Sunday Sermons
Pastor Timothy Hoyer
Transition Pastor
Pastor Timothy Hoyer
Sisters and brothers in Christ,
We have seen Easter.
Not that we have seen Jesus, though even seeing Jesus was not enough to get the followers of Jesus excited. Jesus had to show them his hands and side, the scars of his crucifixion, before they rejoiced that Jesus was alive. Seeing his scars showed that he had really died, and that meant Jesus had really risen from the dead and therefore he would raise them and us. That is why they rejoiced.
But they didn’t unlock the doors and start a party. They didn’t hire a local band to play music. Jesus was risen but the rest of the world did not know that. The rest of the world did not believe Jesus would raise them from the dead. The rest of the world would still keep behaving as it had always done—lying, hurting, making threats, and causing wars. Everyone still had to deal with explaining to God why they had behaved as they did.
Which is why Jesus made his rising from death something we could give each other whenever we feel like, “Uh oh, I shouldn’t have done that.” As all the disciples were rejoicing that Jesus was risen, Jesus said, “Okay, okay, everyone quiet down. There is more happening here than you being glad I have risen. Today’s excitement will calm down. Tomorrow will happen. I want my death and rising to go out into the world so that not just you but everyone can see that I rose from the dead for them. I want the world to believe in life instead of death. I want the world to believe in loving one another instead of calling each other enemies. I died and rose to change how people see. So, here, I give you the power of my death and rising.” Jesus breathed on them. “Receive the Holy Spirit. That’s my power. Now with the Spirit, if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. That is how you make my death and rising happen to them. That is how you set people free from be condemned by God. That is how you free people from believing that they have to explain to God why the behaved the way they did. Let them believe I have forgiven them, that I have made everything okay between them and God.”
After Jesus said that, it is odd that there is no mention of rejoicing.
Probably because the doors were locked for fear of being arrested. How were they to go out into a world and forgive people when people wanted to arrest them, maybe kill them? How were they to go out into a world full of the desire to punish those who didn’t follow the rules and tell them to forgive? Besides, people will make fun of them for believing that there is a God.
People will look out their windows and they will not see Jesus risen from the dead. They will not see Easter. To them, everything will look the same, except that gas prices are higher than last week. They will look out the window and still see the tension, that people are on edge, nervous, afraid of bad news, afraid of people having short tempers, and afraid that someone will come up to them wanting to start an argument. They will still see new obituaries every day.
We have seen Easter. Where there are scars, there is where Easter happens. Even Thomas demanded to see Jesus' scars. The other disciples who saw Jesus must not have told him about that part when Jesus showed them his hands and his side. But the scars of life show us where Easter can happen. When someone dies, that is when Easter happens. Those who trust Jesus, when they die, they have life in his name. And so, for the living, death is no longer the threat it used to be. A woman who believed in Jesus, when she was arrested and brought before a soldier for interrogation, she just looked out the window and told him that his threats of death no longer mattered to her. She had seen Jesus alive. She had that life now. Nothing he did could change that. An elderly person, scarred by aging, said that he was ready to die and to live with Jesus. Those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God have life in his name.
We have seen Easter. We can look out our windows and see the orange cones warning us of construction. We can see all the pebbles and stones on the sidewalk put there by the winter plows. We can see houses and businesses. But among all those buildings, we can see a church. We can see Tree of Life/Bethlehem. We can drive up the hill and there is Tree of Life and we know what that building is. We know that over seventy years/a hundred and thirty-five years ago people had this place built, just like years before that they built the church down on Fourth Street/Lister Avenue. We see that people, all those years ago, wanted to have a nice place where they could gather together and hear the story of Jesus rising from the dead. People worked, helped, and sang hymns and listened to someone tell them that on the night in which he was betrayed, Jesus took some bread, and gave thanks; broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "This is my body given for you." They were here, in this church, because of Easter. To see them is to see what Easter has done. To see a church, well, it is to see Easter. A man came to the food pantry and left his bicycle outside. He was asked if he felt his bike was safe. He said that he must have had sixteen or seventeen bikes stolen from him. You'd think he would have learned to keep his bike safe. But he said, pointing to the church, "I don't think anything will happen to it here." Even for him, a church meant there was something different than all the other places he goes. To him, a church meant people would be loving and not take his bike. A church makes a person remember that Easter happened.
On the ground there was a palm branch from Palm Sunday. I’ve seen it laying there for a week now. Odd to see a palm branch outside on the grass. But it was right outside the front door of a church. The palm branch was tied into the shape of a cross. It is a cross that we use to tell the story of Jesus. It is a cross that is like the scars Jesus showed us. It is the scars that tell us that Jesus has overcome death for us. To see that palm branch in the shape of a cross on the ground, it meant someone had tied it into that shape. It was a sign that Easter has happened.
To see each other is to see that Easter happened. Maybe we might even see two pink bunnies dancing across the parking lot/of Tasta Pizza, and we would wave to them and they would wave back. And we would know that the reason we waved to each other was that Jesus was risen. But seriously, when we leave that house where Jesus came and stood among us, we go out taking Easter with us. We are given hope by Jesus, so that as we get through another day, we believe the day was worth something to God, that what we do to get through the day matters to God, that all during the day in all those "uh oh" moments we are forgiven. Easter happens to us.
Near the end of taking a walk, someone in a car stopped and the driver asked me if I wanted a ride. The driver was a member of First Lutheran. We talked for a minute with her saying that every varmint she knew of had been through her backyard and had eaten her flowers. She was mad about it. She said, “The only other option is to not plant flowers. And I can’t do that.” She drove off. I said, “Christ is risen.” She answered, “Christ is risen indeed.” In that moment I saw Easter.
Yeah, life happens to us, but so does Easter. So, see the scars of what has happened in your life, and know that where there are scars, Jesus has made his Easter happen to us.
Christ is risen. Christ is risen for all.