Practice Resurrection

Easter Message

Pastor Mitch Coggin April 17, 2022 Easter

Reverend Laura Kavanagh, pastor of Knox Presbyterian, is part of this worship service even though she is not able to be with us in person. It would be a shame to miss the significance of today’s worship. The sense of what we are about today is embracing the possibility of our shared faith and partnership in ministry in Victoria.

Reverend Laura was to have preached to us this morning. I’ve chosen to include portions of her sermon in our meditation today. Laura frames our message of Easter, (and I quote) Death is a fact of life, and we must face it. We can’t in good conscience deny it as some would have us do because if we can’t talk about death how can we possibly talk about the promise of new life? Why would we need to or want to? Without death there is no need for resurrection – no promise that Easter conquers death – no hope. But death is real – and we are all subject to it, so thanks be to God for the message that is shared in John’s gospel – a story that admits the despair of death but proclaims the hope and joy of new life – resurrection that is also very real! Is there an Easter message that we have not considered? Like those at the tomb, we know death is real, we’ve experienced their confusion, felt their panic, and tasted their speculation. Mary knew that death was final. To make matters worse, Jesus’s body wasn’t there. Mary asked the man whom she assumed was the gardener if he’d moved the body. He asked why she was crying but she didn’t recognize that he was Jesus.

Following Jesus had transformed Mary’s life. Reverend Laura explains that relationship, (and I quote) If you asked what Jesus gave her Mary might grope for words and come up with responses like hope – vision – dream – mercy. It is difficult to know for sure. She would gaze far off – get a certain look in her eyes – and quietly say, “He gave me a glimpse of a new world where I was different – where people were different – relationships were different.” And if someone asked, “Different in what way?” she would search again for the words to express herself and say, “He seemed to be asking me to imagine what the world would be like if God’s will was always and everywhere obeyed. What it would be like if everyone, everywhere really believed God’s love – lived God’s love – accepted God’s love. He called it the kingdom of God.” When Jesus called her name, “Mary.” He called her name as a friend speaks your name with familiarity. Suddenly, in that brief exchange, life became okay again. She recognized Jesus. Mary was suddenly aware that she was carrying burdens that she no longer needed to carry. It made sense to go and tell the others the good news that the grave had not meant what she thought it meant. When Jesus tells Mary to go into the city and tell the others she must have wondered if they would believe her.

In the Corinthians passage read earlier, Paul writes to the church in Corinth that did not believe the resurrection nor that it mattered to their faith. If Christ had not been raised their faith was in vain. The scripture ends, “the last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

The relevance of this passage for us in that death is always among us, not simply in terms of physical death. We keep the concept of death alive in our attitudes, our relationships, in our dreams and our hopes. We live in ways that advance the doubt, despair, and finality of death. We fail to recognize God’s resurrection power that is at work within us.

You will go home today. You will enjoy your Easter meal. Perhaps you will nap and then tomorrow you will return to your everyday life, even picking up again those baskets of problems that you left last week. You may not realize that what happened to Mary Magdalene that first Easter morning has direct implications for your own weighty issues that you now carry. Death is not the final word.

Laura writes that “Proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus, we announce the only cure for death. With Jesus we no longer seek to avoid death – death is dead – now new life begins. We all have Mary’s good news to tell – news of hope – joy – new life. News that God’s grace cannot die but triumphs in resurrection…”

Frederick Buechner writes, “The earliest reference to the Resurrection is Saint Paul’s and he makes no mention of an empty tomb at all. But the fact of the matter is that in a way it hardly matters how the body of Jesus came to be missing because in the last analysis what convinced the people that he had risen from the dead was not the absence of his corpse but his living presence. And so it has been ever since.

Love is the victor. Death is not the end. The end is life. His life and our lives through him, in him. To Practice resurrection means to live our lives with impossible hope. To practice Resurrection is to live as if our expected endings are new beginnings with the power of God in us.”

Farmer and poet, Wendall Berry ends his well-known poem, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” with the phrase “practice resurrection”. What does it mean to Practice resurrection, especially for those of us who barely endure the day’s challenges?

Wendall Berry writes, “So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it. Ask the questions that have no answers. Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias. Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years. …Practice resurrection.”

SUNDAY READING

1^st Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:12-26

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

2^nd Scripture: John 20:1-18

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.