Easter

"After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb."

The women went to the tomb, it was early in the morning. They went to weep, to plan, to get some air, they went because there wasn't much else to do. What, after all, do you do when all of a sudden you purpose has been taken away. What would they do without Jesus? They had devoted so much to serving him. What do you do when what you have done for many years, your whole life changes? Try to hold on to the way it was before? Try to fill your time with little tasks? Finally settle in to your loss? The women did a bit of all these things. They went to be close to what they had lost and they made up chores for themselves redefining life by what it didn't hold for them. So they went, maybe they took some flowers. Perhaps something like these. Maybe some lilies.

That would be appropriate for the women to take, they are kind of a funeral flower, they hail death. Around the time of funerals people always end up with a house filled with lilies and their petals and pollen, their smell and their imposing presence. I've actually always wondered why we make them our symbol for Christ and for resurrection. Yes Jesus died and so the lilies, but Christ is risen now! And yet here we have this funeral flower, you'd think we would have traded it in for something else. Several years ago, after my brother's funeral my house was filled with lilies most of them cut but one, just like this one, my mother noticed had a tag asking that it be planted outside. We found a spot in the corner of the garden out my bedroom window. And all summer long it was a green stalk that looked almost like a tiny palm tree in the garden among the lupines, roses and columbine. And then, in the fall, it turned brown and we cut the dead stalk down. A suitable end to something that came at the time of death.

We forgot about it, dead and under the ground. But you know, lilies are hardy. You can plant one in your garden and it will come back every year bigger and more filled with life. The lily in our garden certainly did. One year later almost exactly it grew and with its trumpet shaped flower hailed new life. This is part of the reason they really are appropriate for reminding us of the new life of Jesus. They live on and on. So, the women went to the tomb, knowing what they would find. A body wrapped in bands of cloth. Jesus dead, his body broken and abused, lifeless and already returning to the dust of the earth.

"But when they got there, the tomb was no longer dark, the stone rolled away and the angel said: Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised."

What could this possibly mean? What for people who had lost their purpose to suddenly hear this utterly crazy news? How should we take it? With fear? That was the first reaction of the women. They were afraid. While they were sad they had a grasp on everything. Now this new joy turned over everything they knew about light and darkness, about tombs and temples, about being alive and being dead. And they heard the words, be not afraid. They had prepared to go back to their pre-Jesus lives and yet...And yet it looked as if they would never be able to do that. Because they had the Good News, they knew things and could do and say things that would bring new life to all people and they had a call from God, be not afraid. The angel said Come into the tomb and see for yourself that death has lost it's hold but then go and share the message.

Did the women go into the tomb? Did they stay there for a long time? Did they search it top to bottom? We don't know nothing tells us. We don't know how long they stayed, how much it took to get them back on their feet. How long the fear and shock and pain and anger lasted. But eventually they Got up. the angel said, get up, Tell others what you've seen here at death's door and what you believe. And so they went.

Believe it or not the Easter Lily has something to say about this too! The lily has developed in such a way that everything about it yearns and strives for life. Did you know that this lily has two sets of roots? One set that reaches into the soil for water and nourishment and one set that grows outward nearer to the surface. What is really remarkable about these roots is that they are there so that the plant can move. they are there to move the lily around. To more optimal places. The outward growing roots will move the bulb if there is a source of water nearby they will move toward it, if the light comes form a certain place and so on. Buried in the ground once they get a hold on life they can't help but move in order the live more fully.

Would the women have lived if they had stayed in the tomb or walked home and told no one? Or course they would have just like they had that morning as they walked to the tomb. In fear and quiet morning. Still feeling the loss of their friend and teacher. Still angry at the world for taking away their faith and theirs dreams but instead just hearing the news that Christ was risen was enough for them to want to spread the word. And so they left the tomb. hesitant at first and then moving faster with more joy telling each other the story over and over again louder and louder. Spreading the news all along the road that they took to get to the other disciples.

The gospel says, "they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. And Suddenly Jesus met them on the road."

Christ is Risen.

And this is where we find him on the road. As we strain for the light. As we move to live life more fully. As we work to change the world around us so that it is more filled with life. The women at the tomb heard the news that death was overcome and they ran to share the message of new life. We know that our Redeemer lives and so we move to spread the Good news with those around us. To transform the shade we find ourselves in into bright light, to replace the dry ground around us with the promise of the baptismal water. And we are assured that just as much as lilies bloom in the spring, just as much as the tomb was empty, just as much as the women were afraid, Christ lives and always meets us on the way. This is Good News, Thanks be to God. Amen.

