March 31, 2013 (Resurrection of our Lord) – Isaiah 65:17-25; Luke 24:1-12
Isaiah 65:17-25; Luke 24:1-12
Walking Through the Door
Resurrection of our Lord (Easter Sunday) – March 31, 2013
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Although the sun is up already this morning, our story begins in darkness.
When Luke begins to tell the story of the first Easter Sunday morning,
he begins “at early dawn.”
But what it says literally is that the women come to the tomb “at deep dawn,” or,
even better, “deep twilight.”
This is where the story begins: in the stillness and quiet of the time before the sun comes up.
Before the first bird sings and before the first labourer is roused.
While creation sleeps.
The women come to the tomb.
They come in order to anoint the body.
You’ll remember that Jesus died just before the Sabbath was ending on Friday afternoon,
so there was no time to anoint the body then
And of course they couldn’t come on Saturday, the day of Sabbath rest.
And so they come first thing, at deep dawn, to the tomb.
And it’s there they discover that the story of Easter doesn’t really begin then.
It actually doesn’t begin at deep twilight.
What they discover is that the story has already begun.
The tomb is empty.
Jesus has already been raised, the men in dazzling clothes tell them.
When all was dark, when the world was sleeping, before even the first glimmers of dawn,
God had been at work.
While the world slept in darkness, God was at work.
Before anyone could see, God was at work.
At work, in the dark.
Easter Sunday morning is really not the best time to celebrate the resurrection:
it’s already happened by that point.
Those sunrise services some churches have? They’re really not the best time to
celebrate the resurrection either: it’s already happened by that point.
No: the best time to celebrate the resurrection was last night at the Easter Vigil,
in the dark of night, in the time when God was at work, raising Jesus from the dead
while the world slept.
I am fond of telling you on Christmas Eve that it’s appropriate we celebrate God’s
coming into the world in Jesus at night, for, as the Lutheran thinker
Soren Kierkegaard said long ago, “It must be night when the messiah is born.”
It’s to a world of darkness that God comes – comes in order to save it and bring it light.
Just so, he could just as easily have said that “It must be night when Jesus is raised,”
for it is in the dark silent places of the world where God most wants to be at work.
Before the morning, before the dawn, before the deep twilight: God is at work.
On Easter Sunday, we affirm with generation upon generation of Christians that
God is at work in the night.
Last night we affirmed with countless Christians the world over that God is at work in the night.
We lit a blazing fire after the sun went down to affirm just that.
We lit the Paschal Easter candle that symbolizes Christ and followed it silently into an
utterly dark church building to affirm just that.
Then we read stories together that affirmed just that, that God acts in the world’s nighttime:
we read of slaves who under the cover of darkness cross waters into
freedom and new life;
and we read of a dark mass of mess given light and a dome of air and
order and beauty and life:
while darkness covered the face of the deep,
God acted in the world’s nighttime to bring life.
And then, and then, in deep twilight, God does it again, while the world sleeps,
and wakes its saviour to life, to endless, endless life.
And still God works life while we sleep: before the farmer wakes up God is growing the crops,
and before the clinic is open God is knitting the wound together.
Before the morning, before the dawn, before the deep twilight: God is at work.
On Easter Sunday we affirm that Christ is Risen.
We affirm that God is at work in the human night of sinfulness and rebellion.
We affirm that while we human beings seek to draw the curtain with all our dark “nos”
God is at work opening them up and brightly saying “yes.”
The religious and political authorities sought to bring their night upon the world by
saying “no” to Jesus’s mission to love, bless, and
heal this world and every person in it by crucifying him,
but in raising Jesus from the dead God has trumped their “no” and said “yes” and
“yes” and “yes” to Jesus’s healing feeding including forgiving work.
By raising Jesus from the dead, God has said “yes” to light in darkness,
“yes” to love in the midst of hatred, “yes” to forgiveness in the midst of guilt.
And still God says yes.
For that was only the beginning, just the beginning of
God’s great yes to this world so beautifully fashioned out of dark materials.
The beginning was in darkness while darkness covered the face of the deep.
But the end is light. The end is communion. The end is endless day,
when the sun never sets and cities need never close their gates.
The end is life but in God’s reckoning it is always life that is worked from darkness.
Long before God raised Jesus from the dead,
Isaiah knew this God who works life from darkness.
Isaiah’s people had been torn from their homes by the Babylonians,
exiled for 70 years in a strange land, and then sent back to a land and a city in ruin,
without – they thought – the resources to rebuild.
But ruin and darkness is where God seeks to bring life and light.
Ruin and darkness are but the occasions for God’s love.
God looks at the people, in despair, still mourning, at a loss in every sense.
And to this people God speaks:
I am about to create a new heavens and a new earth;
Be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating;
for I am about to create the city as a joy and its people as a delight.
No more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress
They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and they shall not hurt or destroy.
They shall not labour in vain, or bear children for calamity.
No: they won’t bear children for calamity: they shall bear children for their true intention:
to be God’s people of justice-doing and manna-sharing and mercy-giving and
peace-making in a dark world in which God longs longs longs to be at work.
