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Easter Sunday, Year A
Christ Church Episcopal and Trinity Lutheran Church March 23, 2008
"To live in the light ofthe resurrection-that's what Easter means."i The words, spoken by Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
are easy to hear. They are more difficult to comprehend or understand and they sometimes seem impossible to live. What would
it mean, for all of us, for all the believers and followers of Christ, to live in the light of the resurrection?
Turn around, if you will, for a moment, and take in the magnificent beauty of the Resurrection Window. This window is
the creation of Louis Comfort Tiffany, who clearly understood the light of the resurrection in artistic terms, in terms of
power, of radiance of glory. Drink in the deep richness of the colors. My friend Anna Caskey wrote, "it's lucky that
color doesn't make you fat," referring to the vivid colors of her favorite painting by Matisse. Ifthey could, these colors
would make you fat!
Feast on these colors, these colors of resurrection. Tiffany had a way, as he also did in our Good Shepherd window, of
conveying emotion as well as the scenes he depicted. The splendid muted ness of the angels, who terrified the witnesses early
on that first day, evokes comfort as well as awe. The depth of the greenery surrounding them serves to highlight the figures
before us. The bright colors of the clQthes the women wore, remind us of our own Easter finery. But what I love the very most
about this window, is the glory it proclaims. There is fear. Yes, we understand that. There is wonder too, which is absolutely
appropriate to the day. And there is glory, a brightness so sparkling and luminous, that the women must stand back from it
and shield their eyes.
The brightness of the angels is outshone by the brilliance of their message. For, if it is true, their message changes
everything. The Women came to the tomb that morning, grief¬stricken, exhausted, confused, spent. Their Lord was dead and buried.
The death he had suffered had been unspeakable. They could not find the words to explain the horror of that dark day.
But now everything is different. There is light. There is calm. There is an energy beginning to pulsate around them. They
can feel it in their bodies as well as see it with their own eyes. We would be putting on our sunglasses. "Do not be
afraid," the angel reassures, "I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has
been raised, as he said. Come. See. Go. Tell." And then, there was Jesus, before them. Risen. Scarred. Speaking.
Alive!!!! "To live in the light of the resurrection, that's what Easter means.~'
"'Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him.
Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord. For since by a man came death, by a man has come
also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive."ii
Living in the light of the resurrection is our joyful task. That task is effortless for us on this day. We awake with
expectation. We herald the sunrise. We get dressed up. We sing. We greet one another. We say "Alleluia!" after a
very long time without. We are freely released from our Lenten obligations. We pray. We hunt eggs. We feast. We give thanks.
The task is effortless for us on this day.
Or should I say for most of us. Leading a bereavement group, as I did during Lent and will continue to do, reminds me
that some of us, perhaps many of us, find the day difficult. A friend mourning a deep loss told me she had hoped that Lent
would last "for years," because she is unsure from where any joy will come. There are those who were with us before
and are with us no longer. We must remember this about one another, to be gentle and caring, to enfold the sad ones in the
hope of the day and the promise, for us and for our loved ones, of life everlasting with our risen Lord.
The Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, Katharine lefferts Schori, urges us to "practice resurrection,"
which is another way of saying that we are to live in the light. "Most of us," she writes, "spend our lives
learning what the reality of the resurrection looks like, feels like, sounds like, and tastes like~ because it keeps happening
in new ways every day of our lives. Creation isn't over and done with. Practice resurrection. Live in open, expectation of
the new thing God is doing at all times and in all places. It means opening to that new thing, recognizing that the change
it brings will cause some distress. But there is always abundant life on the other side of the pain and grief that comes with
change and growth."iii
"Once upon a time, in a not-so-faraway land, there was a kingdom of acorns, nestled at the foot of a grand oak tree.
Since the citizens of this kingdom were modem, fully westernized acorns, they went about their business with purposeful energy;
and since they were midlife, baby-boomer acorns, they engaged in a lot of self-help courses. There were seminars called, "Getting
All You Can Out of Your Shell." There were woundedness and recovery groups for aCQrns who had been bruised from the original
fall from the tree. There were spas for oiling and poiishing their shells and various aromatherapies to enhance longevity
and well being.
"One day in the midst of this kingdom there suddenly appeared a knotty little stranger, apparently dropped 'out of
the blue' by a passing bird. He was cap less and dirty, making an immediate negative impression on his fellow acorns. And
crouched beneath the oak tree he stammered out a wild tale. Pointing upward at the tree, he said, 'We are THAT!'
"Delusional thinking, obviously, the other acorns concluded, one of them continued to engage him in conversation.
'So tell us, how would we become that tree?' 'Well,' said he, pointing downward, 'it has something to do with going into the
ground ... and cracking open the shell. 'Insane,' they responded. 'Totally morbid! Why then, we wouldn't be acorns anymore!'
Bourgeault concludes her fable by saying that "this'!' whom I take to be myself, this individual who moves about
on the planet making choices and doing her thing, is not who I am at all. It's only the acorn. Coiled within this acorn is
a vastly more majestic destiny and a true self who lives in it. But the ook tree of myself can come into being only if it
lets go of its acorn." iv
"Are caterpillars told of their impending resurrection?" asks English theologian Malcolm Muggeridge. "How
in dying they will be transformed from poor earth--crawlers into creatures of the air, with exquisitely painted wings? Iftold,
do they believe?"
The resurrection story of Jesus on Easter is far beyond even the miracles of nature, of acorn and caterpillar, oak tree
and butterfly. Truthfully those things happen all the time and they are, in their own way, miraculous. But no one has ever
done before what Jesus did on Easter Sunday. "I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here;
for he has been raised."
"Resurrection is unnatural," writes Barbara Brown Taylor. "When a human being goes into the ground, that
is that. You do not wait around for the person to reappear so you can pick up where you left off-not this side of the grave,
anyway. You say good-bye. You pay your respects and you go on with your life as best you can, knowing that the only place
springtime happens in a cemetery is on the graves, not in them.
"Death is naturaL Loss is natural. But those stones have been rolled away this happy morning, to reveal the highly
unnatural truth. By the light of this day, God has planted a seed of life in us that call1lQt be killed. And if we remember
that then there is nothing we cannot do: move mountains, banish fear, love our enemies, change the world.v
"To live in the light ofthe resurrection-that's what Easter means." What does it mean to you that death no longer
rules our lives or our world? On this day Christ rose victorious over death, revealing the audacious and undying love of God.
It is Love that is stronger than death, stronger than our stubbornness and stronger than our sin. It is Love that endures
pain and betrayal. It is Love that is buried beneath our complacency, our self-importance, our need for recognition and power.
We can call it Resurrection Love, as we are reminded today that we are Resurrection People. We are Easter People. We live
in the light of the Resurrection. Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!!
i Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, in Bread and Wine, Readings for Lent and Easter, The Plough Publishing House, Farmington, PA,2003-.
Page 281
ii From Christ our Passover, Pascha nostrum, The Book of Common Prayer, page 83, from Romans 6:9-11 and 1 Corinthians
15:20-22
iii Schori, Katharine Jefferts, On a Wing and a Prayer, A Message of Faith and Hope. Morehouse Publishing. Harrisburg,
NY, 2007. Page 100-101.
iv Bourgeault, Cynthia. Acornology, From The Wisdom Way of Knowing. Page 64
v Taylor, Barbara Brown, Home by Another Way, Cowley Publications, Boston, 1999. Page Ill.
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