Mansion (with ballroom) or God's Heart?

John 14:1-14

Jesus said to the disciples: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.  In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.  And you know the way to the place where I am going.”  Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”  Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”  Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.  Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, but if you do not, then believe because of the works themselves.  Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.  I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

Early in my ministry I sat down with a family to go over a funeral bulletin.  One of the family members read, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places” and he said, WAIT!  Last time I was in church it was a MANSION!  What happened to my mansion?!”  To my credit, I did NOT say, “Oh, so you were last in church in 1952.”  Which is when that translation was last used.  I did NOT say that.  I was good.  That one time.  I was actually good!  But he was really upset.  He had clearly been counting on a mansion (and I expect, a ballroom… he seemed to be the ballroom type) and now he was being told all he had to look forward to was a “dwelling place” which sounded to him a lot like a cot in some barracks.

He didn’t understand, Jesus wasn’t talking about a house in the real estate sense, but rather about a house in the household sense.  He was talking about preparing a place in God’s household, in God’s family, in God’s heart… for everyone... even for people who hadn’t been to church since 1952!  But this man wasn’t interested in sharing anything with anyone… not even a place in God’s heart.  He wanted his own mansion (and I suspect his own ball room) and he wanted “those people” to have neither!

Its easy for us to get like that.  Our world very often works that way… these days particularly so.  Only so many seats on a plane.  Only so many spots in the best schools.  Only so many tickets for a show.  Things of value are limited, so we learn to think and act out of scarcity.  If you want to fly somewhere for Thanksgiving you better get your seat now.  If you want a spot at a good school you better be super smart or know the right people.  If you want James Taylor tickets for the 4th of July, you better be online the minute they go on sale.  You have to be ON IT and get yours, by hook or by crook, because if someone else gets a seat or a spot or a ticket… that means one less seat, spot, or ticket for you and for me… but mostly for me.  

That scarcity mentality, carefully taught and dutifully learned from experiences with things like seats, spots, and tickets, unfortunately gets applied to things like God’s household, God’s heart, and God’s love where there is actually no scarcity at all!  People get so used to thinking, acting, and living out of scarcity they begin to insist that God’s love and God’s heart must work that same way too!  It does not.  

In God’s house and in God’s heart there is infinite room, prepared by Christ, for ALL.  We don’t need inside information to get it.  We don’t have to make sure others lose so that we can win it.  When Jesus rose from the dead on that first Easter morning, Jesus had completed the work he told the disciples he was going to do in this lesson.  He had prepared a place for them, and for all of creation, in God’s household… in God’s heart.  From that first Easter on, all of creation had a permanent place within God’s heart, fully known, and fully loved by God.  When we begin to recognize that is where we have been invited to live… we can begin to live our lives, NOT out of a place of fear and scarcity, but out of God's heart... out of a place of Divine love and abundance.  That is why the REAL question on this side of Easter is NOT “do I have a place in God’s heart” but rather… SINCE I have a place in God’s heart… how will I live my life with God’s heart as my home?  

I want to back up just a minute and make sure you really get that.  YOU… have a place in God’s heart.  You, yes YOU… have a spot prepared particularly for YOU by Jesus, deep in God’s heart!  In churchy lingo, that’s called Grace and Grace… well, that has the power to change everything!  

Okay, so now back to the REAL question… Now that you KNOW your place in God’s heart is secure… what might living out of that infinity loving, fully seen, completely known, home look like?  Not abstractly, but specifically.  What would it look like let’s say… to live out of God’s heart this coming Tuesday at… I don’t know… how about the Big Y?  I ask it that way because I think it is easy to get overwhelmed thinking that living out of God’s heart must be something complicated, super dramatic, or world changing.   

The truth is, living out of God’s heart does end up changing the world for good, but it is almost never complicated, hardly ever super dramatic, not usually even regular dramatic.  Living life out of God’s heart… changing the world for good… almost always involves simply doing the smallest, simplest acts of compassion, kindness and love, carried out by regular people, going about regular lives, in regular places like the Big Y, on regular days like Tuesdays.  Changing the world happens when we as individuals and together, as the Body of Christ, do those small acts of love, compassion and kindness out of the abundance we experience from our home in God’s heart rather than out of the fear filled place of scarcity the ballroom-obsessed types want us to live.  

The take home message today is that you… yes YOU… have a home in God’s heart!  So live THERE!  Consciously choose to live your life IN God’s heart and OUT of God’s heart!  YOU have a place in God’s heart… YOU are fully known in God’s heart… You are fully loved in God’s heart… YOU have been changed for good in God’s heart… So live THERE… in God’s heart... and from that place, Jesus tells us, we can change the world for good.   Amen. 

