God’s Easter LoveA Sermon preached by The Rev. Michael S. White
on Easter Sunday, April 11, 2004
Easter Day, Year C
It
is a joyous and wonderful thing to gather in worship on this day.
Seeing so many of us here today, I can’t help but think of a story that
I heard recently. Two men were out playing Golf and it was on a
Sunday morning. One of the men looked to the other and said, “I
feel sort of guilty being out here on the course and not being at
Church today. What about you?” To which the other man
responded, “No, I don’t feel guilty at all, because I could not have
gone to Church today anyway, my wife is sick!”
I really am glad to be here gathered with each of you on this most sacred of days. I realize that there are many other places you could have chosen to be this morning, and I am glad that you have chosen to be here. This is a great day for us to be together. This is the day that we reenter into the defining moment in both the life of Christ and whether we know it or not, Easter morning is the defining moment in our own lives, our own stories. Whenever our baptism, confirmation, or moment of conversion may be it is the connection of that moment to Easter that brings us from darkness into God’s marvelous light.
During the season of Lent, we have been focused on Love. “Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not envious boastful or rude. Love bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things, Love never ends.” As a communal Lenten discipline, we have talked about our need to Love God and to Love one another. Today, Easter morning, we see the Why? Why should we Love God? Why should we Love one another? Why are we called to live lives that move beyond preoccupation with self? Why are we called to live lives beyond the control of fear, lives driven by Love?
This day I want us to meditate upon two passages of Holy Scripture. The first is probably the most famous text in the New Testament. John 3:16. If you remember it say it with me as you can. I learned it in the King James Version. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” For God SO LOVED the world. Why did Jesus come? For God So Loved the world! Why did Jesus die on Good Friday? For God So Loved the world! But, on this day of all days, we know that the story of God’s Love does not end with Good Friday. The story of God’s Love does not end with death.
We now come to our second passage to meditate upon. The first is John 3:16. The second is found in Romans 8:35. “Who will separate us from the Love of God? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness or peril, or the sword? No, for … I am convinced that neither life, nor death, nor anything will separate us from the Love of God.” In Easter, we see that even in the midst of death, God is with us. In the midst of life, God’s Love is there. In the midst of difficulty and struggle, God’s Love is there. Even in the hour of our deaths (which does come for all of us), God’s Love is there. And in the Christ of Easter we see that God’s Love is there even on the other side of the moment of our deaths. So, Nothing! Nothing will separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus. In the Easter of Christ, the firstborn from the dead, we see that the Love of God is stronger than even the power of death.
If we know that God’s Love is there even on the other side of death we can live on this side without fear. We can Love God. We can Love others, and we can trust that the God of Love will be with us in all things.
I really am not one to typically rail against popular culture. But a new trend in reality TV that I have seen of late is what I consider the anti- Easter message. On MTV there is a new show called “I want a famous face.” In this show people who clearly do not feel that they are loved, people who obviously do not sense their value in the world and their value to God, have their bodies and faces reconstructed to look like their celebrity idols. While we the viewing public look on and watch this train wreck of a life. In another show (I can’t remember the network), young women suffering from low self esteem are given extreme surgical body and face makeovers, and then they are made to compete against one another in a beauty pageant of the totally reconstructed. I can understand reconstruction after an accident. I can even look the other way on a little “nip and tuck” here and there, but these shows are showcasing the cost of not recognizing the message of Easter.
The message of Easter: “We are Loved.” God so loved the world: you, me, all of us. We are so Loved that even death cannot separate us from the Love of God. And, we can take great comfort in the realization that if God is even sticking with us through death, then God’s Love will surely be there at every moment from birth until then. When we truly get Easter, when we truly get that nothing, not even death, will separate us from the Love of God we can make it in this life. We can sleep. We can accept ourselves. We can accept others, warts and all. We can love, and we can be loved.
