Community Church Sermons
Year B
April 12, 2009
Easter
Sunday
Isaiah 25:6-9
Mark 16:1-8
The friends of Jesus had done everything they could.
Do you remember how they had arranged the parade last Sunday? Throwing their cloaks on the ground, and waving palm branches in the air, they had shouted, “Hosanna!” as Jesus came to Jerusalem. They had hoped Jesus was a king like David who would mount an insurrection against the occupying Roman army and so set the nation free! That never happened, of course. But at least they had done everything they could do.
Peter had stuck with Jesus, right up until the Romans arrested the Lord. He lurked in the shadows, perhaps trying to figure out a way to help Jesus escape. Sure, people today remember how one of the servant girls identified him as one of Jesus’ followers and how he denied it three times. We think of it as a sign of weakness, but it was much more complicated than that. To be able to remain there with his Lord, to be able to help if the opportunity arose, Peter had to avoid being arrested himself. So he lied. “I don’t know him,” Peter said. Any of us would have done the same. And he risked that lie not once, not twice, but three times. A rooster crowed. It was morning. It was too late to help. And so Peter ran away.
But he had done everything he could.
The same can be said of all the others. In the face of the most powerful army in the world, and a government that was in lock-down mode to prevent another terrorist attack, the followers of Jesus stood no chance of righting this wrong and avoiding the execution of Jesus.
They did everything they could. Some even stood in the crowd before the terrible cross that day, ready to help if the opportunity arose. His mother Mary was there. And his friend John. Mary Magdalene and a few others stuck it out to the very end.
They did everything they could do.
But it was not enough.
The story of Jesus is more than just the story of Jesus. It is our story, too. It is the story of life.
When I was a little boy, I believed my parents when they told me I was the smartest, most handsome boy who ever lived. Then I went to Kindergarten! There I met 25 other children who had been told the same thing. Early on in life, I began to realize that what my parents had told me was not a universal truth – it may have been true to them, but it was not necessarily true for anyone else! I was not the smartest or most handsome boy in the world.
And there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
It is the story of life.
Our next door neighbors on Calumet Avenue had a dog named Blackie. Blackie was a dear friend of mine during those childhood years when you start realizing that life doesn’t always go your way. So Blackie and I used to sit out on the steps together, just talking, friend-to-friend. Come to think of it, I did most of the talking and Blackie mostly just listened. That dog was a great listener. Never interrupted. Never judged me. And if I was sad or upset, Blackie would somehow intuitively know it and tilt his head upward and slurp his big wet tongue on my face.
One day, our next door neighbor told me that Blackie was sick, and had to be put to sleep. I remember being so upset, begging them not to do it. When we were left alone, I told Blackie that I would not let them do this to him. I held him tight and slurped my big wet tongue on his face, and promised that everything would be okay.
But in the morning, Blackie was gone.
I had done everything I could. But it was not enough.
It’s the story of life. Do you know what I mean?
We human beings often live gripped by a common myth – that everything is possible, everything is achievable, everything can be solved.
We tell our children they can be anything they want to be. But that is not true. As they grow up, children begin to learn the limitations of their lives. If you are 5-feet tall, you will never play center for the Boston Celtics! If you cannot carry a tune, you will never sing for the Metropolitan Opera – and even if you can carry a tune you probably won’t sing for the Metropolitan Opera. There are limitations to what human beings can do.
And sometimes you find yourself in one of life’s moments when you’ve done everything you could do, but it’s not enough.
The marriage is over. The relationship is broken. The job is lost. The house is foreclosed on. The diagnosis is in. You are bi-polar. You have cancer. You are going to die.
You’ve done everything you could.
But it’s not enough.
That must have been the terrible truth the followers of Jesus faced on that Friday long ago when Jesus breathed his last. They had done everything they could! And it wasn’t enough.
But wait a minute!
Did I say “terrible truth”?
It was early on the Sabbath when some of the women took spices out to the tomb. They were planning to tend to Jesus’ dead body, wrapping it in sheets soaked with the spices to preserve it. Mark tells us that, when they arrived at the tomb, they were shocked by what they found – the stone was rolled away, the tomb was empty, and there was an angel there who told them that Jesus had risen!
And Mark’s Gospel ends in verse 8 with these fantastic words: “Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone because they were afraid!”
They were left speechless!
But it seems to me that their speechlessness was not caused by something terrible, but rather by something so WONDERFUL that they could not even put it into words right then.
What they had been unable to do, GOD HAD DONE!
Christ is risen!
And those amazing words that we proclaim as the central declaration of our faith, provide us with the most wonderful and powerful truth that can be brought to our lives:
There are some things in life ONLY GOD CAN DO!
It is the story of Jesus. It is our story. It is the story of life.
Let me share with you something that I think is amazing about YOU.
You didn’t come into this world by buying a ticket through Travelocity. You did not win an American Idol-like contest in which Simon actually liked you, and enough people texted you in. You did not engineer, plan, organize or otherwise have anything to do with your birth. You are here in this world – you are who you are – because at the dawn of creation, God decided to make human beings in God’s own image. And in that moment, God imagined us all into being. And over the course of billions of years, God kept you tenderly and safely in God’s heart until just the right moment. And when your mother and father came together in whatever circumstance it might have been, God added to their unique contributions the very BREATH OF LIFE.
And in that moment when God breathed into you, you became a living soul.
There are some things only God can do.
One is to bring life to birth.
Oh, look at the children here today! Look at the little ones, in the single digits of their lives! Look at the big ones, some approaching three figures! Look at what God has done! God has brought life to birth in each and every one of us here today!
That’s one thing only God can do!
A second thing only God can do is to bring life from death!
This is the great proclamation of Easter. Christ is risen! But not only Christ! Our faith says that Christ’s resurrection is a gift promised to us as well! In our own church family during this past week, we have gathered three times to say goodbye to people we love. And here in this sanctuary, we have claimed that promise of resurrection for Joe, and Jan, and Bev. Joe is risen! Jan is risen! Beverly is risen!
Only God can bring life from death.
And there’s one more thing only God can do. Only God can bring life to LIFE!
In between our birth into this world, and our birth out of this world, you and I live an existence that is full of joy and sorrow, comfort and difficulty, beauty and ugliness, love and hate, success and failure. And we do the best we can.
But along with our best, God promises his friendship and strength.
The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, back in the 1930’s, had this truth in mind when he wrote a prayer that captures the essence of the partnership God wants to have with us as we face the challenges of living every day. Later, the prayer was picked up by Alcoholics Anonymous - a group of people who are among my greatest heroes for understanding that, beyond our own strength, we all need a Higher Power. The prayer is known as the Serenity Prayer, and if you know it, I invite you to say it with me:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.”
As you do the best you can to live through life, as you do all you can do to meet the challenges of being human, there is a God who loves you – who breathed you into life, who will raise you from death to new life, and who will walk with you every step of the way in between!
There are some things only God can do!
Alleluia! Christ is risen!