The Unusual Way

John 10:1-10

“Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Very truly I tell you, the lectionary has done us dirty.  Very truly I tell you, in John’s Gospel, Jesus only says “Very Truly I tell you” when he’s connecting something that just happened… to something that immediately follows.  So Very Truly I tell you, “Very Truly” lets us know that today’s Gospel is not the beginning of a new story, but is picking up in the middle of a story the lectionary left half told seven weeks ago!  The Story of the Man Born Blind!  

In that story the disciples saw a man who had been blind since birth.  They didn’t say to Jesus, “Jesus, there’s a guy whose been blind since birth!  How can we help?”  No.  They couldn’t SEE the man because their heads were buried too far up their theology!  So talking out of their theology they asked, “Whose sin made this man blind?  His own sin or his parent’s sin?”  Jesus stopped them right there.  He told them to stop talking out of their theology, and really SEE the human being standing there in front of them!  With that, Jesus made some mud with spit and squished it into the man’s eyes and told him to go wash.  When the man washed, he could see.  

Eventually the man was marched to the Pharisees.  They too could not SEE the human being (who at this point was a walking miracle) because their heads too, were buried deeply up their theology.  Stuck up there, they could only see that the rules of the Sabbath had been broken and because they could not see the HUMAN BEING standing right there in front of them, Jesus told them, they were completely blind.

I heard this quote from a George Bernard Shaw play, used in a lovely little podcast this week, which sums up this fight between Jesus and the Pharisees brilliantly.  It goes, “I may be doing wrong, but I’m doing it in a proper and customary manner.  You may be doing all right, but you’re doing it in an unusual and questionable manner.”  

That, in essence, was the fight.  The Pharisees were focused on doing all things in the proper and customary manner.  The rules were followed religiously.  The affect that way of living had on their neighbors was irrelevant.  Jesus, on the other hand, was focused on his neighbor!  This neighborly focus led Jesus to live his life at times in an unusual and questionable manner, doing things like squishing mud into blind people’s eyes on the Sabbath.  For Jesus though, the thing to do religiously was to care for his neighbor!  If the rules got in the way, it was the rules, not the person, that needed to become irrelevant.  

Today’s Gospel starts with Jesus’ very next breath after telling the Pharisees they were blind.  With that next breath he escalated the fight because calling out their blindness didn’t get them to change.  He said, “ACTUALLY, I was wrong.  It turns out you aren’t blind.  You see exactly what you’re doing!  You’re being cruel because you like the feeling of power being cruel gives you.  That’s not blindness.  That’s thievery!  And not just petty larceny but open rebellion against God!  You’re not blind… you’re BANDITS, trying to cover your stealing, killing, and destroying by invoking God’s Holy name! 

Throughout this entire lesson, which started seven weeks ago and finishes up today, Jesus is telling us that LIVING… really, genuinely, fully… living this life we’ve been given will never happen as long as our heads are fully stuck up our theology.  Living a life of purpose, meaning, dignity and wholeness will never happen as long as we fail to SEE… really, fully, genuinely SEE our neighbors.  Genuinely LIVING this precious, wonder-filled life we’ve been given will never happen as long as we sell our souls exclusively to what the world deems as “proper and customary.”

Living ONLY happens when each and every day, we head out into the world and do all we can to live the Jesus Way.  Not TALK some Jesus TALK, but LIVE the Jesus Way by SEEING… genuinely SEEING… and LOVING… genuinely LOVING our neighbors by doing what is in their best interest.  If they are hungry… we feed them.  If they are sick, we make them well.  If they are drowning, we pull them up and if they are blind, even if it requires the using an unusual and questionable method like squishing mud in their eyes on the Sabbath, we do what is right SO THEY CAN SEE!

If that means breaking the rules… then the rules be damned.  If that means ruffling some feathers… then those feathers needed ruffling!  If that means not being politically careful or cautious or correct, so be it!  If that requires standing up to a bully and speaking God’s truth to power bluntly and directly, then by God, we must stand up and speak out!  

This lesson, begun seven weeks ago and finished today, contrasts two VERY different ways of being in this world.  A way that is wrong but is usual and customary on the one hand, and a way that is right, but is often accused of being unusual and questionable on the other.  One way makes the usual and customary show of public prayer and waving the Bible, even while taking food from the hungry and threatening death to entire civilizations.  The other Way… the Jesus Way… does all it can do to SEE each person on this planet as a neighbor and care for them with selfless love, even when that means using unusual and questionable methods, so they too might have life, and have it abundantly.  

