This Most Amazing Day
Easter Sunday
“This Most Amazing Day”
April 16, 2006 CCUM
Rev Carolyn Waters
THE SUNDAY of the Resurrection is not only the greatest day of the church year; it is also the only one that is set by the moon. Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox. As complicated as that sounds, it makes ancient sense, since it means Easter coincides with the greening of the earth. Christ is risen and the whole world comes to life. Sap rises in dormant trees, spring peepers start their peeping, and the smell of tree blossoms fill the air. The connection is a happy one, surely guaranteed to renew our faith in the creative power of God.
I spent two days this week working in my yard. The difference I could see in the greening of life between Wednesday and Friday was amazing to me. It happens every year! I know this! But I have been so aware of it this year. Perhaps because I’m in a new yard or maybe it’s because I’m paying more attention.
Life comes to life. That’s what spring is all about. Life coming to life.
I want to imagine that is also what Easter can mean for us. That the life we have, often stagnant or stuck or speeding way too fast down a dead end road, that with spring, with Easter, with an understanding of the resurrection…….that life comes to life.
I imagine that all of us have at one time or another struggled with the meaning of the resurrection. If you’ve been paying attention to our Christian story, or really listened to the Gospel message I expect that you have questioned or doubted or at least wondered about the reality of the resurrection. I wonder about the historical reality of the resurrection, but I have little trouble understanding the meaning of the resurrection, if nothing else it is God’s continuing gift of love for us.
Don't we discover the resurrected Christ in those we love and who love us? Haven't we known the love Christ showed for us from the cross in the loving sacrifices others have made for us? Since childhood, haven't those who loved us and taught us our faith, opened a path for the resurrected Christ to enter our lives? We have no more "proof" of the resurrection than those disciples who peered into the empty tomb. But love has stirred our hearts and that love has enabled us to believe that Christ is risen and alive for us. At this point in the resurrection narrative we are reminded that one way the Easter story of Christ's resurrection is made known to us is through love. If others are to come to the faith we celebrate today, or are to be strengthened in their faith as they stare into the tombs and dead parts of their lives, then we will have to reflect for them the risen Christ by our love for them---whether they are family, friend or stranger.
John B. Cobb, Jr., is Professor Emeritus of Claremont School of Theology asks the questions:
Do we affirm the resurrection because of our experience of the resurrected Christ? Or is it important to believe that the New Testament accounts of the resurrection are based on historical fact? Christians disagree on this.
Cobb continues:
There is, in any case, one important difference between Easter and Christmas. The rise of the resurrection faith involved the belief that Jesus had appeared to his disciples after the crucifixion. It is probable that without some experience of the risen Christ, however we are to think of it, the disciples would not have initiated the movement that became Christianity. Whether or not they are important to us today, historically they were of great importance.
That God raised Jesus from the dead does not mean that Jesus was or is a supernatural being. It does mean that death does not have the last word, that reality is far richer than our small minds can realize. In the context of the whole story, it means that God affirmed Jesus’ message and the mission for which that message called. It means that in Jesus we find a clue to who God is. It means that Jesus’ call of the original disciples to mission is a call to us as well. It means that following Jesus is no guarantee of earthly success but that it does ground our hope of ultimate salvation through everlasting life with Jesus in God.
So the celebration of this Easter Day is an invitation to each and every one of us to at least examine our lives and open ourselves to God’s presence being in the darkest and most destructive places within us, to willingly pronounce death upon those places and open ourselves in this Easter time, this spring time to new life.
Paul Tillich once said that “new life would not really be new life if it did not come from the complete end of the old life.”
(Sermon Nuggets, 4-16-06)
Those are difficult words to accept whether speaking of change here and now, or accepting the reality of death. But through both our living resurrections and our resurrection in death, we are offered the opportunity of a new beginning. A new beginning that comes only with the cost of leaving the old behind.
In the story of the resurrection, Jesus did not continue to carry his cross. Many of us go through life carrying a lot of stuff on our back. Far too many of us hold on to the suffering and pain that has been a part of our lives for far too long. Easter is the invitation to let that go, to lay aside the heaviness of life and be invited into a new day, and new vision, a new opportunity to see the wonder, the beauty, the awesome gift of life.
Easter gives us the opportunity to recall
that people who are really willing to live in the light of the resurrection
are willing to live life as God sees and wills it,
not as we see and will it.
This is a most amazing day. This day is amazing because life is amazing. Life is amazing because the nature of God is such that love wins out over all else. Love is the strength of the universe because all other forces remain in the dark places, in the tombs.
The tomb had to be empty, because life if filled with light. Jesus came to show us how to live, and that lesson is one that continues even into death.