This day, we rejoice and proclaim our Alleluias. The reason that our Easter acclamation is “Alleluia. Christ is risen!” is because this assures us that God’s Love is with us at birth. God’s Love is with us all through the ups, downs, highs, lows, and humdrum days of life. And, God’s Love is so great that it even journeys with us from this world to the next, from life to death, from the temporal to the eternal. We are God’s children, and nothing, nothing, not even death, will separate us from the Love of God. God is Love, and we are God’s children of Love, this day and forevermore. “Alleluia. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!”
Michael †
I really am glad to be here gathered with each of you on this most sacred of days. I realize that there are many other places you could have chosen to be this morning, and I am glad that you have chosen to be here. This is a great day for us to be together. This is the day that we reenter into the defining moment in both the life of Christ and whether we know it or not, Easter morning is the defining moment in our own lives, our own stories. Whenever our baptism, confirmation, or moment of conversion may be it is the connection of that moment to Easter that brings us from darkness into God’s marvelous light.
During the season of Lent, we have been focused on Love. “Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not envious boastful or rude. Love bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things, Love never ends.” As a communal Lenten discipline, we have talked about our need to Love God and to Love one another. Today, Easter morning, we see the Why? Why should we Love God? Why should we Love one another? Why are we called to live lives that move beyond preoccupation with self? Why are we called to live lives beyond the control of fear, lives driven by Love?
This day I want us to meditate upon two passages of Holy Scripture. The first is probably the most famous text in the New Testament. John 3:16. If you remember it say it with me as you can. I learned it in the King James Version. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” For God SO LOVED the world. Why did Jesus come? For God So Loved the world! Why did Jesus die on Good Friday? For God So Loved the world! But, on this day of all days, we know that the story of God’s Love does not end with Good Friday. The story of God’s Love does not end with death.
We now come to our second passage to meditate upon. The first is John 3:16. The second is found in Romans 8:35. “Who will separate us from the Love of God? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness or peril, or the sword? No, for … I am convinced that neither life, nor death, nor anything will separate us from the Love of God.” In Easter, we see that even in the midst of death, God is with us. In the midst of life, God’s Love is there. In the midst of difficulty and struggle, God’s Love is there. Even in the hour of our deaths (which does come for all of us), God’s Love is there. And in the Christ of Easter we see that God’s Love is there even on the other side of the moment of our deaths. So, Nothing! Nothing will separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus. In the Easter of Christ, the firstborn from the dead, we see that the Love of God is stronger than even the power of death.
If we know that God’s Love is there even on the other side of death we can live on this side without fear. We can Love God. We can Love others, and we can trust that the God of Love will be with us in all things.
I really am not one to typically rail against popular culture. But a new trend in reality TV that I have seen of late is what I consider the anti- Easter message. On MTV there is a new show called “I want a famous face.” In this show people who clearly do not feel that they are loved, people who obviously do not sense their value in the world and their value to God, have their bodies and faces reconstructed to look like their celebrity idols. While we the viewing public look on and watch this train wreck of a life. In another show (I can’t remember the network), young women suffering from low self esteem are given extreme surgical body and face makeovers, and then they are made to compete against one another in a beauty pageant of the totally reconstructed. I can understand reconstruction after an accident. I can even look the other way on a little “nip and tuck” here and there, but these shows are showcasing the cost of not recognizing the message of Easter.
The message of Easter: “We are Loved.” God so loved the world: you, me, all of us. We are so Loved that even death cannot separate us from the Love of God. And, we can take great comfort in the realization that if God is even sticking with us through death, then God’s Love will surely be there at every moment from birth until then. When we truly get Easter, when we truly get that nothing, not even death, will separate us from the Love of God we can make it in this life. We can sleep. We can accept ourselves. We can accept others, warts and all. We can love, and we can be loved.
This day, we rejoice and proclaim our Alleluias. The reason that our Easter acclamation is “Alleluia. Christ is risen!” is because this assures us that God’s Love is with us at birth. God’s Love is with us all through the ups, downs, highs, lows, and humdrum days of life. And, God’s Love is so great that it even journeys with us from this world to the next, from life to death, from the temporal to the eternal. We are God’s children, and nothing, nothing, not even death, will separate us from the Love of God. God is Love, and we are God’s children of Love, this day and forevermore. “Alleluia. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!”
Michael †