Resurrection of Our Lord Easter Sunday
Acts 10:34-43 Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 John 20:1-8 Alleluia! Christ is Risen! “Mary” It’s amazing how much can be conveyed with one word, with a name. With that one word Jesus turns Mary’s life upside down in all the right ways. She goes from weeping in a garden near an empty tomb, talking to a gardener, to beholding the risen Lord, her teacher and friend. It’s been a long journey to get to this place, with plenty of ups and downs, we don’t know much about Mary before her life following Jesus other than she was from Magdala, a fishing village along the sea of Galilee and Luke tells us that Jesus healed her, casting out seven demons, since then we know she’s been one of the group of women followers of Jesus who traveled along as disciples and who took care of Jesus. Her own experience aside Mary has seen and heard some amazing things, she’s seen Jesus heal, she’s seen him feed thousands with a few loaves of bread, she’s heard him teach and debate with scribes and Pharisees she heard him weep for his friend Lazarus then saw raise him from the dead she’s experienced the excitement of the crowds as Jesus entered Jerusalem could this be the long awaited messiah? and then two days ago she saw Jesus arrested, put on trial sentenced to death by crucifixion, and even when many of the disciples fled, Mary and a few others stayed at the foot of the cross and witnessed Jesus die, then watched as Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus’ body down from the cross, prepared it for burial and placed it in a tomb in a garden, with a stone covering the entrance. And with that all that she’s seen and heard, the hope for the future that had built along the way, the purpose she’s dedicated her life to is gone. Dead and buried. She must go observe the sabbath, rest and worship away from this place but John tells us that early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, as soon as possible Mary comes back to the tomb, she’s so anxious to be near her Lord that she can’t even wait for daylight and when she goes into the garden she finds that the stone has been rolled away from the entrance to the tomb and that Jesus is not where he is supposed to be. In a panic she runs and gets some other disciples telling them “they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him.” And having delivered the message Mary fades into the background for a bit while Peter and the other disciple race back to the tomb and find the cloths that had been used to embalm Jesus lying in the tomb folded neatly and while they still don’t know quite what to think, we who are hearing the story know that this isn’t a simple case of grave robbing, grave robbers wouldn’t have unwrapped the body, and we know it’s not even a return to life like Lazarus who was still bound in grave cloths when Jesus called him from his own tomb, no something else is going on here but in the moment those present don’t know that, the two disciples return home not sure what to think and Mary, Mary stays in the garden weeping, all she knows is that Jesus is not there. She looks in the tomb again then turns around and there behind her is another person and supposing he is the gardener she asks him where Jesus is, and that is when Jesus speaks her name. “Mary” that one word capturing all the moments of a life that have built up to this point, that one word conveying the love and friendship between teacher and disciple. And at last Mary knows who it is before her. She recognizes the voice, the one who knows her intimately and she responds in kind with a term of endearment, rabbouni. So much conveyed with one word and yet that is who Jesus is, he is the good shepherd who calls his sheep by name, they recognize his voice, the voice that they associate with care, protection, with love, that is the voice they will follow because they are known. We all long to be known in this way, to experience this depth of relationship, sometimes we get a glimpse of this in the love of a parent or a partner or a friend. I remember growing up listening to my mom answer the phone, I could tell it was my dad on the other end without hearing his name, because the tone of my mom’s voice changed from formal telephone voice to the voice of one speaking with someone known and loved We recognize when someone knows us, we hear it and we respond to it even in the situations where we don’t expect it, Mary wasn’t expecting the resurrection, to paraphrase Monty Python, no one expects the resurrection, and yet when Jesus says her name she knows who is speaking to her. This is the miracle of Easter, that in those moments in our lives when dead is dead and gone is gone, Jesus says our name and we know who is speaking to us, even if we don’t recognize the person in front of us, especially if we didn’t expect to find new life, love and understanding in that moment. Jesus the good shepherd laid down his life for his sheep, for us and he rose from the dead and ascended to be with God all so that there is a place for us where we are loved and known, So that we may have life and have it abundantly right now. And while we may as yet be in the garden weeping, or staring at the empty tomb scratching our heads trying to figure out what it means, when we hear our name called we will know who it is that is calling and we will proclaim with Mary, “I have seen the Lord.” Christ is Risen! Alleluia!
