Community Church Sermons

Easter Sunday – March 31, 2002

"I’m All Shook Up!”

Matthew 28:1-10

 

 

One of the truly beautiful parts of the Easter celebration is the music. It is some of the most vibrant, uplifting, positive music we can imagine – all about life rising up from death, hope from despair, joy from sorrow. And it is music that hardly ever changes. It’s sort of interesting when we sing the great hymns of Easter, many of you don’t even look down at the words printed in the bulletin. They are the same words, played to the same tunes, that we’ve been singing since we were children:

 

Christ the Lord is risen today, Alleluia! Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!

 

Low in the grave He lay, Jesus my Savior, waiting the coming day, Jesus, my Lord.

Up from the grave He arose, with a mighty triumph o’er His foes!

 

The Day of resurrection, earth sing it abroad!

 

I serve a risen Savior, He’s in the world today!

 

Come ye faithful, raise the strain!

 

I know that my Redeemer liveth!

 

The music of Easter is such a joyful and wonderful expression of the marvelous thing God has done by raising Christ Jesus from the dead!

 

But maybe it’s just a little too light. I mean, it’s kind of like singing “Rocky Top” for the four hundredth time as the men and lady Volunteers march on to victory on the football field, or the basketball court (well, maybe I ought to leave that one out for the time being). You sing the music. You feel good. But then you have march down off ol’ Rocky Top and go home to reality.

 

And as beautiful as the music of Easter is, once we’re done singing it, we have to go home, too – to our marriages and our families, to our work and our retirement, to our communities, to our world. We have to go back to where Israelis and Palestinians are locked in mortal combat – we have to go back to where our wounded children are trying to make their way through a tragic divorce – we have to go back to where our children and grandchildren struggle under the pressure of a society that pushes them into drugs and sex and meaningless materialism – we have to go back to where we have to live with the cancer diagnosis, or with the loss of a spouse, or with the fallout from the terrible mistake we made.

 

And there, in that reality-based world, the joyful music of Easter, telling of a beautiful event long ago, may not be the tune we’re going to need to carry us through the struggles of our lives.

 

So I’m proposing a new Easter song today. One that you can take home with you and hum or whistle whenever you want. One that can energize you for living because it doesn’t describe what Easter means to theologians, or hymnwriters, or to history. No, this will be a song that describes what Easter can mean for YOU!

 

Such a song needs to be scripturally sound, of course. It must be rooted in the Easter story. And it must remind us of the power that Easter brings to OUR lives. And so I have searched the music library high and low. And finally, I think I’ve found it – the song that truly describes what Easter means for us! Here’s a brief clip: (here play “I’m All Shook Up”).

 

Little did Elvis Presley know…

 

Oh sure, the song has some minor flaws. I mean, it’s written to describe a guy falling in love with a girl and how he’s coming unglued in every way under the wonder of it all. And while that kind of discombobulating experience is the same experience Easter can bring us, I think the part of the song that applies most to the Easter faith is the part that goes: Mm mm mm, mm mm – yay, yay – I’m all shook up!

 

At least, that’s how Matthew describes it.

 

“Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the sepulcher. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone, and sat upon it. His appearance was like lightening, and his raiment white as snow. And for fear of him, the guards trembled, and became like dead men.”

 

Oh, I think it would be accurate to say, the guards were…mm mm mm, mm mm – yay, yay - all shook up.

 

I think it would be fair to say that Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were…all shook up.

 

And I think we would not be taking too much liberty with the text to suggest that when the disciples heard about what had happened, they too were…all shook up.

 

Will Willimon up at Duke says it’s interesting how the different gospelwriters portray the Easter story. Luke describes it as an almost liturgical Sunday evening meal with the risen Christ. John writes about that beautiful encounter in the garden between Mary Magdalene and her Lord.

 

But what about Matthew?

 

Well, in chapters 27 and 28 in Matthew, the death and resurrection of Jesus are described as a relentless shaking of the earth, with the curtain of the temple torn in two, and the doors shaken off the tombs in the local cemetery, and dead people walking about in the streets of Jerusalem causing a tremendous ruckus, and on Sunday morning an aftershock that rolls away the huge stone sealing the tomb, and stuns the guards, and leaves all those who experience it…all shook up.

 

Matthew says Easter is an earthquake that shakes the whole world!