Maundy Thursday John 13:1-35

"I give you a new commandment, to love one another as I have loved you".

Jesus, after the last supper, after kneeling humbly to wash the feet of his disciples, after realizing that he had been betrayed and that he would very soon be crucified commanded his disciples to love one another just as he had loved them. This commandment was only kind of new when Jesus gave it. His disciples would have been familiar with the commandment to love God above all else and to love their neighbors as themselves but this was new, to love each other just as Jesus loved you. What does that mean exactly? Just how did Jesus love?

Jesus loved the ones who sought to lead his church by stooping down and washing their feet. By making himself a humble servant to them. Strange when you first hear the story, Jesus rises from the table. He ties a towel around himself and he kneels to wash the feet of the ones that he loved, the ones that would carry on his message.

Foot washing generally worked like this: when a traveler would arrive at his destination as a guest he would often be provided with a basin for washing or a servant to do the washing if the traveler was a very honored guest. Foot washing was a sign of hospitality, of welcome to the house and an intimate gesture that your presence was long awaited and pleasing to your host. But Jesus stopped during dinner to do this for his disciples who if anything were more like his servants than he was theirs.

But maybe this is not so strange when you think about Jesus holding out his hands for a drink from the woman at the well, a woman so ashamed of herself that she would never meet the eyes of the Rabbi much less pour water into his hands for him to drink.

Maybe it isn't so strange when you think of Jesus stooping down to pick up little children that even his disciples were pushing aside so that he could promise them the kingdom of God even in their youth.

Stooping down with a towel wasn't a strange act for a man who had stooped down to make mud in order that he might heal the eyes of a beggar sitting at the city gates.

Stooping down to wash feet even seems pale compared to the picture of Christ bent over in tears at the grave of his friend Lazarus calling him out, calling him back to life.

In fact stooping down with a towel to bring comfort and peace to those who loved and followed him in a moment of great pain and distress might be just where you would expect to find a man who prayed for those who called for his death and who died promising care for his disciples and the love of God to a common criminal.

Stooping down with love and care to wash the very feet of those whom he had every reason to be above Jesus did just what Jesus always did, he offered all of himself in order to free those who were trapped in pain, fear, sickness and death. This is the day that we hear about the final things that Jesus did on earth as a free man before he was arrested and led to the cross and the final things sound just like the things that came before them and not too different than the things that came after them.

Even to the point of death Jesus offered himself in love to the children of God. He offered his broken body in the last supper and he offered fellowship with him in the washing of the disciples feet. And we are called to be imitators of this love. We are called to follow where Jesus left off as teachers, healers, workers for peace and justice, servants and loving brothers and sisters to God's children.

This is an incredible job almost an impossible job but for the promise of Christ that we get at the very beginning of the text that his love will abide with us to the end of the age. We are wrapped in, washed by, fed with and alive in the love of Christ now and in all that we do. How can we help but let that spill over to our neighbors and to all those around us? This is how we obey the command to love our neighbors through trust and remembrance that Christ first and most fully loved us even to the depth of the cross and through to the Joy of Easter. Amen

Lent 5 A John 11:1-45

Lord if you had been here Lazarus wouldn't have died. In our gospel lesson today this is the recurring lament. Jesus' close friend was sick and he died. And Jesus risks life and limb to go to Lazarus' family and his tomb. When Jesus gets there he is met by Martha with this Lament. If you had been here Lazarus my brother, your friend wouldn't have died. Again Mary comes out and meets Jesus with the same lament, Lord if you had been here this terrible thing wouldn't have happened.

Imagine the scene here. Lazarus is very sick. He is lying in bed and eventually it becomes clear that he isn't going to make it. And so his sisters, his only family begin the funeral arrangements because when he dies things will have to move quickly. They find fabric to wrap him in once he is dead. Strips of cloth to bind him up for the grave. Finally the illness takes it's final toll. He breathes his last and suddenly the house feels so empty. The sisters cry. They send word out to friends and loved ones. Into town so that people know to come mourn with them and then out to Jesus the young rabbi to whom they are all so close.

And then they start wrapping him up, getting him ready for the grave. First they cover his eyes. Next they bind his arms against him. With bandages, tight to his sides. Next they wrap his legs together. All the way down to his feet. All movement gone. Completely bound they place him in the grave and a roll a stone across the entrance. To block anyone from coming in and anyone from coming out.

