed to the path of spiritual transformation and who seek this inner power to overcome evil with good.  And may we find the ability to apply the power of the death of Christ to everything in ourselves which would hinder our spiritual transformation.
  May each of us be able to say today, "I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live, but not I, for Christ lives within me."  Amen.