Sermon

St. Mary Nanoose Bay

April 12, 2020 – Easter Morning

John 20:1-18

Christ has risen, He has risen indeed!            

A blessed Easter to you all!            

For 50 years, I have hauled around, and added to, my collection of journals and memorabilia.. I’ve been journaling since I was a teenager, so I have done a lot of navel-gazing in print! Especially as a parent, I collected every card and sweet piece of art my sons created, and when my grandparents died, all my correspondence to them was returned to me in a couple of shoeboxes. I kept all our wedding cards, our travel journals…. you get the idea! And so I find myself, getting preparing to move into a tiny home with tubs and tubs and tubs of “stuff.”            

These past few weeks, whenever I’ve felt a spurt of energy, I’ve put on some good music and tackled the beast. I’ve sat on the floor and started looking through files, diaries, art journals, letters, and so on. I’ve dreaded this task for years.            

But now, amazingly, because of my sense that this time of Covid-19 is moving us into a new reality, it’s become so clear that I don’t need this stuff any more. It doesn’t give me joy. I don’t know what I’m keeping it for. All the memories are actually all inside me.   My history doesn’t exist anywhere else. And I am the fruition of all that has come before me. The “stuff” – all my experiences and memories; all my relationships, accomplishments and failures – have all been composted into the person I am today. And today, I need to be preparing to step into a new future, not dwelling in the past.              

What the future will be, I can’t be sure, but I’m seeing signs of it – more compassion in the world, people having more time for family and friends, time to work in the garden and enjoy down time, there seems to be more valuing of the truly important things in life, and a revitalization of Creation. I haven’t heard so many birds singing since I don’t remember when!                        

Well, this morning we are celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. The coming to life of what we thought we had lost, what we thought had been taken from us. We are celebrating the greatest miracle and gift of all time.            

Without knowing what they were experiencing, but having been prepared in ways they didn’t understand, the disciples and followers of Jesus were stunned into realizing that everything they had anticipated, everything they had imagined, paled in comparison to what was really happening – the One they loved, had risen from the dead, and been transformed yet was somehow, the same.              

Christ has risen indeed!              

I’ve been thinking about the cross a lot this past week. How it was a method of torture and execution; a most horrid creation of suffering. Yet, the wood of the cross, or the tree that it more likely was, with time would have rotted into the ground, become soil and nourished some other form of life; a plant, bacteria, or some small creature, or all of the above. This new life that would serve other new forms of life, and so on.             Today, it is clear, we must not stay with the cross. It has been transformed. It was a torture and killing device by which Jesus died and came back to life in a new form. That horrendous experience has been composted into our faith, our community, our new view of, and relationship with, God as compassionate and vulnerable and ever-loving.            

For each of us, that means we must not get stuck at the crosses of our own lives. Everything we do and experience is transformed by what Jesus experienced on the cross. We are asked to offer up our pain and suffering, our guilt and shame, to have them composted into new gifts and offerings – ways we can love ourselves, others and God more fully.            

This new life is a dynamic experience. We don’t know how our past will be composted; and we don’t know how the new life that arises can serve. We just need to believe. Not naively, but with an eye to remembering how many times we’ve been saved from our suffering and had new doors and windows open in our lives. How many times we’ve been helped by strangers and friends. How many times our prayers have been answered in ways we never could have imagined.            

It’s Springtime. We see the signs of new life everywhere, and we feel the excitement in our guts. We feel the darkness of winter and Lent leave us and the longer days light up our imaginations. We’re drawn to being outdoors. We’re drawn to being with life; it can be enough just to breathe in the fresh air, the scent of the blossom trees, and to watch the birds as they go about their business.            

We are drawn to life. We’ve left the cross behind. We haven’t forgotten it, but we know that moment in time is gone forever. We remember it every year to keep our perspective and our wonder alive. But the point is to let go into the mystery of Love and new life. To be changed by what has happened and re-created. And to give thanks to the One who has been there with us even when we thought we were abandoned and alone.

Christ has risen! Christ is with us!            

Thanks be to God!            

Amen.