 

And what the Bible is trying to get at with this fantastic description of a world all shook up is that the resurrection of Jesus tears down the world of reality as we know it, and creates a whole new world into which you and I are invited to come and discover the power of God to make old things new, broken things whole, and even dead things come alive. On Easter, we are asked to take a look at an earth shattering new vision of how life can be for us and our world.

 

What horrifying images of the world have come our way over the television these past few days. A teenage Palestinian girl becomes a suicide bomber, killing herself and two Israeli citizens. Dozens of innocent people are killed in another suicide bombing while attending a Seder service on the eve of Passover. Tanks roll into Ramallah and surround the headquarters of Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. Israelis and Palestinians alike die in the streets of the Holy Land.

 

This is the reality of our world, we say.

 

No it’s NOT, says Easter! This may be the current situation in the Middle East, but it is by no means the ultimate reality! You see, Easter takes us by the shoulders and shakes us hard! “Don’t give in to a  vision in which sin wins out!” it calls. “There is a higher vision, a better vision, and it is demonstrated in Easter when – despite all odds, despite all apparent scientific and rational reality, despite the impossibility of it all – what was dead was made alive by the power of God.”

 

And the key question becomes, which reality are you going to build your life on?

 

Easter changes everything!

 

You know, I sometimes feel sorry for people who come to live as retirees in our beautiful communities. So many come here thinking that retirement is a time for taking it easy, and relaxing, and being out from underneath all the responsibilities of work. Often, people have a view of reality that has them on the golf course at 9, out on the lake by 2, out to dinner at 6, and home by midnight which in Tellico Village, you know,  is 9 pm.. It’s kind of a vision of life in Mayberry RFD – a sleepy, restful, winding down way of life.

 

That’s the view of reality for some of us.

 

No it’s NOT, says Easter! I’m constantly amazed at how people come and become involved in our Christian community here, and as they do, begin to see larger realities. We begin to see that there is a world of pain all around us, and it needs people like us. Abused children need our help, and so we step forward and establish a Child Advocacy Center. Poor families need our support, and so we develop a Good Samaritan Center. Hispanic people need help learning English, and so Julio Garcia and others start an English as a Second Language program. Young families need the opportunity to own a home, so Shauna Oden and others work through Habitat For Humanity to do it. Here in the community of the resurrection, there is a vision so much larger than the one I had when I lived in Massachusetts, and the one you had when you lived in Michigan. And God has a different vision for our lives, too, and it includes all of the good stuff that brought us here in the first place. But God’s vision is much, much larger. It invites us to believe that retirement is merely a state of mind, and that the most productive years of our lives are still ahead of us! Oh, that’s gotta shake you up!

 

And my hope this Easter is that because the resurrection of Jesus takes our current view of reality and turns it on its head, you will let your own life be shaken up today. Maybe you’ve come here this morning painfully aware of some mistake you’ve made, or some sin you’ve committed. And your present reality is that God would never want anything to do with someone like you. And so you’ve decided to go it alone through life. But today, look at the risen Christ as He seeks out disciples who have denied and abandoned Him. He goes and finds them, because He wants so much to be a part of the healing of their lives. And when the disciples discover this, they get all shook up! I hope you’ll get all shook up, too, and ask the risen Jesus to come to you and help you get out from under all that guilt, and all that pain!

 

What are the realities that confront your life today? Have you suffered a loss? Are you facing a serious illness? Has someone hurt you and filled your heart with anger? Have you lost your faith in God? Are you dealing with the pain of a divorce? Do you find yourself in the middle of a mess it seems you’ll never get out of?

 

Whatever it is that you are experiencing today, there are apparent realities that swirl all around. They tell you to feel sorry for yourself – to retaliate against those who injure you – to withhold love from those who let you down – to give up hope, and to give in to defeat – to hide from God because God doesn’t like people like you.

 

The world is full of realities like these!

 

But here is Easter, shaking things up, and calling us to things that are greater, and higher, and better!

 

Christ is risen! Everything has changed! What was dead has come to life! What was an ending became a beginning! What was sorrow became joy! What was human failure became human redemption!

 

And this same Jesus is available to you!

 

And the word we use to describe all this in the songs of Easter is the word “Alleluia!”

 

Which is a Greek word that simply means…”I’m all shook up!”