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Maundy Thursday
Exodus 12:1-14 Psalm 116: 1-2, 12-19 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 John 13:1-17, 31-35 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who comes to us in bread and wine. Amen Tonight is a night of memories. memories help tell us who we are, both as individuals and as communities, they are the stories that tell us where we’ve come from and point us to where we are going and yet the calling to mind of these stories is as fragile as the stories are important, we’ve all experienced the sensation of walking into a room and completely forgetting why we came into that room in the first place, we’ve debated with others what exactly happened that one time, we’ve experienced the devastation of dementia and memory loss in loved ones. Yet some things remain clear in our minds, our home telephone number from elementary school or the snappy jingle directing us to a particular brand of breakfast cereal, part of the mystery of living is that we don’t always get to choose which memories naturally stay fresh and clear and which fade away. But we have found that there are things we can do to help us remember, intentionally hold on to, the important stories. We do this by telling the stories over and over again, we attach rituals to the stories where we act them out, we tie the stories to our senses the taste, touch, smell, sight and sounds all helping us to remember. Tonight is a night of remembering, calling to mind the stories that define us, stories so important that God has told us to remember them. In our first lesson we heard God telling the people of Israel how they are to remember the defining moment when God brought them out of slavery into freedom. Each year, God tells the people, they are to reenact the exodus, and in the eating of the roasted lamb while dressed to travel at a moments notice the story of what God had done will come alive once more and the people will remember that they are people meant for freedom guided by a great and powerful God. “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.” God tells the people And that is what Jesus and the disciples are doing all those hundreds of years later when they are gathered around the table for what Jesus knows will be their last meal together. And as they recall the foundation of their relationship with God, Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, who ate and drank with the disciples, healed and prayed, cried and celebrated gives the disciples a way to remember this aspect of relationship with God and the new freedom they are about to experience through Jesus’ actions on the cross. Gathered together at the table of remembering Jesus takes bread, the common everyday food and he blesses it and then breaks the loaf and gives it to the disciples saying this is my body, do this to remember me. And then Jesus takes the cup of wine, the drink of celebrations blesses it and gives it to the disciples saying this is the new covenant, in my blood, drink it to remember my promise to you. In the future, Jesus tells the disciples, whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup you will remember what I have done for you. On the cross in body broken and blood poured out Jesus frees us from sin and death. At the table, in broken bread and wine poured out Jesus forgives us, freeing us to move past our mistakes and our failures to the wholeness of new life in Christ. And what does that new life look like? It looks like Jesus kneeling at the feet of his disciples washing their feet, an act of love and humility that Jesus says they are to copy as they live out the new commandment of Jesus, to love one another just as Jesus has loved them. This is the sign to others that you are my disciples Jesus tells them in the gospel of John, the love that you have for one another. Yes, we have two different stories of Jesus’ last night with the disciples, in Matthew, Mark and Luke we hear about the last supper, in John we hear about the washing of feet and the new commandment, these were the stories, the memories passed down in the communities where the gospels were first written and while they are different, and we might wonder at that both the stories are included in our holy scriptures because ultimately we need both stories for our relationship with God. we need the new commandment that points us toward the future in Christ, a future marked by love lived out in service to others, and we need the forgiveness found when Jesus comes to us in bread and wine, body and blood, after we have failed to love as Jesus loves and we need to hear these stories again and again as again and again we hear the command to love and receive the forgiveness of God living in the law of love and the grace of Jesus. So we tell the stories when we gather, we hand down memories in the telling, and acting, the taste and touch, the smells and the singing these memories remind us of who we are, people who live in freedom because of the great acts of God, people who are to love and serve their neighbors, people with a God who comes to us in bread and wine to remind us that we are God’s children, fed and forgiven, freed to love. Amen Fifth Sunday in Lent
