The Mystery of our Resurrection

April 11, 2004 (The Sunday of the Resurrection: Easter Day)

by The Rt. Rev. Barry Howe, Bishop of the Diocese of West Missouri

- Acts 10:34-43
- Psalm 118:14-17, 22-24
- Colossians 3:1-4
- Luke 24:1-10

(From The Lectionary Page)

 “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.”

Alleluia!  Christ is risen!  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!

The resurrection we celebrate today is far more than the discovery of an empty tomb.  The resurrection we celebrate today is far more than good news supplanting the raw data of passion and suffering and torture and death.  The resurrection we celebrate today is far more than the victory of the anointed son of God overcoming death and the grave.

The resurrection we celebrate this day is the declaration and affirmation of God that the power of his love makes a difference in our lives and in the world.  This power of love, lavishly poured out for you and for me, is as real as the world, but stronger than the world.  It is power that overcomes the world!

In the risen Christ we meet this power. And the challenge to us -- the greatest challenge presented to us -- is to live by this power, acknowledging that God continues to act in the world in which we live, acting in and through us who assert that the spirit of the resurrected Christ lives in us.

If we live with this power -- which is to say if we live in Christ -- we live toward a future which is certain in its glory. It is a future that God has promised and continually proclaimed from the great exodus of his people out of bondage and enslavement in Egypt to the vision of the holy city in the book of Revelation, where all are gathered around the throne of the glorified Christ.  It is a future where the possibilities for new life are without any limit!

But all this talk about the power of love -- the power of divine love -- can sound so grandiose and so idealistic.  The reason this is so is because we have such a difficult time accepting that God loves us so lavishly.  We know that we are far from obedient to God’s will. We know that we stray like lost sheep from the good shepherd whose life and ministry are to lead us.  We know that while we seek to grow -- seeking to align our wills with the will of God -- we still take many steps backward.

We are not able to earn this lavish love, and we find it difficult to accept ourselves as we are. And if we are not able to accept ourselves as we are, we wonder, how then can God accept us as we are, and empower us to be who he creates us to be?  This is a question that only God can answer.

God does answer us with the gift of his son, bridging the distance between Heaven and Earth, bridging the distance between the divine and the human, bridging the distance between the sacred and the worldly.

Either we accept by faith God’s answer given to us, or we remain mired in the world of self pity and selfish living, always trying to earn acceptance in the world and by the world’s standards.

In one of his many published works, this one a meditation upon the Emmaus road encounter of the risen Christ with two persons who had known Jesus, Henri Nouwen speaks of this difficulty we have in accepting the lavish love of God for us.

Nouwen’s repeated use of the term ‘word’ here refers to the awareness of God’s plan for our salvation; of God’s promise to love us unconditionally and eternally.

Nouwen says:

“The great temptation of our lives is to deny our role as chosen people and so allow ourselves to be trapped in the worries of our daily lives.  Without the word that keeps lifting us up as God’s chosen people, we remain, or become small people, stuck in the complaints that emerge from our daily struggle to survive without the word that makes our hearts burn.  We can’t do much more than walk home, resigned to the sad fact that there is nothing new under the sun.  Without the word, our life has little meaning, little vitality, and little energy.  Without the word we remain little people with little concerns who live little lives and die little deaths.  Without the word we still may be a new item in a local or even national newspaper for a day or two, but there will be no generation to call us blessed.  Without the word our isolated pains and sorrows may extinguish the spirit within and make us victims of bitterness and resentment.  ...  We need the word spoken and explained by the one who joins us on the road and makes his presence known to us -- a presence first discerned in our burning hearts. It is this presence that encourages us to let go of our hardened hearts and become grateful.  As grateful people we can invite into the intimacy of our home the one who has made our hearts burn.”

The one, of course, is the risen Christ.

And the home in which we invite him is the intimacy of our hearts. It is there in our hearts where the power of divine love transforms us and makes us new, new in the acceptance of ourselves in Christ.  It is there in our hearts where the power of divine love transforms us and makes us who God creates us to be.