So on this grand day of green grass, clear skies, excited children, abundant tables, and an invitation to lay aside the heavy things you carry;;;;;;;;;;
Why not join with ee cummins and say:
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
“This Most Amazing Day”
April 16, 2006 CCUM
Rev Carolyn Waters
THE SUNDAY of the Resurrection is not only the greatest day of the church year; it is also the only one that is set by the moon. Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox. As complicated as that sounds, it makes ancient sense, since it means Easter coincides with the greening of the earth. Christ is risen and the whole world comes to life. Sap rises in dormant trees, spring peepers start their peeping, and the smell of tree blossoms fill the air. The connection is a happy one, surely guaranteed to renew our faith in the creative power of God.
I spent two days this week working in my yard. The difference I could see in the greening of life between Wednesday and Friday was amazing to me. It happens every year! I know this! But I have been so aware of it this year. Perhaps because I’m in a new yard or maybe it’s because I’m paying more attention.
Life comes to life. That’s what spring is all about. Life coming to life.
I want to imagine that is also what Easter can mean for us. That the life we have, often stagnant or stuck or speeding way too fast down a dead end road, that with spring, with Easter, with an understanding of the resurrection…….that life comes to life.
I imagine that all of us have at one time or another struggled with the meaning of the resurrection. If you’ve been paying attention to our Christian story, or really listened to the Gospel message I expect that you have questioned or doubted or at least wondered about the reality of the resurrection. I wonder about the historical reality of the resurrection, but I have little trouble understanding the meaning of the resurrection, if nothing else it is God’s continuing gift of love for us.
Don't we discover the resurrected Christ in those we love and who love us? Haven't we known the love Christ showed for us from the cross in the loving sacrifices others have made for us? Since childhood, haven't those who loved us and taught us our faith, opened a path for the resurrected Christ to enter our lives? We have no more "proof" of the resurrection than those disciples who peered into the empty tomb. But love has stirred our hearts and that love has enabled us to believe that Christ is risen and alive for us. At this point in the resurrection narrative we are reminded that one way the Easter story of Christ's resurrection is made known to us is through love. If others are to come to the faith we celebrate today, or are to be strengthened in their faith as they stare into the tombs and dead parts of their lives, then we will have to reflect for them the risen Christ by our love for them---whether they are family, friend or stranger.
John B. Cobb, Jr., is Professor Emeritus of Claremont School of Theology asks the questions:
Do we affirm the resurrection because of our experience of the resurrected Christ? Or is it important to believe that the New Testament accounts of the resurrection are based on historical fact? Christians disagree on this.
Cobb continues:
There is, in any case, one important difference between Easter and Christmas. The rise of the resurrection faith involved the belief that Jesus had appeared to his disciples after the crucifixion. It is probable that without some experience of the risen Christ, however we are to think of it, the disciples would not have initiated the movement that became Christianity. Whether or not they are important to us today, historically they were of great importance.
That God raised Jesus from the dead does not mean that Jesus was or is a supernatural being. It does mean that death does not have the last word, that reality is far richer than our small minds can realize. In the context of the whole story, it means that God affirmed Jesus’ message and the mission for which that message called. It means that in Jesus we find a clue to who God is. It means that Jesus’ call of the original disciples to mission is a call to us as well. It means that following Jesus is no guarantee of earthly success but that it does ground our hope of ultimate salvation through everlasting life with Jesus in God.
So the celebration of this Easter Day is an invitation to each and every one of us to at least examine our lives and open ourselves to God’s presence being in the darkest and most destructive places within us, to willingly pronounce death upon those places and open ourselves in this Easter time, this spring time to new life.
Paul Tillich once said that “new life would not really be new life if it did not come from the complete end of the old life.”
(Sermon Nuggets, 4-16-06)
Those are difficult words to accept whether speaking of change here and now, or accepting the reality of death. But through both our living resurrections and our resurrection in death, we are offered the opportunity of a new beginning. A new beginning that comes only with the cost of leaving the old behind.
In the story of the resurrection, Jesus did not continue to carry his cross. Many of us go through life carrying a lot of stuff on our back. Far too many of us hold on to the suffering and pain that has been a part of our lives for far too long. Easter is the invitation to let that go, to lay aside the heaviness of life and be invited into a new day, and new vision, a new opportunity to see the wonder, the beauty, the awesome gift of life.
Easter gives us the opportunity to recall
that people who are really willing to live in the light of the resurrection
are willing to live life as God sees and wills it,
not as we see and will it.
This is a most amazing day. This day is amazing because life is amazing. Life is amazing because the nature of God is such that love wins out over all else. Love is the strength of the universe because all other forces remain in the dark places, in the tombs.
The tomb had to be empty, because life if filled with light. Jesus came to show us how to live, and that lesson is one that continues even into death.
So on this grand day of green grass, clear skies, excited children, abundant tables, and an invitation to lay aside the heavy things you carry;;;;;;;;;;
Why not join with ee cummins and say:
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
posted by Rev Waters | 8:57 AM
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