Isaiah 43:16-21 Psalm 126 Philippians 3:4-14 John 12:1-8 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who has made us his own. Amen What is most important in life? Times of transition bring this question forward, those times in life when we’re saying goodbye to the way things were and hello to new possibilities we are often forced to consider what to leave behind and what to bring forward with us. Lent is coming to an end and as we look forward to Holy Week and the beginnings and endings that lie ahead our readings for today ask us to consider, what is most important? Paul is doing this reflecting in his letter to the Philippians, he is in prison, probably in Rome, which even as he hopes to be released still puts things in perspective. As he looks back and considers his life he concludes that very little matters except for Christ. Paul in his characteristic humble brag lists all the things that he could consider important, being part of the chosen people of Israel, strictly following the law, all these things that conventional wisdom says are important especially for a relationship with God but then he says: “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ...For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not have a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.” Paul realizes that whoever he is and whatever he’s done, none of that will surpass what Christ has already done on the cross, and because of that amazing fact Paul goes on “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on the make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” Paul wants to know Christ , both the good- the resurrection- and the bad- the suffering and he feels secure in seeking this knowledge because he knows that Christ Jesus has made him his own. And that is really the crux of the matter, whether Paul came from the right family and did the right things, or whether he persecuted the church or is in prison, none of that matters in the end because Christ claimed him. And having been claimed by Christ, Paul presses forward seeking to know Christ even better, seeking to share this with all he encounters even if it means that by the standards of the world he does some pretty odd things, like letting go of status, obeying God rather than Rome, willingly suffering for the sake of love. In our gospel for today Mary wants to know Christ and it leads her to do some odd things by the standards of the world. Once again Jesus has come to dinner, he’s been hiding out a bit but now he is about to enter Jerusalem for the last time and on his way he’s stopped to have dinner with his friends. Jesus is close with this family, he’s had dinner here before, that dinner where Martha asked Jesus to scold her sister Mary for not helping her and instead sitting at Jesus’ feet. Jesus came here when Lazarus died and Jesus wept over his friend then raised him from the dead and now he’s here one last time together this group is facing the end. And Mary takes a jar of perfume that costs about a year’s wages and pours it out on Jesus’ feet, anointing them, then wipes them with her hair. The use of that much perfume is extravagant, as Judas will soon point out, and she breaks the social dress code and norms by letting her hair down and touching a man who is not her husband. It’s excessive, it’s scandalous, it’s following Jesus in a nutshell and Mary does this because facing the coming ending Jesus is what is important to Mary. Of all the people present at the party Mary is the one who has been most intentional about spending time with Jesus, sitting at his feet listening to him, she has seen him raise her brother from the dead she more than anyone is likely to believe Jesus when he tells his followers that he is the shepherd who lays his life down for his sheep. So her abundance of ointment mirroring the abundance of Jesus’ love, she anoints Jesus for his burial, she lovingly sends him out to do what he says he needs to do. She wants to know Christ, she wants to join in his story and when compared with all of that, what is some money? And social norms? They are rubbish. Mary and Paul are exceptional in their abandonment of all things that are not Jesus but they are not exceptional in their desire to know Christ. At one point or another all of us have longed to know Christ, even if we haven’t had the words to understand that longing and true sometimes we are like Mary making extravagant displays of devotion but other times we are Martha who longs to know Jesus and acts on that longing by serving, continually moving around Jesus. Sometimes we’re Lazarus, we long to know Jesus and we’re just grateful to be at the table because even getting to the table with Jesus is a miracle. And sometimes we are even Judas, we follow Jesus because there’s something that catches us but we are so preoccupied with our own gain that we miss the point of Jesus and those around him. There is space for all of these characters in the story and yet, whoever we are, Christ has first claimed us as his own and nothing we do will change that, joined to Christ in his death and resurrection God promises to treat us as if we were Christ. And so whatever questions are challenging us, whatever beginnings or endings we face, we press on claimed and loved by the most important one. Amen Fifth Sunday in Lent
