Lectionary Link
Easter Sunday April 24, 2011
Acts 10:34 -43
Ps. 118:14-17,22-24
Col. 3:1-4 Matthew 28:1-10
The
longer that I have lived, the more I believe that no matter what our religious or
philosophical beliefs are, we live by the imaginations of the utopian. We live through the imaginations of what
seems to be mostly impossible. We live
for future events that would falsify some of the current events of human life.
I would classify most of the Biblical
literature as utopian. It is written by
people who aspired always for more; always for the not yet. And these aspirations are consistent with a
belief that the world is not yet complete; there is more creative evolution
that needs yet to occur in the universe, on our globe, in our nations and
communities and in our personal lives.
And even as my life seems to be devolving through the aging
process,(surely you don’t need time lapsed photography to have noticed) I still hang on to an even more hopeful
future. And perhaps the cynics think that I should be pitied for my wishful thinking. I think that we should pity the cynics because
the cynics often pin their hope and future on a dsytopia, a world of disorder and
demise. Just because there are cynics,
it does not mean that they don’t have a future.
It’s just that they might imagine a different future. In a real sense life is all about choosing
the imaginations of our future to motivate our current lives.
Easter is a day that we celebrate because we
believe that Hope found a narrative in the events in the life of Jesus
Christ. Are we to be pitied for
embracing this long-standing tradition of Hope?
Are we to be pitied for embracing the accounts of those backward people
who lived long ago without the benefit of our modern science that seems to be
based upon not believing anything that cannot be replicated by subsequent
experiment?
As much as I believe in utopian imaginations
that inspire us in the parallel existence in the inner realm of hope and faith;
I believe that utopian imaginations are inspired from actual life experience.
The Isaian prophet had a vision of wolf and
lamb co-existing in peace and over-coming of the predator-prey antagonism. And yet there is known in actual experience
the uncanny events where actual harmony occurs in situations deemed
impossible. We are amazed and humored by
occasions when natural enemies express harmonious interaction. Siegfried and Roy of Las Vegas seem to
co-exist with white tigers; St. Francis, apparently was so friendly with birds
that birds would fly and rest on his shoulders.
We are amazed at people who seem to have a way with animals, dog
whisperers or horse whisperers. What is
the science regarding this uncanny interspecies communication?
The uncanny happens within the human community;
how do we explain child prodigies or the savant syndrome? How is it that Mozart composed at such an
early age? There is enough of the
uncanny happening within the human community and within human experience for us
to imagine one such as Jesus Christ.
Just as every person is like a one of a kind
snowflake, Jesus was a one of a kind person.
But his snowflake uniqueness stands as an avalanche compared to our
uniqueness. Jesus was bound to be
remembered. Jesus was bound to make an
impression. Jesus was bound to be known
because of his uncanny uniqueness. We
can either disbelieve about Jesus regarding his uniqueness or we can embrace
that uniqueness and find meaning in what the Uniqueness of Jesus can do for us.
What the church confesses about the Uniqueness
of Jesus Christ is the Incarnation of God in human experience. What that means for us is that Jesus Christ
had a way with human life. Jesus Christ
was a “people whisperer” and because of the profound level of his divinity, he
has been able to communicate with the seeming lost aspect of our human divinity
that we have because of our being made in the image of God. Jesus was the ultimate people whisperer…he was
a child prodigy in learning; he was a healer; he was a wonder worker; he was an
avid communicator; he was a story teller; he was a provoker; he was one who
attracted close and devoted friends; he
had a way with nature; he had a way to
reconcile the outcast and the “sinners” by his inclusive welcome. The full extent of the incarnation of Jesus
was seen on Good Friday, as Jesus embraced the human experience of death, the
gate to the place of no return. And why
are we here today? Because Jesus Christ
also had a way with the afterlife.
Humanity has always wondered about the afterlife. Many cultures have devised many imaginations
about the afterlife. And what did the
resurrection of Jesus do for the utopian imaginations of the afterlife? The resurrection appearances of Jesus
resulted in the writing of the accounts of actual interactions between a man
who was formerly dead and who lived again in a marvelous way.
So the resurrection of Jesus Christ gives
utopian visions of the afterlife an actual instance that life after death can
and does happen. And so we are here
today to proclaim that our utopian and impossible vision of hope does actually
have a story and narrative that gives us a solid basis for our hope.
Now we will not resurrect like Jesus
did. We will not be able to convince
people after our deaths of our continued physical existence with them for fifty
days after our departure, because our lives are not unique in the same way that
the life of Jesus was unique.
Let us embrace the Easter story as our belief
that God has embraced our lives completely from cradle to the grave, and
Beyond. Let us look to God as the only one who can ultimately preserve our
lives in the most significant way.
Today, we need not argue about precise
understandings about the nature of the resurrection of Christ; today we simply
confess the fact that it happened.
Today for us the resurrection of Jesus Christ
is part of our baptismal metaphor: When we go under the waters of baptism, we
are buried with Christ in his death.
When we come out of the waters of baptism, we are raised with Christ in
his resurrection. And that resurrection
for us now means that we in this life now partake of the eternal life of the
Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ now
makes us feel our resurrection eternal life, even as the rest of our mortal
lives experience decline.
Today, what are we going to believe more? That our
mortal lives that are slipping away, or that our inward Spirit, resurrection,
and abundant life cannot be killed? I tell you today that eternal life is within
us and it is evidence of a utopian future; but this future is grounded in an
actual event. And this event inspired
the cry of this day: Alleluia! Christ is
Risen. The Lord is Risen, Indeed. Alleluia!
Amen.