Community Church Sermons
Easter Sunday – April 20, 2003
The Bible tells us that Easter
came…when the Sabbath was over.
That’s how Mark begins his telling of the wonderful story of Jesus’ resurrection. “When the Sabbath was over,” he writes, “Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so they might go and anoint Jesus’ body.”
When the Sabbath was over!
Why do you suppose Mark thinks it’s so important for us to know that Easter came then…when the Sabbath was over?
I never really thought very much about it until I was studying this passage, all the while getting ready for the BIG events of Holy Week: Maundy Thursday, the night of the last supper. Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified. Easter Sunday, with its sunrise services, Easter lilies, full congregations, and Alleluias all around!
Oh, the most important moments in our life as a Christian community take place on Thursday, Friday and Sunday of Holy Week!
But wait a minute! Thursday…Friday…Sunday! There’s a day missing here! Saturday! The Jewish Sabbath. We hardly notice Saturday at all in our observances of the Easter story. We focus our attention on Thursday…and Friday…and Sunday. But what about Saturday? Well, Mark circles it with a red pen, puts balloons all over it, and begins his telling of the resurrection by boldly declaring…
I was thinking about this as I remembered the terrible moment when Jesus’ family and friends witnessed his death on the Cross. The disciples, of course, faced that tragedy knowing full well about their own complicity in his death – betraying him, denying him, running away when he needed them the most. I can’t imagine how devastated they must have felt. Magdalene faced that moment with that terrible hollow feeling inside that comes when you’ve lost your best friend, the one you love most in the world. Oh, I do think Mary Magdalene loved Jesus, and I can’t fathom the pain she must have experienced watching him die, the man that she loved. And Mary, Jesus’ mother. I would suppose Mary faced that moment like all parents do when they lose a child. No words can express it. The pain is too deep for words. Some of you know what that’s like.
And as I thought about these dear, hurting people I found myself asking – for them, and for you, and for myself, “How can you move on from a place like the Cross? How can you move on when tragedy grips your life and squeezes your very soul until it’s empty? How can you move on when your life is shattered into a million pieces, and you haven’t even got a clue as to how to begin putting it back together again? How can you get from the death of crucifixion to the life of resurrection – from Good Friday to Easter Sunday?”
This is a question, it seems to me, that all of us are asking. In the face of a war, how can the world find peace? In the face of terrorism, how can we find safety? In the face of sorrow, how can a family find joy? In the face of alcoholism, how can a person find sobriety? In the face of broken relationships, broken families, broken marriages, broken hearts…how can we be made whole?
Well, Mark gives us a clue this morning for moving from death to life. Now, I don’t want to trivialize it, but the disciples and family of Jesus – as devastated as they were by both their own failures and by the crippling loss of the one they loved – show us the way from Friday to Sunday. Mark wants us to know that they faced these daunting challenges of their lives in a most amazing way.
They kept the Sabbath.
And when the Sabbath was over…Easter came!
When I was a kid in Sunday School, I had to memorize the Ten Commandments. Did you have to do that? I don’t know whether it happened to you, but to be perfectly frank with you, I found that it was much easier to memorize the Ten Commandments than it was to keep them! I mean, have no other gods before me? I was taught that money, possessions, people, all sorts of things can become gods to you. And while I could resist most of them, I had a real problem with Maryann Sullivan, the goddess of my sixth grade class at Thorndyke Road School! Oh, baby! You know, if it came down to choosing between God and Maryann Sullivan, I knew which way I was going!
Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain? Why, I flunked that one before I’d even memorized it! Honor your father and mother? Every kid knows there are just some things you have to do despite your mother and father! Don’t murder? Well, my dad served on Okinawa in World War 2, and although he would not talk about his experiences, I knew there were things he had to do that haunted him until the day he died. I know that many of you have had to do things in the course of war, too. Surely, there must be exceptions to that rule! Don’t commit adultery. Well, I wasn’t old enough to do the deed, but I enjoyed thinking the thought. Don’t steal. Blew that one at an early age! Don’t bear false witness. Yeah, but some rumors are just so juicy you’ve GOT to pass them on! Don’t covet. Remember that one? Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house. Thou shalt not cover thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass… Most of us in the Sunday School class didn’t even know what “covet” meant, but we loved saying that last word out loud…in church…of all places!
Oh, and remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy. Almost forgot that one. I took this to mean going to church every Sunday. In my mother’s Baptist background, they took it as that, plus…not dancing, not playing cards, and not even going to the movies on Sunday. And in Massachusetts where I grew up, the state took this commandment as the reason for enforcing “Blue Laws” which prevented stores from opening on Sunday.
Well, here I am, forty-something years later, and I still find it easier to know the Ten Commandments than to follow them. But, with God’s help I’m trying, and making a little progress! And I’m learning more about the commandments. Especially about what it means to keep the Sabbath.
Do you know what it means? It’s not what I, or my mother, or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts used to think. Keeping the Sabbath is much deeper than that.
Come with me for a moment back to the first chapter of Genesis. There was God on the seventh day, after starting the most ambitious engineering project in the history of the universe. When he started, there was nothing – nothing but chaos. So God began to work. He hung the sun and the moon and the stars in the heavens, precisely calibrating them in orbits designed to cast periods of light and darkness, of times and seasons on the earth. God spread the seas over the face of the planet, with their tides and various depths, tuned exactly to give up moisture to the sky to produce the rain needed for things to grow. He formed the continents, and chiseled the mountains. God grew flowers, and planted trees, and caused grain to grow. Then God developed DNA, and constructed chromosomes, and created cellular structures. Birds, fish, insects, mammals appeared - even human beings with our propensity for falling head-over-heels in love with each other which is God’s way of tricking us into making babies for the next generation. And God tilted the earth just right on its axis, and placed it among the heavenly bodies, just the right distance from the sun. Then God gave it a mighty spin, and the earth began to turn.
