The Rev. Rob Merola

I love Easter.  All the beautiful flowers, the elaborate ritual of our sunrise service beginning with a huge fire (yeah, I particularly love that part!) and continuing with a procession by candlelight through the darkness from the Chapel in the Woods into the church building.  The over- the-top music that makes our ears soar.  All of you looking so beautiful or handsome in your Easter finery.   …Oh, and did I mention the food?  Did I mention the ongoing brunch that folks so generously provide us on this already busy morning?  Did I mention being able to eat a fresh maple donut after services?  Oh, I love Easter!

Another really nice thing about Easter is that people express concern for the clergy.  Knowing how busy Holy Week is for clergy—and this year it has been a doozy—people pat our hand and ask, “How are you?”  Some people even send us encouraging cards like this one.  There is a handsome young preacher on the front saying, “My Easter sermon is this…”  Opening the card he then exclaims, “Where the heck have you all been since Christmas?!”

Obviously, someone knew I needed a laugh!

The truth is, though, even if we haven’t seen you since Christmas, or last year, or for years and years and years, the only thing I want to say to you is “Welcome home.  We are so glad you are here.”  And that’s another reason I love Easter.  Having you here today is a big a part of what makes this such a great day.

So here we are on Easter, this day of days filled with the joy of Christ’s resurrection.  But...what if it all isn’t true?   What if Easter is, as so many have suggested, really just wishful thinking?

A couple years ago, Samuel Lloyd (the Dean of the National Cathedral) preached a sermon that helped me understand where the wishful thinking really lies.  I am grateful for his influence on my thinking in what follows.

The question Lloyd asked—and which I think, if we are honest, most of us ask as well, is this:  Isn’t this world of ours a lot more of a Good Friday world than an Easter world?

It was certainly a Good Friday world for the woman who came to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ dead body with spices.   That’s how life in the real world is, isn’t it?    Good people die unjustly; we suffer bitter disappointments, and our hopes go unrealized.   In a Good Friday world, all good things must indeed come to an end.

And it certainly often looks like a Good Friday world to us also, doesn’t it?  If we were to take a moment to look at the top news stories, it would become immediately clear that we live in a world marred by wars and rumors of wars, by violence not only in the world but also in homes, by economic worries, terrorist threats, and the abuse of people who are weak, poor, or who cannot defend themselves.

And, of course, it can also seem like a Good Friday world to us personally as well.  Marriages that are struggling or which have already come apart, problems with our kids or our parents, devastating tragedies, people suffering with chronic pain or a terminal disease, being let go from a job…the list can go on and on. 

Sometimes it seems like if we're honest with ourselves, we’d admit that’s all there is to it. What we see is what we get.  The reality is that Jesus is still in some tomb somewhere, and we need to get about making the best of whatever situation in which we find ourselves.

But then, maybe that is the wishful thinking.   If Jesus is still in the tomb, we don’t have to take His teachings too seriously.   We don’t have to worry about an alive and risen Christ bugging us like He bugged people 2,000 years ago.  Let’s face it:  all the time He was alive He kept asking more of His followers than they wanted to give.

“Forgive,” Jesus says.  “How often?” asks Peter, looking for some reasonable limit.  “Always”, replies Jesus.

“Love your neighbor,” Jesus says.  “Who is my neighbor?” a would-be follower asks.  “Everyone,” Jesus says.

“Sell your possessions,” Jesus says.  “How many of them?” we ask.  “If you have two or more of something,” he says, “and somebody else has nothing, they need what you have more than you do.  Give it to them.”

“Be great…” Jesus says.  “Now you’re talking!” his disciples say.  “…by being the servant of all,” Jesus finishes.

Christ was always asking more of His followers than they wanted to give.   Dean Lloyd summed it all up this way:  “And so if Christ is still in that tomb, then we can be done with Him. We don’t have to allow Him to prod us, to confront us, and try to get us to see and care about things we’d rather not think about.  We can just get on with living safe, small lives.

If Good Friday is all there is, then life is simple. Make good grades. Go to a good college. Get a job. Make some money. Have a few friends, a spouse, some kids. Sip a few drinks. Vote your pocketbook. Give up on the cities. Give up on church. Above all, don’t expect too much.

Not a bad way to live, you might say. That’s my point. In a lot of ways Good Friday is what we want. Our real wishful thinking just may be that Christ is still in that tomb. ”

But that is not what happened. When the women arrived at the tomb on Easter morning, they found that the massive stone at the door of the tomb had been rolled away.   And then they heard those marvelous words, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here, but has risen.”

Of course this resurrection is hard to believe. I get that.  But as writer Walter Wink has put it, “We are just suckers if we let the reigning intellectual fashion decree that resurrection is unbelievable. What is believable changes from generation to generation.”

Let’s go back a few hundred years.  If we told a person we met living then that one day people will defy the law of gravity and travel around the world in machines called airplanes, do you think he would believe us?  Sometimes when I marvel at the great planes moving gracefully through the sky above us, I still have a hard time believing!

Of if I told a person long ago that I can use this little device I can hold in my hand to talk with my daughter in England, and do so while fishing for steelhead on a remote creek in the woods of northwestern PA, do you think she would believe me?

What we believe to be true or possible is changing by the moment.   The things that technology will accomplish tomorrow don’t seem possible—can scarcely even be imagined—today.

So what if Jesus is still loose in the world today, calling a us to live His love in ways we never imagined? What if He still wants to turn our world upside down?   What if He wants to have a personal relationship with you and with me in which His presence so fills our lives that we are transformed into the people we so long to be in our hearts of hearts?  What if He really does have a glorious plan for each and every one of us that goes beyond merely “taking care of business and working overtime”?  (For our young people here today, those are words from a great song by Bachman, Turner, Overdrive.  Add it to your playlists).

This morning, God calls us to live in the world of Easter and let the Good Friday world go, to stop making excuses and start living boldly in light of the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.   He calls us to give ourselves to what really matters, to simplify our lives for our own sake and for the sake of the world around us, to grow in our relationship with Him and so make a difference in the short time we are given on this earth.

Could it be that the real wishful thinking is that this Christ is still in the tomb, safely put away?  That God is speaking to us in words this Easter morning that sound very similar to the words of a great poem by Shel Silverstein:

Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child,
Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDN'TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me—
Anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be.
in our hearts of hearts
   —Where the Sidewalk Ends

Amen.