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Sermon for Easter Day, 2020

Sermon for Easter Day, 2020

Date:4/12/20

Category: Easter

Passage: Matthew 28:1-10

Speaker: The Rt. Rev. Steven Miller

The Risen Christ comes to us!

Alleluia! Christ is risen.
He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Grace and peace to you on this most unusual Easter. I am finding this unusualness jarring, as I suspect many of you are as well. The upside of this is that it is causing me to look at the Easter story through new lenses and in new ways.

This year my focus has been on people’s encounters with the Risen Jesus in the Gospels of Luke, Matthew, and John. I am not ignoring Mark. Rather the fact is that our best early manuscripts of Mark do not record any appearances of the Risen Jesus. Mark instead ends with what I have for years called the verse that the majority of Episcopalians are glad to take literally, “they said nothing to anyone because they were afraid.”

That being said, even if we accept one of the longer endings of Mark, all the recorded encounters of the Risen Jesus occur in the same way. The encounter with Mary Magdalene, Joana, Mary mother of James, Peter, Thomas, the disciples in the Upper Room, the two men on the road to Emmaus share one thing.

Now I know that Biblical scholars and teachers of homiletics discourage preaching what was called in days past a harmony of the Gospels and what we might call today a mashup. They would insist, and rightly so, that what each evangelist records is best examined by itself. The thinking is, and I concur, that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were writing and preaching to specific communities sharing the good news with them and addressing their questions and concerns about what God has done in Jesus. The most obvious example of this is that the wise men appear at Jesus’ birth only in Matthew’s Gospel to show prophetic fulfillment, while the shepherds are found only in Luke to show God’s identification with the lowly and poor. The first question I have been taught to ask when approaching any biblical text is who is the intended audience, and, secondly, what do we know about them that might help us see and understand the point the gospel writer is trying to make. That approach has served me in good stead and provided insight to the Scriptures and inspiration for preaching throughout my entire ordained ministry.

That being said, there is one thing that all the Gospel writers record as they tell of the appearances of the Risen Christ. And I think it is important that we take note. It is this: those who encounter the Risen Christ don’t go to Jesus, Jesus comes to them.

Think about it. A survey of all the resurrection appearances of Jesus makes this perfectly clear.

Matthew records that after Mary Magdalene and the other Mary had heard the angelic message at the empty tomb, “they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.
And behold, Jesus met them and said, ‘Hail!’ And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him.”

In the first resurrection appearance in Luke’s Gospel which is made to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, it is Jesus who draws near to them and joins them on their journey.

And in John’s Gospel, after Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved had gone to the tomb, Mary Magdalene stands outside the tomb weeping.

And as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Saying this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing.

This truth that the Risen Christ comes to people is recorded even earlier that the written Gospels, describing his conversion the apostle Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians,

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me (1 Corinthians 15:3-8)

The message is clear Christ comes to us. Why is this message so important? Because it reminds us that our life in Christ is all about grace.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

Faith is not a work. When I was in college there was an evangelism campaign that had at its center bumper stickers and T-Shirts that said, “I found it.” One response was an alternative bumper sticker that read, “I didn’t know it was lost.” The “it” of course was new life through faith in Jesus Christ. And while to proclaim that we have found new life is an important thing and to tell others what that means for our life—in a culture that would rather do it oneself, it is important to remember that those of us who have found new life in Jesus have only done so because of God’s grace. We love because God first loved us. We hear the prophet Jeremiah remind us this Easter day that God has loved us with an everlasting love. And that in everlasting love God gave us his best, his fullest, his most in becoming a human being in the person of Jesus Christ and dying for us on the cross.

We are saved by grace through faith because the Holy Spirit has called us through the Gospel.

This truth gives deeper meaning to my favorite Easter Hymn from childhood, one which unfortunately is not in our hymnal, something that is particularly unfortunate because it has a great melody with a great refrain in addition to powerful words. The hymn begins,

Thine be the glory, risen conquering Son,
Endless is the victory though our death hast won.

The second verse reads,  

Lo, Jesus meets us risen from the tomb
Lovingly he greets us scatters fear and gloom
Let the church in triumph hymns of gladness sing
For her Lord now liveth death lost its sting.

Jesus meets us and lovingly greets us and comes today to cast out our fears.

On this Easter, it is the scene in the Upper Room on Easter evening recorded in John’s Gospel that draws me most. “On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” (John 20:19)

As we stay safer at home, I suspect many of us are wrestling with fear and anxiety as we wonder what might happen next and what the future will look like. There is a deep feeling of loss and grief as planned events are canceled or changed. There is a desire for things to return to the way they were but also a knowledge that things will never be the same again. This pandemic will influence behaviors, actions, and decisions for years to come.

I am sure the disciples were feeling much the same way. They had gone from witnessing miracles and shouts of Hosanna to hearing cries of rejection and watching Jesus’ crucifixion and death. They were looking for a kingdom, for freedom and liberation, and their hopes were dashed in what could only be viewed as a disaster.

And then into their midst comes Jesus standing among them and saying to them, “Peace be with you.” You know the rest of the story. Their lives were changed. They saw the truth about God, love, and the world clearly. They were given new life. Peter reflecting on what happened many years later wrote, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy, we have been born anew by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

It was not only the disciples who were changed. The whole world was changed as well. It was changed because the disciples having received Christ’s peace heard and heeded his words, “as the Father has sent me, so I send you, go and make disciples.”

That is his word to us as well. Go and make disciples. This year we are forced to consider new ways to answer that call such as sharing online meditations and sermons we have found meaningful. Perhaps it might mean sharing more openly what our faith means to us and telling others how our faith shapes our actions. Some have noted that the use of online platforms has resulted in deeper levels of sharing. Perhaps deeper sharing will lead to deeper faith. As your bishop, I am seeing so many creative ways to invite others to follow Jesus and engage the faith. I look forward to the day when we on the other side of this and are able to share what we have learned and reflect on the gifts God has given us while walking together through this pandemic and how we might use them as ministers of God’s love, reconciliation, and justice.

This Easter Jesus comes to as we are behind doors. My prayer is that each of you will hear his greeting, “Peace be with you,” and that his peace will abide in you as we move through the days and months ahead. May his peace give you grace and confidence to face whatever challenges may come your way.