This New Day
Easter - March 23, 2008
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Please note: The following sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him. |
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Some of us assembled here today gather every week. Others have been separate from this assembly for various reasons such as distance or illness, etc. Still others may be visiting, curiously sampling what things are like here at St. Mark's.
All, no matter what background we have, are welcome, because all of us need to hear the same message: --That this is a new day --This is a day of reconciliation, --This is a day of beginning again, whether one has been here every week (and Jesus of course encourages that very much), or whether this is the first time that a particular person has visited this congregation at worship, for we have all fallen into the same trap: we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, as the scriptures say. To claim otherwise is only to fool ourselves, as we noted in the confession at the beginning of worship this day. We are not going to be able to work ourselves out of this mess.
The disciples who followed Jesus around Galilee should have been able to figure things out if any human could have done so. After all, they had the very voice of Jesus with them day after day. They could listen and learn and take it all to heart, but it was difficult even for them, even though they witnessed all that was truly important for us to know.
However, the gospels report that the disciples regularly failed to understand, they did not follow in a heart-felt way, and in fact, they fell away at the crucial times.
The last scene in Matthew's Gospel, just a few verses after our reading today, reports that even those who saw the risen Christ were not all sure: Matthew reports that When they saw him, they worshiped him: but some doubted. There is failure piled on top of failure on the part of all of his close followers, as well as the fickle crowds around the scene.
Our failures and all the varieties of unfaithfulness in which we all participate are all things we have in common with those followers of old. It is a sorry tale.
But that is not all that the Gospel has to say about disciples 2,000 years ago, and us today.
The Good News of the Gospel is the message of reconciliation , the news of community put back together, an event which happens because God wills it and gives it. We don't earn it or accomplish it; we receive it.
On Thursday we remember especially the bond that Christ established between us and himself in the holy meal: Whenever you take, bless, break, and share bread and wine in my Name, I am there.
Even when the disciples and all of us will fall away, Christ will not let go of us.
As the Gospel continues, even after the denials and abandonment, the promise of God is presented again, this time in the words of the heavenly messenger: He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee. There you will see him. Jesus could have abandoned the disciples as they had abandoned him, but he does not. It is of the essence of the nature of God that communication and community be re-established.
But some doubted, the Gospel says. We can decide to stay there and wallow in our own rejection and the despair to which it leads, or we can end our hunger for something that truly satisfies, recognize that we are a part of a community which shall not fall apart, and receive a hope that does not disappoint us.
On this new day, recognize what happens here: God transforms the wreckage of human hopes into a new community. God uses ordinary water enlivened with his word of promise to bring together a community that would never be established any other way. God transforms bread and wine, samples of our work with his creation, into the nourishment that is working to transform us from the inside out.
We have itchy ears, Paul says, ready to try out any new-sounding thing without regarding whether it is of value or not. But this is a new day, and on this new day let all of us discover that whenever we turn those itchy ears to scripture, we will be transformed a bit at a time as God intends.
Whether it was by habit that each of us has gathered here this morning, or whether it was prodded by guilt, through a family member or neighbor, or urged by curiosity spurred by a newspaper ad or inquisitive companion, or or driven by sorrow drifting toward despair, here we are, together, this morning.
Through this experience of Word and Sacrament today, we are changed, transformation has begun, and at length our hunger will be satisfied, our loneliness replaced with companionship. We will doubt our doubts more than we doubt our faith, and our sorrow is being supplanted by joy in the presence of the risen Lord Jesus among us.
We know that by ourselves, we are not such great successes, in spite of the facade that we put up for the public.
One of the most unusual facades I have ever seen was in Berlin 15 years ago. There they had erected a gigantic, block-long scaffolding and covered it with a canvas on which was painted the out line of a building which stood on that spot before the bombing of WWII.
After inquiry, I discovered that they couldn't decide whether they really wanted to re-build the palace on that spot, and so they were looking at this full-size mock-up, and then going to decide what should be done. There was no building, but only empty space with the picture of a building. How would it turn out?
On this new day called Easter, that kind of a question has already been answered. Empty space and vague hopes are transformed into the Body of Christ. Hungers are being satisfied. Facades are being taken down and replaced with true community.
This is what can happen, what is happening, what will happen, with you, with me, with us together, because this is a new day, this is a day like no other, this is resurrection day. Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia. Amen.
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