On a dark night, with the world’s welcome closed to Mary and Joseph,
Mary will finally bear a child, a child not to bring calamity, but
a child to bring justice and mercy and healing and peace.
30 years after, on a darkened Friday afternoon, this child will find the world’s welcome closed to
him and his ministry of healing and feeding and forgiving.
But in the dark on Saturday night, in the dark, God will be at work.
In the dark, while humans sleep and their imaginations are dimmed, God will be at work.
God will be imagining something new.
God will be creating something new.
In the darkness of your life, God is at work: that is the good news on Easter Sunday:
It’s hard to see, of course, because it’s, well, dark.
But that was the good news last night and that is the good news this morning.
God can make something of your darkness and from it can work light.
Think about it: the worst we could visit on God was turned into forgiveness and love.
A cross – an instrument of torture and death – is turned into a symbol of limitless love.
And it just doesn’t stop: Guilt ridden, scared disciples who often just don’t get it,
who are often, let’s face it, in the dark,
become filled with courage and grace and healing and the ability to bear light.
It just doesn’t stop: For the resurrection of Jesus is not the end of God’s work.
It is the beginning.
What God worked for Jesus God intends to work for the whole world and every person in it.
And God begins with those closest to Jesus, those who denied him, those who abandoned him,
and those who put him to death
Not particularly promising material, but God – God is always at work in the darkest places.
In Luke’s account, after the resurrection, on the day of Pentecost 50 days after Easter Sunday,
God will send the same Spirit that was at work in Jesus into
the community of Jesus’ disciples.
If the body of Christ on earth before the resurrection was Jesus of Nazareth,
the body of Christ on earth now is the community of Jesus’ disciples.
The truth of Easter and the truth of Jesus’s resurrection cannot be severed from this truth:
you, now, are the body of Christ, forgiven and empowered by God to
continue his ministry.
If God is creating a new heaven and a new earth, you are the community of the new creation.
You are the body of Christ.
You are Christ.
And if you want evidence of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead,
according to Luke you should have to look no further than the work of this community,
this community of the new creation:
in Acts, which continues his Gospel, you see it.
Like the first disciples, we disciples may be a dim lot sometimes.
We may struggle to understand what Christian faith is all about.
We may resist the things that Jesus calls us to and maybe prefer to remain in darkness and
ignorance about them.
But God is at work in dark places – God loves being at work in the dark – and enlightens us with
his grace, forgives us with his mercy, and empowers us with his Spirit.
One of the things it means to affirm that God loves being at work in dark places is to affirm that
God loves being at work in us.
And a second thing it means to affirm that God loves being at work in dark places is
to affirm that God loves being at work through us in the dark places of the world.
Jesus is raised and God is still at work in dark places through us.
God is still creating life from death through us.
To be witnesses of the resurrection means God is working through us.
Yes: we woke this morning knowing that increasing alienation from one another are
creating record levels of apathy and depression and meaningless in North America,
yet this community has gathered to greet one another and care for another and
joyously share God’s good gifts together.
Yes: we woke this morning to yet more reports of violence around the world,
yet this community of the new creation has welcomed and is helping to shelter
refugees from that very violence.
Yes: we woke this morning knowing that rates of poverty and hunger are still high among us
in this city, and yet this community of the new creation this week and every week
places groceries in the hands of the hungry and
prepares healthy home-made meals for our neighbours here.
Yes: we woke this morning knowing that children are still vulnerable to those who
seek to prey on them, and yet this community of the new creation committed itself in its
budget yet again to ensuring that Kids Club,
a free drop in for neighbourhood children, will run yet again and
provide a safe, healthy environment for them.
You don’t have to look too far to see evidence of the resurrection: God is at work.
God is at work in you.
God is at work among you.
God is at work through you.
Christ is raised: you are the body of Christ.
The story goes that one of the people who was invited to consider becoming the pastor here
came and took a look at the building and drove around the neighbourhood and
came to the decision that there was no future here.
Looked like an empty tomb, I guess.
What you are affirming by your work and your witness and your love and your grace is that
Christ is raised and that the future is bright here because God is still at work.
What you are affirming is that God is at work in your lives.
What you are affirming is that the future of your life and the future of this community and
the future of this neighbourhood belong to God and to no one else.
What you are affirming is that God is still at work in all those places where we think him not.
God is at work in you.
God is at work creating our community of the new creation.
God is at work creating our ministries.
The good news this morning, says preacher William Willimon,
is that death and evil have been defeated by a God who is determined not to let
evil and death have the last word, and that one day, with Jesus,
we will all be raised and
joined together with all those who have died in him:
that is our future, that is God’s future.
In my picture here (“Liberation”) by the great Canadian artist Frederick Varley,
Jesus strongly and confidently walks through the door, out of death, into life.
He walks out the door.
He steps, this morning, out that door into you, into this community.
And through this community he steps strongly out the doors of this building into a world that
needs him and his grace and love.
Christ is risen! Walk through the door with him,
out of the darkness into light,
out of ruin into rebuilding,
out of apathy into love,
witnesses to the resurrection, witnesses to the God works in the darkness to bring light.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