And then – when he was done – God stepped back and took a long, hopeful look at this amazing contraption he’d made out of nothing.
Will it work? Will it all hold together?
Or will it unravel into chaos again?
God held his breath!
And do you know what happened? Before God’s own eyes, the pitch blackness of the preexistent nighttime became a glorious golden dawn, and the world and its creatures came to life!
And God said, “Wow! This is
good!”
This is good – that something can be made from nothing! This is good – that chaos can be turned into order! This is good – that life can be brought forth from death!
And in that very moment on that Sabbath long ago, God decided that everyone needs a day like this. You need a day like this! I need a day like this! Our families need days like this! Because, you see, life in our world is chaotic. It’s hard to be a parent in today’s world, and often we parents realize that we can never be for our children all that they need us to be. It’s tough to be a kid in today’s world that is so full of difficult choices and dangerous temptations. It stinks to get old, and to lose the vitality you had when you were young. It’s not fun to get sick, or to go through a divorce, or to begin again after losing your spouse, or to live as a single person in a coupled world. It’s hard to be an addict or an alcoholic and not have the power to do anything about it. It’s difficult to move to a new place, or go to a new school, or start a new job. It’s terrifying to hear the doctor diagnose an illness, and tell you that you’re going to die. And what can be worse than losing the people you love? Spouses. Children. Parents. Friends.
Oh, God knows that we all need a day like this – a day we can run to when we’re up against it and the chaos of life has got us by the nose. God knows that we need a time when we can pause and center ourselves in the most important fact – the most important scientific reality in all of life.
So when their lives were
shattered by the awful events of Good Friday, Jesus’ followers and family
members went home and took up the discipline of remembering the Sabbath.
And the next day, armed with the strength that only comes from centering your life on the God who can create good things even out of the worst things, they went out to confront the tomb. And there they discovered that God was already at work, keeping his promise, turning their chaos into something good, and their tragic Friday into an Easter Sunday!
I saw this Sabbath strength lived out before my very eyes this week when Sandy and I received a visit from an old friend of ours. She and her sister were doing the tourist thing over in Pigeon Forge, and thought they’d swing down our way on the return trip to the Atlanta area. So they did, although just outside of Knoxville, they had car trouble. Wouldn’t you know!
Fortunately, an automotive shop was nearby, so they pulled in for help. The problem turned out to be a bad timing belt, and a bunch of other problems. They lost the whole day on Thursday while the problem was being diagnosed and fixed. The bill was adding up. It was not the kind of situation that would make me a happy tourist, I can assure you.
Well, while they were sitting in the waiting area, our friend’s sister whiled away the hours making these little barrettes that the kids like to wear. Her church makes them and sells them to support their ministries. As she was working away, the owner of the shop came by, and admiring the little barrettes asked if he could buy one. He asked how much the church sold them for, and she told him. He pulled out some money, and bought one. And then he sat down, and poured out his soul.
His 31-year old daughter is very sick. Has a tumor wrapped around her heart, and the surgery to remove it was unsuccessful. Now it's only a matter of time until it takes her. He shared openly about his and the family’s pain as they watch her go through the final times of her life. He wondered aloud how families make it through times like these.
Now, our friend's sister didn't know why the man opened up to her like that, but his story truly touched her heart. You see, just a year ago, she lost her son. She told the man that she understood what he is going through. “You never get over it,” she said, “but God helps you bear it, and you learn to live with it.” And over the next several minutes, she shared with this stranger her faith in this God who is good, and who specializes in turning Good Fridays into Easter Sundays. She even told him that though her son had died, her son was not lost to either God or herself, and that she believed that God will overcome his untimely death with life and victory! Strengthened by that faith, she goes on with her life.
And then she said to Sandy and
me, “You know, I was upset at first about my car breaking down, and losing a
whole day waiting for it to be fixed. It seemed like the worst thing that could
happen. But now, I truly believe that God intended for me to meet that man, and
to share with him how the Lord has helped me and will help him, too. I think
God used that bad timing belt to bring us together! Oh,” she said, “God
is so good!”
And I suspect that, of all the people in the world who could have stopped in the shop that day, God knew that Patricia would be the perfect one. I don't think it was just a coincidence that a woman who lost her son just happened to be there to listen to a man who was losing his daughter, do you? And isn't it amazing that even Patricia's little barrette-making ministry became the vehicle by which God’s hope and courage and faith could be brought to that hurting man.
Oh, God is good! And God specializes in turning nothing into something, chaos into order, and even death into life!
So our church’s simple message to you on this triumphant Easter morning is this:
If you’re going through one of those really rough times in life, and it feels like you’re coming apart at the seams, stake your life on the God who holds the world together, and won’t let it ever fall back into chaos. God will bring you through, if you’ll trust him.
And if you’re at a time in life when you’re getting ready to launch out in some new direction, or begin some great new adventure – especially if you have a calling to do something great for God and for others – remember that God specializes in making new things out of nothing. Trust God to show you the way, and know for certain that you cannot fail because even if your new enterprise doesn’t work out, God will guide you to the one that will!
And finally, if you’ve come here today looking for something to believe in, we highly recommend this God of Easter! He is a loving and kind friend who is good and faithful. God will never let you down, if you trust him.
How do we know this to be true?
Well, because on a Sunday long ago, God worked his greatest miracle of all. The ultimate enemy of humanity – death itself – was overcome. And now, nothing can separate us from the love of God – or from the love of each other!
And when you build your life on that faith, tragedies like Good Friday always lead to the triumph of Easter Sunday!
We wish you all a blessed Easter! Go now, and keep the Sabbath!