Homily – Easter – 4/16/17

Easter Sunday – the celebration of the Resurrection.  It doesn’t get any bigger than this.  The church, indeed the entire Christian faith would not exist without the resurrection.  For we believe that Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah who came to save the world.  But he was not what the people of the time expected and he refused to act according to the ways of the world.  He brought a message of love instead of a sword.  He wouldn’t be what they wanted him to be, and for that, they killed him.

And if that were the entire story, we wouldn’t be standing here today.  Despite the feeding of the 5,000; the raising of Lazarus from the dead; all the healings and the miracles, Jesus would likely have been forgotten.  The death of someone pretending to be the Messiah was anything but noteworthy.  But that is not what happened.

For the resurrection changed everything.  It shouldn’t have come as a surprise.  He told us it would happen.  But no one believed him, or at least they didn’t understand.  The disciples assumed it was a metaphor; a story they couldn’t quite comprehend.  But Jesus was speaking literally and it went down exactly as he told them it would.  He was betrayed by one of them, denied by another, and abandoned by the rest.  He was tried and convicted despite having committed no crime, was mocked, beaten and crucified.  And that should have been the end.  But that is not what happened.

If that was the end of the story, history would probably not have remembered Jesus.  If he was mentioned at all, it may have been as a footnote in some historian’s thesis on the political and social issues during the Roman occupation of Israel.  But that is not what happened.

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb.  They find the stone rolled away and an angel sitting on it who tells them “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.  He is not here; for he has been raised.  Suddenly Jesus met them and said ‘Greetings!’, and they fell at his feet and worshipped him.”  And that event, the resurrection of Jesus was the pivotal moment in human history.  For it proved that Jesus was exactly who he said he was.  He was, and is, nothing less than the Son of God.

The resurrection is what made us who we are today.  The church, the faith, indeed our very pattern of life is based upon this premise.  That Jesus humbled himself to take on our mortality, lived a life not for himself but for others, willingly went to the cross in our place, and was raised on the third day.  Without the resurrection, we would not be a church today.  But that is not what happened.

Jesus was raised and that changed it all.  It also taught us two vitally important things.  That a life lived not for oneself but for others is a life well lived, and that death is nothing for us to fear.

We all know those folks.  The ones who will pull around a line of traffic, only to cut off the first person in the line rather than wait their turn.  The ones who will keep a lost wallet and pocket the money rather than find its owner.  The ones who live by the motto ‘do unto others, before they do unto you.’  Perhaps you are one of those folks, at least from time to time; I certainly know that I am.  They are living a life dedicated to themselves, and them alone.  It is all about them and other people are simply in the way as they compete their way through a life aimed at getting what they feel is coming to them.

Jesus, though he had the power to do so, chose not to live like this.  He dedicated his life to bettering others, through teaching, kindness, acts of mercy and healing.  He welcomed the stranger, the outcast, the prisoners.  He ate not with the wealthy, but with the tax collectors and prostitutes.  He loved others unconditionally, without any regard for what they could do for him.  A skeptic would look at this and say, ‘if he had paid more attention to his own needs he might have been able to save his own skin’.  But he proved the skeptics wrong and by his resurrection, showed that a life lived for others is truly the model for all.

We all have fears.  You may be afraid of spiders.  You may be afraid of clowns.  You may be afraid of public speaking.  Each of us has his own fears, but there is one that we all have in common.  We fear death.  Though we know that we are mortal and will all die eventually, we cling to our universal fear of death.  So much so, that most of us put it out of our minds and even talking about it is uncomfortable.

But Jesus shows us through the resurrection that these fears are unfounded.  For he was killed in an especially grisly fashion, yet despite all of indignities they put him through, he rose on the third day and in so doing, destroyed the power of death forever.  Now we can see that we should have no fear of death, for it is not the end.  Jesus was resurrected and we will share in that resurrection when we die.  We remind ourselves of this in our funeral liturgy when we proclaim with boldness “all we go down the to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song; Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!”

The resurrection changed everything and proved that Jesus was right all along.  So we then, if we claim to be his followers, should embrace his example.  We should live a life, not for ourselves, but for others.  For in doing so, we care for one another as Jesus cared for us, and we honor the sacrifice he made for us.  We should also not live in fear, for death holds no power over us.  For we know that we share in Jesus’ resurrection and we too will be raised.

What happens next is up to each one of us.  If you choose, you can ignore the resurrection and go on living your life as you have.  Or you can let the resurrection change you as it changed the disciples.  You too can live a life for others; a life without fear.  The choice is yours.