These times in which we now find ourselves living demand we make an unambiguous and public choice between the way of the Bandit and the Way of Jesus.  Let us help one another courageously choose the Way of Jesus, no matter how unusual or questionable the world may find the Jesus Way.  May we help one another choose to live the Way of love, compassion, generosity, and peace as Jesus did… right in the faces of the tyrants, thieves, and bandits ravaging our world.  Amen.

We Had Hoped. Past Tense.

Luke 24:13-35

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.” Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

 

Two disciples walked to Emmaus… or maybe they were walking AWAY from Jerusalem?  Either way they walked and talked about all the things that had happened.  Not only about Jesus’ brutal death, but also about their deep, devastating sadness.  Their hopes and dreams for the nation that they loved had just been put to a brutal death as well.  Ugliness had won.  Vulgarity had won.  Corruption, might makes right, and cruelty… cruelty seemingly just for cruelty’s own sake… had won.  Violence and hatred had won.  Death itself… had won.  “We had hoped…” they said.  Are there any more tragic words than that?  “We HAD hoped.”  Past tense.

When I was a kid, I lived four miles from the gate to the largest Air Force Base in the country.  We did not learn “duck and cover” at school like some of you did during the Cold War.  We never learned it because everyone knew… even us kids knew… that when Soviet warheads hit American soil, one of the first would hit our neighborhood.  In a flash our eyes wouldn’t even have time to register, the world would end.

Over the last fifty years or so I had become more and more convinced that would not be the way the world ended.  Hope for my country and our world had grown.  But on Easter Sunday, the President put out a message threatening that an entire civilization would die… on Tuesday.  To this military brat raised in the Cold War, only one thing could end an entire civilization on a Tuesday.  Tuesday morning, another threat.  I found myself praying that the 24 year old lieutenant with the launch key would have the courage to refuse the order.  No offense to 24 year old lieutenants, but counting on that didn’t ease my mind.  Church leadership was at best silent and at worst, worked into a lather about where they would sit at an upcoming event where they could be seen.    

Ugliness was winning.  Vulgarity was going unchecked.  Corruption, might makes right, and cruelty were growing to a civilization ending level.  Violence and Death itself… felt unstoppable.  I had hoped.  HAD hoped.  Past tense.  

Tuesday ended without nuclear devastation (so that was good) but the insanity continued to grow.  This past Sunday, Orthodox Easter, the President railed at the Pope and posted a picture of himself as Jesus.  Here was a man with nuclear codes and profound mentally illness… still in power.  HOPE remained for me, a “Past Tense” commodity.  

Then I sat down to write this sermon and Jesus met me along the way, “Oh, Erik, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!  You’ve even forgotten what you, yourself preached on Easter Sunday!”  “Alright,” Jesus said.  “Let’s go through it all one more time, from the top.  Creation.  You remember God made everything for humanity and it’s not all just good, but VERY good?  You remember that, right?  Remember the Moses thing at the Red Sea?  Yeah?  How about Ezekiel and the Dry Bones?  Remember that one?  Good, yeah?  How about the Fiery Furnace?  Daniel and the Lion’s Den?  David and Goliath?  All good, right?  Then what was it that you, yourself preached on Easter Sunday?”  Easter Happens.  “What was that?  I couldn’t hear you.”  Easter Happens.  “Again.”  Easter Happens.  “One more time.”  Easter Happens.    

This Emmaus Road story is about a disciple named Cleopas and an unnamed disciple.  That “unnamed” disciple is a feature of this story, not an oversight.  It is there for us to stick ourselves into that “unnamed disciple slot” whenever we find ourselves “Having Hoped”… past tense.

This past week it was Cleopas and Erik, walking away from Jerusalem.  This past week it was Cleopas and Erik that HAD hoped… past tense.  This past week it was Cleopas and Erik that Jesus caught up with along the way.  Cleopas and Erik who got a little good natured ribbing for their foolish forgetfulness and Cleopus and Erik who were reminded… AGAIN of all that God has done, is doing, and promises yet to do.  We were reminded until our hearts, which “had hoped” past tense, began glowing once again, then turned into flames, then began to burn so that our eyes were once again opened, and we could finally see and remember… Oh yeah!  In spite of even THIS!  Easter Happens!  

