Easter Sermon preached at the 10:30 am Eucharist
at St Simon's on the Sound Episcopal Church in Fort Walton Beach, Florida
Also, you may listen to this sermon and many others at the St. Simon's Church website -
simply click on the following link:
Jesus’
Resurrection,
has now
completed…everything.
God’s plan of
salvation is finally in place.
And so, for
2,000 years,
Christians
around the world
have gathered on
this day
to simply say,
“We believe” in
the Resurrected Christ.
But let’s talk about
this business of Love’s redeeming work.
I suspect at
some point,
you have lost
someone
who was deeply loved
and important in your life.
Their absence created
an emptiness in life
which maybe even
now is hard to fill.
The British poet
Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
once wrote –
“But what is
loss….but an experience of love?”
If we did not
love,
there would be
no loss.
Love means that
relationships matter.
And so, at its very
core,
grief is an
expression of love’s loss.
In the darkness of Easter morning,
In the darkness of Easter morning,
Mary Magdalene decided
she had lost too much…
she loved Jesus.
The Gospel says
she went to "see the tomb."
And who knows what
she expected to see there,
it certainly wouldn’t
have been a miracle.
In all
probability the disciples spent the entire day Saturday
in bent-up-anger
and grief at what had been done
to their beloved
Rabbi.
But that deep
love,
which each one
of us knows…
love that is
experienced in loss –
brought Mary
back to the garden on that Sunday morning.
At the empty
tomb,
Mary saw how God
vindicated faithful, stubborn,
and self-less
love…folks like you and me.
Speaking of self-less love…
There is a popular
new movie
which my
daughter Emma
has now insisted
that we see twice already…
and it’s called
the “Hunger Games.”
The lead
character is a clever 16-year-old girl,
named Katniss
Everdeen.
She lives in a futuristic,
dystopian society
filled with
injustice and hopelessness.
In a rather
shocking opening scene,
not unlike many
self-less love stories in the Bible,
Katniss
volunteers to stand in for her younger sister
and fight off 23
others in an outdoor arena
until only one
remains.
A few days into
this ordeal,
Katniss develops
an alliance with a little girl named Rue.
Rue is 12-years-old
and reminds Katniss of her sister Prim.
However, Rue is
killed by another tribute.
And at Rue's
request Katniss sings to her as she is dying,
and spreads
flowers over her body
as a sign of
respect— and…
of disgust
towards the evil Capitol.
What happens
next
I believe is
what many of us come here to see,
and that is…
the transforming
power of Easter’s redeeming Love.
Because when
Katness stands up to the TV cameras
and signals a
defiant act toward the oppressors…
she sets off a
revolt against the evil powers.
Katness shows
that in loss,
Love’s work
begins to transform the world.
The empty tomb
is evidence
that the
sacrifice of emptying one's self
for the sake of
another…
is God’s promise
that Love defeats evil.
And Love will
not disappoint,
nor will it
destroy…or be destroyed.
Nevertheless,
what God asks of
us…is not easy to take on.
The loss or
betrayal of a loved one IS devastating.
God knows that all
too well.
In raising his
Son from the tomb,
God promises
that love will indeed triumph,
broken hearts
will be healed,
and emptiness can
be filled…
If not in this
time of ours on earth
in the time of
God, to come.
But for now,
if you are
willing to see it,
we can discover
God walking with us,
from Calvary to
the garden,
from an empty
tomb to Emmaus.
From Fear to Glory!
Because…
Jesus Christ is Risen today.
And, He shall reign forever and ever!
Hallelujah!