Joshua 5:9-12 Psalm 32 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who wants all the children at the party. Amen The story of the Prodigal Son, we’ve all heard it, at least a couple times so we know what comes next when we hear the line “there was a man who had two sons” now these two sons are wildly different, as often happens with siblings. We hear about the younger son first, how he doesn’t want to wait for his father to die to receive his inheritance, so he asks for it, and when his father gives him his half he takes it and sets out, traveling to a distant country, living in a way that uses up all his inheritance. when a famine hits the younger son finds himself starving without any money so he finds a job feeding pigs - remember pigs are religiously unclean animals so we know that he’s hit rock bottom when he’s hanging out with the pigs and the pig food is starting to look pretty tasty- and that’s when he realizes, life in his father’s house is good, even for the servants so he forms a plan to go home, confess his sin to his father and knowing he doesn’t deserve to be considered a son in the household asks to be considered as a servant. He acts on his plan and heads home but before he can even get up the driveway his father sees him and runs to him, and before he can confess and lay out his plan his father is already throwing a big welcome home party. And this is where we hear about the older son, the older son who also received his part of the inheritance when the younger son asked, but stayed at home, he did was he was supposed to, carrying on the family business working with his father. So he’s coming in from working in the fields and he hears a party going on, a party he didn’t know was happening, a party he clearly didn’t receive an invitation to, so he asks one of the servants about it and only then does he hear that his younger brother has returned and that dad is throwing an extravagant party for him. At this he gets mad and refuses to go in the house, and when his father comes out to plead with him to come to the party, years of resentment and bitterness come pouring out, “I’ve been the good one, I did what I’m supposed to, I worked with you all these years and you’ve never celebrated me, you’ve never thrown a party for me and now your son who told you he wished you were dead so he could have your stuff comes back - without all that money you gave him by the way- and you throw a party for him?’ and he refuses to come inside and his father reminds him that their relationship is intact and that all that is the father’s is the older son’s, his life is good, but the father stands firm in his decision to celebrate the return of the younger son. He loves both. A man had two sons the story starts and at the end it seems to ask us, which is the better son? Tradition would have us say the older son is the better son but despite his honoring his father and the good life that he has he ends bitter and resentful at his father, feeling left out that he wasn’t invited to a party in his own home, a place he was already and always welcome, and he ends up not looking so good. The younger son on the other hand shows personal growth, sure he starts off looking pretty bad there’s no denying that he squanders the love of his father and ends up hungry sitting in a mess of his own making, but when he considers the situation and realizes that life with dad was good he repents hoping his father will treat him as one of the servants because he knows that’s all he really deserves, and he ends up humble and appreciative of life with dad. In the end neither son is better than the other. And yet, the father chases after both sons. He wants them both at the party. He rushes to celebrate the son that returned of his own volition and he goes out and pleads with the son who refuses to come in reminding him that the grace and love of a father is not a zero sum game, showing love for one son does not diminish the love felt for the other son. God loves in a way that is hard for humans to understand, so we apply our own standards which means that whether we are like the younger son sitting in a mess of our own making or like the older son filled with bitter resentment when we look across at our neighbor it doesn’t seem like they deserve God’s grace and love. when we judge our neighbor our sin is exposed, to decide who God loves is God’s role, and if we’re honest, we admit that by any standards no one deserves God’s love but in Christ God has made it clear that God’s love is for all Which is why Paul, when writing to the Corinthians, instructing them in the way of living in Christ says “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation everything old has passed away see everything has become new.” In the waters of baptism Christ washes away our messes and our bitterness, Forgiving us again and again So that each day we are given new life. And Having been given new life in Christ we are to look at others with the eyes of God, we are to see others as God sees them, beloved children who God wants at the party. Amen |
AboutPastor Emily Johnson preaches weekly at Christ Lutheran. These are manuscripts of her sermons given at Christ Lutheran. Feel free to engage with them in the comments section of the blog. Archives
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