Easter March 31, 2013

Bulletin Easter Sunday March 31, 2013

Acts 10:34, 37-43; Colossians 3: 1-4 or 1 Corinthians 5: 6-8; John 20:1-9
Today is a special day; it’s Easter. It’s special for everyone, I hope, and it’s special for me. It’s about fact and mystery. The fact is that Jesus came to show the Father’s love for me and every single person ever created. It is also a definitive fact that Jesus showed this love constantly throughout His life. It is about mystery…it's called the Pascal Mystery—the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus.
Jesus gave His life for me and for everyone ever created and He did it because He just plain loves every single person ever created no matter how I feel or they feel about themselves. But this is nothing new…throughout Scripture from the time of creation and Adam and Eve through the Acts of the Apostles, Scripture tells constantly stories of God’s faithfulness and people’s rejection of God and His way. I and every person have been involved in this cycle of love and rejection of love and God has constantly been working to prepare humanity for the reconciliation of each and all creation to the Lord.

This sounds easy to the ears and the mind and it may seem like there isn’t any mystery involved in this but there is…it’s about me and each person being loved, forgiven, redeemed and asked to be ‘changers of the world’ so that all may be love. Fr. Anthony Kadavil wrote this in Teaching and Preaching resources: Easter is a mystery “…we are called to embrace. This is a mystery which we are called to let empower and enliven us. This is a profound mystery which, although it happened once and for all --- is repeated continually in our day-to-day lives --- in our countless risings from our everyday struggles, failings, and disappointments. Put simply, this is a mystery which we are invited to enter into. You see, Jesus’ triumph over physical death is the perfect and supreme expression of the infinite power of God’s love defeating, redeeming, and transforming every consequence of sin, every consequence of a broken world. The Lord Jesus took the sin of the world, all of it --- all the brokenness, disobedience, selfishness, greed --- and rendered it completely powerless though perfect love. Even death itself is no match for God’s love. That’s the mystery we are invited to enter into and embrace this day. And when we do, when we accept this mystery as the template of our lives and allow the power of resurrection infuse every part of us…

.. .our failures will not crush our spirit.

… our sorrows will not break our heart forever.

… our disappointments will not sap our strength.

… our unfulfilled dreams will not extinguish our hope.

… our sin will not scar us forever.

… and even our illness and death will give way to a life that has no end.”
This is just the most amazing and awesome mystery: Love Wins. God has won…there is ‘no more pain…no more suffering’…there is no more sadness … there is no wondering if evil has a chance … there is no more wondering if there is a heaven … there is no more fear that I am excluded from heaven … there is no more put downs or disappointments … there is no more hurt … there is no more of anything bad … there is just love … love forever with God who is love. That’s it … there is no other plan to be lived out. Even though I am a sinner … each person is … now I can revel in the fact that: ‘I am a sinner … I am a loved sinner … I am a redeemed sinner … and I have been created to be with God forever. That’s what today is all about … it’s not the end of the story but the completion of ‘waiting for that day that I am with the Lord.’
So what do I have to do? I must be grateful…if I’m not I can easily think that I am the one responsible for all this…I’m not … I’m the object of God’s love. I must also respond. Now how do I respond to love? I must love and Jesus has filled the pages of the Gospels with the how to’s of this; and other writers have enumerated on this in the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles and Revelation in the New Testament. I must also allow God to transform me and inspire me… I don’t have to work on a plan … Jesus already did that. It is being love…living in love…gifting with my love…WHY…because I am loved.
As I look back at the many years of my life and situations that I’ve been in…I can see so very readily the obstacles I have placed in placed in God’s way. Did that ever stop Him, NO. God just continued to pursue me in love and with love.
I find it very interesting in John’s account of the Resurrection when Peter and the ‘other disciple’ came and discovered the empty tomb. Peter just couldn’t figure it out…and the other disciple ‘saw and believed.’ This would seem to be such a special event why didn’t John say who the ‘other disciple’ was? So many scholars state that this was John himself. But why didn’t he say it was he? Maybe it’s because in deliberately leaving the ‘other disciple’ as anonymous, he want me and each person to decide for ourselves. Each person comes to this story later…how is my belief…am I need of help from the Spirit…is my faith strong at this time…am I struggling…the bottom line is what do I need from God to help my unbelief? So I reflect on:

• How different would my life be if I wasn’t a person of faith?
  
• I encounter many people each day, many know me, and to others I am a stranger…so I ask: will it take more than words to convince people of my Christianity?
  
• How am I an example of Jesus’ to my world…to family…friends who believe…friends who doubt…friends who don’t know or don’t care?
  
• There is pain in Holy Week…there is pain in my life…do I expect there to be no pain…or do I realize that this is my cross to carry that brings me to the glory of heaven?
  

Sacred Space 2013 has an interesting reflection:

“When Jesus raised Lazarus, Lazarus had to be freed from his grave-clothes. Jesus’ grave-clothes are rolled up and lying on the side, a reflection of His mastery over death. I stand in the doorway beside the entrance and stare into that empty tomb. Do I grasp the difference between this resurrection and that of Lazarus?”

• What do I still have to do to be Jesus?