If we accept this lavish love of God poured out upon us, then the resurrection we celebrate this day is our resurrection -- our resurrection in the here and now, our resurrection which the apostle Paul speaks of as being raised with Christ.

Paul is clear that if we belong to the risen Christ, we no longer belong to the world -- we no longer belong to the world as the world views us and uses our lives.

Only by belonging to Christ and Christ alone can we truly resist the devastating worldly powers of evil and work together in this world to avoid a collective suicide.  Those who do not belong to the world are the only ones who can bring it the peace the world craves.  Those whose lives are securely anchored beyond the powers and principalities that rule the world can enter the world freely and bring it peace.

This is true for us in our interactions with our families; in our daily discourses with those with whom we work; in our choices of those whom we select as political and religious leaders; in the use of our gifts in ministering to others.  The building of the kingdom of God is based upon the sacrificial work of those who are raised with Christ!

So we who are raised with Christ are called to change the world through the power of divine love.  Surely that is what Jesus did in his obedience to the father. This is our life work.

But it is work that is often attempted with our blindness to the worldly systems that so influence our lives.  Jesus often spoke of the blindness of his people -- people who then opposed him and his ministry.

We live within systems: political systems, economic systems, social systems, family systems to name a few, and many of the influences of those systems are not of God. They do not function with the power of divine love.

I remember several years ago asking an African-American friend to help me understand my racism, knowing that while I considered him a child of God -- and as one who should have all the rights and privileges I have in our culture -- knowing I was still living out many racist attitudes and ways I was not aware of.

The friend smiled and told me that it would take a lot of time and discussion together to get beyond all the racist attitudes and ways that remain a part of the systemic nature of our culture.  I can have the most desirous heart for overcoming racism, but still be blind to systemic patterns by which I have lived for most of my life in my interactions with others.

In the same way, I can have the most desirous heart to reach out and to minister to those who live in abject poverty, and yet be blind to systemic patterns of economic structures that still leave the poor in abject poverty.

It is surely God’s will that I not be a racist.  And it is surely God’s will that I minister to the poor by changing the structures that separate us.

On the cross -- knowing our blindness to so much before us -- Jesus could say, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  His ultimate sacrifice was made to forgive you and me.  This forgiveness sets us free from those powers and forces that enslave us.  This forgiveness offers the transcendent power of divine love that reunites us with the father and his will -- the uniting with the father that saves us from ourselves -- saves us from being apart from the one who loves us unconditionally and eternally.

It is his lavish love for us that empowers us to renew our commitment to be for others as the risen Christ is for us.  This constant challenge to be for others sheds new light upon our systemic blindnesses, and calls us to accountability with those who are the disenfranchised and the outcasts.

Jesus was a powerful witness of the ministry to the disenfranchised and the outcasts, and so must we be powerful witnesses to them in Christ.

When the risen Christ encountered several of his disciples fishing by the Sea of Tiberias, and shared breakfast with them -- a breakfast of bread and fish -- he then turned to Peter, to the one who denied having anything to do with him in the darkest hours.  The risen Christ asked Peter, “Do you love me?”  Three times Christ asked this question of Peter, and three times Peter responded by insisting that he loved the Lord.  After each response, Christ told Peter to feed God’s sheep.

Here in this encounter is the mystery of our resurrection.  If we accept the lavish love of the Father for us -- the lavish love for each of us as unique children of God -- we in turn love the one who has carried out the will of the Father, the one who saves us from ourselves.

As we love this risen Christ, we are empowered by his spirit -- the spirit of divine love.  We are empowered to live in Christ, transformed and made new to serve his will.  We serve his will by building the kingdom of God in a troubled world.  This resurrection is indeed a mystery us -- but a mystery that by our faith becomes the reality of who we are.

Christ being raised from the dead will never die again.  Death no longer has dominion over him.  The death that he died, he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.

So also consider yourselves dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ Jesus our lord.

Alleluia!