Days go by, the shock wears off a little, Mary and Martha settle into mourning and then Jesus comes along asking about Lazarus. First the stone is rolled away and dim light shines in. Then Jesus calls. Lazarus, come out! The strips of cloth that are binding him slacken a little so that he can walk. He stands up and he follows the voice, a few strips fall away and he makes it out into the sunlight and Jesus commands all those standing around, Lazarus' community, unbind him. One by one the strips are pulled away and he is free. He has new life. He sees through new eyes, he has more focus more understanding. And all it took was a call from Jesus, Lazarus, come out.

Now imagine this scene if you will. Lying in a tomb wrapped in so many strips of cloth is the mission of the church of God. Eyes and face wrapped up in apathy by the overwhelming cares of the world. Arms wrapped up in fear by all of the violence that religion has provoked and been part of through the years. Legs wrapped up in forgetfulness as people are overrun by the flashes of money and material things all around them. Feet wrapped up in anger as people lose loved ones or are sick or hurt. The whole mission of the church bound by confusion with so many voices coming from so many places all around it.

And if only Jesus had been there. Each person Jesus encountered called to him...Jesus if you had been here Lazarus would not have died. Jesus disagreed. Jesus didn't deny that there is death in the world. He even weeps about it. He is genuinely sad that his friend has died and that a family that he loves is in mourning as I suspect he mourns when the mission of the church gets all bound up and lost. But he doesn't leave it at weeping. He hears the lament. If you had been here...If you had been here there wouldn't be death and pain, disease, war, anger, grieving, mourning. We would all be strong and healthy. The whole catholic church would be strong and healthy.

And when he hears it he says: I am here, right now I am the resurrection and the life. I am the power that overcomes death. I am what it means to be alive. focus on my call and you will live now, you people who are already alive even in the midst of illness and fear, pain and death. Focus on my call and you will have life abundantly. Focus on my call and you will be able to let go of the things that keep you from living. Focus on my call and you will be energized to bring healing to your community. Focus on my call and learn to care again about your neighbor. Focus on my call and you will be able to care for the stranger in your midst. Focus on my call and be unafraid in the midst of the world. Focus on my call and remember how much I love you. Focus on my call and all the other voices will fade into the background. Focus on my call and Come out.

In many ways this is our last regular service during Lent. Next week we begin Holy Week with Palm Sunday and we'll spend the week following Jesus through his last days in Jerusalem. So far we have spent time talking about Lenten disciplines with the urge from the church to recommit ourselves, to redefine our spiritual lives. To get them back in line with Christ. We use imagery for lent that involves a lot of darkness. We talk about it as a quiet time for meditation, we talk about seeds buried deep within the soil coming to life as they are watered and called by the sun of springtime. Today we are in a dark tomb with Lazarus and we hear the call. Dimly at first. We hear a crowd gathered around the outside of our tomb excited by the presence of the Lord and then all of sudden we hear our names. And the stone keeping us in the tomb is rolled away, we see a dim light and we hear a voice, _________ Come out. __________ come out. ____________ come out. Trinity, Come out! And we walk out sore and with eyes hurt by the light. then slowly, gently the grave clothes come off of us. We are unbound, strip by strip, worry by worry, restraint by restraint until we can see the light of the day and the new life we are promised.

The Lord is calling us out of our tombs but what is keeping us in them? What are your graves clothes? What are the grave clothes here in this place. What binds us up and keeps us from living?

Whatever it is it we can let it go and receive new life this Easter because we are being called with a loud voice, Trinity, People of God. COME OUT. Amen

Lent 4 A John 9:1-41

I had a funny experience with a friend this week. She was looking something she had lost. for a piece of software to install on a new computer, a $300 piece of software. She was sure she had seen it just laying out on a counter. So she decided to put it somewhere safe. Famous last words right? So original packaging and all she had scooped it up and moved it and we looked for it, and we looked for it and we looked for it and we finally gave up looking for it. And tried to find another solution for her software troubles when all of sudden, out of a box with a bunch of other computer things, no longer in it's original packaging at all her husband pulled the disc she was looking for! That was predictable, you knew how it was going to end, we do that. We look and look in all the likely places for something we know we've just seen and then when we finally find it, it looks a little different than we expected and it is in a place that we never would have thought to look.

The people in our lessons today have very similar problems. They are looking for something but it is so far in location and appearance from where they would have expected it that finding it is kind of a trick.