I tell you that story about Cleopas and Erik because one day it will be Cleopas and you… walking away… Having Hoped… past tense.  WHEN that day happens… (Sadly this is a WHEN thing, not an IF thing) WHEN that day happens and you find yourself walking away having hoped, past tense, Jesus WILL catch up with you in a way you likely won’t recognize straight away.  You’ll get a bit of good natured ribbing, and be lovingly reminded… AGAIN… how God has baked into creation one particular ending for every story ever told… Easter Happens.  Jesus will remind you… AGAIN… we need never again be people who “had hoped”… past tense… because Easter.  Always.  Happens.  Amen. 

Old Man Yells at Cloud

John 20:19-31

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” 

But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

 

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

In the Diocese I have become known as a Curmudgeon.  My Diocesan nickname is…  Grumpelstiltskin.  This is largely because I have an aversion to “going along to get along.”  That’s actually not entirely accurate.  The truth is… I’m physically incapable of going along to get along!  But the thing that has genuinely cemented my reputation as a Curmudgeon is that I am completely incapable of hiding it!  I do NOT have the face of a politician or a poker player.  Whenever I get even the slightest whiff of an individual or systemic demand to “go along to get along” my face shows it!  But it’s even worse than that.  I also can’t help myself but to say it… out loud… to others… “No!  I will NOT just go along to get along!”   

Thomas is also known as a Curmudgeon in the Church.  He too has a nickname… Doubting Thomas.  What did he do to get this nickname?  He also refused to “go along to get along.”  He refused to settle for the shallow, easy, cheap, certainty the other disciples offered him.  Even with ten other disciples staring him down, he refused to budge… for a whole week!  To the world that made him Doubting Thomas.  To me though… that makes him Steadfast Thomas!  Unflinching Thomas.  Resolute Thomas.  True-blue Tried-and-True Thomas! 

You see, he wasn’t stubborn for stubborn’s sake.  He was resolute, because I think to Thomas, his Faith genuinely mattered.  Believing… really, deeply, genuinely mattered.  And when it came to things that mattered that deeply, Thomas was unwilling to take shortcuts.  Faith was serious business… FAR too serious to just copy answers off your friends!  To Thomas, the business of “Believing”… THAT wasn’t the place to fudge it!  Thomas took Believing… he took the Faith… he took Discipleship…  very, VERY seriously.  

At this point we need a quick aside.  Because when you and I think about the word “believing” in our modern/post enlightenment minds, we immediately think about it as an intellectual accent… being convinced of something or wrapping our minds around some thought, idea, or doctrine.

NO ONE in Thomas’ day thought about “believing” that way.  Before 1600, the word “believe” did not mean agreeing that creeds, ideas, teachings, or doctrines were true in our heads.  In Thomas’s day, “Believing” always had a DIRECT OBJECT and that DIRECT OBJECT was ALWAYS personal.  Believing was about WHO you were following… WHO you were committing yourself to… WHO you hooked your wagon to.  When the ten disciples told Thomas “we have seen the Lord” they were offering him a cheap impersonal shortcut… a vision without substance… a disembodied hope.  What Thomas needed, however… what Thomas Curmudgeonly insisted upon, was the PERSON… not a shortcut!  Nothing short of an encounter with the PERSON of Jesus, complete with the wounds from the nails and the spear, would do.  Short of that, Thomas was determined to sit, however uncomfortably, however long, in the uncertainty and unknowing and endure whatever pressure his friends brought his way.  

After a week of waiting in uncertainty, Thomas was given what he needed… an encounter with the Risen Christ… the PERSON… “My Lord and My God!”  That encounter didn’t iron out the doctrinal kinks of Christianity.  It didn’t harmonize the contradictions in Scripture.  It didn’t give even the tiniest sliver of absolute certainty to his Faith.  It actually just called Thomas more deeply into the mystery.  But for Thomas, the ideas, doctrines, and certainty meant NOTHING compared to the transformational encounter with the PERSON.  The PERSON to whom he could hitch his wagon… the PERSON in whose footsteps he could now follow… the PERSON who would be the direct object of his belief and his life… the PERSON he could walk through life with, through times of both clarity and confusion.  

I think that’s what Thomas hopes for us today.  That we not sell ourselves, our belief, or our faith, short.  That we not settle for cheap, easy answers… tidy doctrines of certainty, or claims about the Divine that can be wrapped up neatly and made to do our bidding.  I think that Thomas is hoping that we too embrace our inner Curmudgeon and hold out for more!  Much, much, more.  Not settle for the easy, the plastic, the impersonal, the inauthentic!  But hold out through uncertainty and discomfort for nothing less than a transformational encounter with the Risen Christ, wounds and all.