First our Old testament lesson is about the prophet Samuel as he journeys to find a new king for the people of Israel. God has charged him to do this and so he goes, reluctantly, to Bethlehem to find a king. Sound familiar? As we have heard before Bethlehem wasn't exactly the New York City of the ancient Middle East. It was up in the Hill country where the shepherds lived and no one really traveled there unless they had to. And yet God's number one prophet was sent there at the risk of being caught by the current king to find a new king for the people of Israel. And so he went to the house a Jesse, a prominent man in the region and asked to see Jesse's sons as the Lord had told him to. Likely he asked only to see the oldest son because in this time he oldest son was the primary heir, the most important in the family, Samuel would have been sure that this son was to be God's new king.

So son number one came in, Eliab was his name and he looked like a king, he was a soldier, tall and strapping, full grown, already even a leader of a few men in the army. Surely this is who God had chosen, but the prophet Samuel heard no, look somewhere else, that isn't him.

So next came Abinadad, Jesse's second son, just a little younger, nearly as promising looking with his armor and confidence but no. Samuel heard look somewhere else, that isn't him.

Next Jesse's third son, Shammah. A younger man, new to the army a little more wild, a little less wise but surely a third son must be it, the Lord wouldn't dip any deeper into the barrel than this...But he heard again, no Samuel, look somewhere else, that isn't him either.

So Samuel looked everywhere, Jesse called sons from the village, from the courtyards, from the low hills, and Samuel looked at each one with lessening hope, we're never going to find him, now we're looking in less and less likely places....Through seven sons they searched for someone worthy to be a king until Jesse was done showing sons and Samuel had to ask: "Is this all do you have any others, maybe one was hidden somewhere or forgotten somehow."

And Yes it turns out there was another...kind of...a lowly shepherd boy out in the field. The eighth son. The one who tended the sheep. He was barely more than a child and being the eighth son had no stature at all he was almost grouped with the servants of the household. But the prophet waited as someone went searching through the hills to find this hidden son.

And so finally Jesse presented his final son, David who played music and wandered the fields with the sheep and God said to Samuel to immediately give this child the kingdom. Anoint him, he is our new king! He didn't look anything like a king and he wasn't where Samuel would have looked and yet here he was the one who would be hailed as the greatest king of Israel, the one who was to be ancestor to the Messiah born in a sheep stall in hill country many years later.

David, it turned out, had a lot to offer. He was wise and fair and just, a strong soldier and a strong leader, just what the people needed. But no one knew. His parents didn't know what he could do, his friends didn't know, his fellow shepherds didn't know, no one knew until God called again and again each time with a little more information until it was clear that David was the chosen king.

Our New Testament lesson tells a very different story about a man who was blind from birth whom Jesus heals. He has no idea who healed him or why. The people around him don't have any idea how he was healed either and so they start asking questions.

People start asking him and he tells his story, someone healed me, with mud.

They ask his parents and they tell what they know, he was blind and now he sees.

They ask the man again and he tells his story, this time with the sense that maybe the man who healed him was a prophet.

People ask him again and he knows a little more, I was blind and now I see, the man who healed me must come from God he says.

People ask him again and again and the story grows each time.

Finally at the end of the story Jesus asks him what he thinks and he says with faith that he was healed by the son of man and he will worship and believe.

From the very beginning of the story the answer to the question, "Where did this healing come from" was right there in front of everyone but no one saw it, it didn't seem likely and was pretty out of the ordinary. Until they heard the story again and again, let it settle and then heard it again.

At the beginning of Lent I mentioned that our Lenten disciplines roughly follows the order of worship. First we talked about baptism, the event that first welcomes us into a worshiping community. Last week we talked about confession and forgiveness, the very beginning of our service. This week we are talking about telling stories, this is the part of the service we are in right now, the word part.

We come here week after week to hear the stories of God's work from the bible because, just like the man born blind, we understand our own story more and more the more we tell it and hear it told to us. We know God better the more we listen to the way God has worked around us.

But for each person in our lessons today something was hidden and when they found it they didn't find it quite how they had expected to. This is the wonderful mystery of God's word. It isn't where you think it would be. At least not only there. For the man born blind the miracle of his healing was in the telling of his story. I tell a lot of stories up here on Sunday mornings but I can tell you I see the most growth and the most faith when people tell their own stories. When children learn to tell the stories of their baptisms, when teenagers tell the story of their confirmation, when adults tell the stories that lead them to come here and to keep coming here.

Martin Luther is quoted as saying about baptism that, "in ordinary water (the same water as the maid's cooking water), when Christ's promise is present, there God is present-hidden as God was hidden in the manger and on the cross." That is good news for Meaghan this morning but I would extend that to say that in ordinary words, when Christ's promise is present, God is present-hidden as he was for Samuel and for the man born blind. This is why we listen to the word or God and tell our stories over and over again so that the hidden God is revealed in our lives. Amen