What will an encounter with the Risen Christ, wounds and all, actually look like for you or me?  How long will we need to wait?  Honestly?  No idea.  But if you, like Thomas, are serious about your Faith… if you, like Thomas, do not take “believing” lightly, then wait for it.  Wait for a transformational encounter with the Risen Christ… no shortcuts… no cheats… no going along to get along.  And when it comes… and I believe it  does come, over and over and over again throughout our lives… don’t worry… you’ll recognize it just like Thomas did, and in that moment you too will exclaim, “My Lord and My God.”  Amen.  

Baked Right In

Matthew 28:1-10

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; 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 the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

For those two Marys it never occurred to them that it WOULD happen.  It never even crossed their minds that it COULD happen.  After everything they saw on Friday… after the horrors, suffering, the death… After the oppressive darkness of Saturday filled with overwhelming grief, there was nothing to indicate that it SHOULD happen.

But the two Marys set out to do the next right thing anyway, which was visit Jesus’ tomb, and in doing the next right thing… it just

happened… 

Easter                                   happened!  

After all they had seen… after days of darkness and anguish… as they walked to the tomb because… well…  that’s just what you do when someone you love is dead and buried…

There… right in front of them… just sitting on the rolled back stone… was an angel who said…     

“Do not be afraid”                                   and… 

Easter happened! 

Easter happens!  Not JUST that first Easter and not just every year on the first Sunday following the first full moon on or after the vernal equinox.  Easter CONTINUALLY happens.  

Kings and despots come and go… 

Easter Happens. 

Countries and empires rise and fall… 

Easter happens.  

Wars are started, rich men plot, markets tumble, regimes march in and get chased out, natural disasters blow and shake and burn all around the world and still… 

Easter happens!  

In the bright light of the most noble of human endeavors…

Easter happens. 

In the deepest darkness of humanity’s evil and horrors…

Easter happens.  

Whether the nations be led by masterminds or morons… the upright or the unethical... the compassionate or the malevolent

Easter happens!

THAT’S the message for today. 

Easter happens.         ALWAYS!       

Easter ALWAYS Happens.  

Whenever we find ourselves in Good Friday times… personally, professionally, nationally, or globally… whenever we are confronted with humanity’s inhumanity… whenever we are plunged into suffering, grief, oppression, injustice and all the rest… up to and including death itself.   

Easter happens!

Whenever life is overwhelmingly, oppressively dark… whenever we find ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually in those horribly unnerving, deeply disorienting times of deep darkness...  The sort of darkness that festers and foments horrible anxiety… panic about tomorrow and worries for the years to come.  Even in those darkest of times…  

Easter happens!

On the upside, the daily horrors we face are usually not literal crucifixion.  On the downside, the darkness we endure seems to go on a lot longer than just three days!  The Herculean efforts we make when the world feels like it is ending for us, to try and do the next right thing... those aren't visiting Jesus’ tomb, BUT into this and EVERY OTHER kind of Good Friday experience… into this and EVERY OTHER seemingly endless length of Holy Saturday darkness that we endure…

EASTER HAPPENS!

Easter happens… because, you see, life, death, and resurrection is the pattern that God has baked into every molecule of creation.  Life, death, and resurrection is the way the world was made to work!  God knew that setting humans loose into this world with Free Will would inevitably end in painful Good Friday moments and dark Holy Saturday times… which is why God also baked into creation one specific, particular ending for… well… everything… 

Easter happens!  

The story that begins in grief, will always end in JOY.  

The story that starts in darkness will always end in LIGHT!  The story that begins in death, will always, somehow, in ways that will be as unexpected as a man being raised from the dead… end in NEW LIFE!  God has made Easter the ending to literally EVERY story… EVER.  

So, if this particular moment in your life is NOT an Easter moment.  If for you, this time in our National life is not an Easter feeling time.  If this period of life feels oppressively dark, horribly inhumane, violent, hopeless, and maddening for any reason or every reason… 

Might I humbly suggest you try what those two Marys tried on that very first Easter Sunday… get a friend... get out of bed... and do the next right thing.  No matter how small and insignificant it might seem... even when it feels like that won't do anything at all.  Then… as you're walking  toward that next right thing... keep your eyes open… Because

Easter Happens.  

Easter ALWAYS happens.  Amen.