Rejoice in What God’s Creating – Pastor April

I spent about a semester in college as a music composition major. I loved closing my eyes and listening for a melody that seemed to come from nowhere. I would experiment with the melody in my mind and then frantically put it down on paper–and later onto the music composition program on my computer. Even before I could finish writing the piece, my whole body would be energized with excitement. I could feel the finished piece before I could hear it, and I felt caught up in the movement of creating something new. Have you ever been a part of something like that?

In Isaiah 65, the prophet is captivated by a vision from God about a world in which no one dies in their young age, where all children grow and thrive, where people live in their own homes and not in a strange land, and where people can grow food and eat of the harvest. Isaiah envisions a world that is not yet. He sees a world that is unlike the world he lived in, but he also could see the signs that God was slowly beginning to bring about a change. He could see a day—perhaps a day far in the future—when suffering would be ended, death would no longer be a capricious tyrant, when young and old would live full lives and enjoy good food and safe places to live.

Usually when I read this passage, I feel a mixture of two emotions: hopefulness for the glorious day when this vision becomes a reality, and sadness because it still seems so far away. I think about those who have suffered, those who longed for a place of security. I think about those displaced by war who aren’t at home where they live, but cannot safely return to the place where they feel most at home. I think about so many places of pain in the world, and I wonder, “God, are you making all things new yet?”

But as I read this passage again recently, I heard something new. I was captivated by verse 18: “But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight.” Be glad and rejoice in what I am creating. The fullness of goodness isn’t here yet, but good is springing up all around us. Little miracles are everywhere. Re-creation is happening.

We are like composers hearing the song God is writing from a far. We are being invited to listen closely, to learn the song, and then go out and sing it in the world. There might be places or experiences where it is hard to hear the song. We might struggle and wonder if the day will ever come when we can experience the song fully. But, we are still invited to listen, to rejoice, and to sing it in the way we live our lives.

 On this Easter morning, we celebrate that death does not have the victory. We rejoice that the grave could not hold Jesus, and it will not hold us forever either. Today, the song of God is louder and fuller than just a few days before, and we find ourselves singing it too.. We celebrate what God is doing in this world and what God is doing through us.

What is God doing in your life? What is God calling you to do in the lives of those nearest to you? What would it look like for you to sing the glorious and hopeful song that death does not have the final word, that God cares about the lives of people, and God wants each person to thrive?

I recently heard the story of a woman who went to the grocery store. As the checker rang up her items, the woman realized she was $12 short. She started removing items from what she was buying, when the man behind her handed her a $20 bill. The woman objected, but the man told her she needed to accept the money. You see, the man’s mother was in the hospital, and every day when he went to visit her, he brought her flowers. The most recent time he came to visit, his mother saw the flowers and told him it was foolish for him to keep wasting his money in this way. She told him to do something else with that money. In that grocery store as the man handed the woman in front of him the $20, he said, “Here, take it. This is my mother’s flowers.” 

In that moment, the man in the grocery store was singing the song of the new creation–the song of a world in which no one goes hungry, and no one lives without fullness of life and dignity. On that first day of resurrection, Jesus destroyed death and ushered into the world something brand new: abundant life. We aren’t fully there yet, but God is making something brand new. God is restoring this world. God is bringing about miracles every day, and sometimes God accomplishes those things through us.

Today, let’s rejoice in what God is creating. Let’s celebrate that little by little, all things are being made new. And then, let’s join our voices and sing God’s new song as we live as the hands and feet of Jesus in this world.

So many years ago–somewhere around 400 A.D– St. John Chrysostom wrote the most beautiful Easter sermon I have ever heard. Today, I echo his words: 

“Hell took a body, and discovered God.

It took earth, and encountered Heaven.

It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see…

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!

Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!

Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!

Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!

Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;

for Christ having risen from the dead,

is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!”

I Will Rise – Pastor Jeff

After the pain of losing someone you love, resurrection seems like an impossible dream. I imagine when Mary Magdalene came to the tomb on Easter morning and saw the stone rolled away, her first thought was probably not, “Yay! Jesus is back!” Her first thought was probably one motivated by fear and doubt.

There is a story of a father and his young son who were headed somewhere in the car and they drove past a cemetery. The little boy glanced out the window and noticed a pile of freshly dug dirt next to one of the graves. The little boy exclaimed to his father, “Look, Dad! One got out!” The resurrection of Jesus was probably not viewed initially with that same hope-filled wonder of that little boy. It was most likely viewed, and often is still today, with skepticism and doubt. How could this Jesus who had died come back to life? Thus when Mary Magdalene saw that the tomb was empty, she didn’t assume that it meant Jesus was back from the dead. Instead she was worried that someone had stolen Jesus’ body. In fact, she ran and found Simon Peter and said to him, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Many Christians and Christian churches look at Easter as the day that Jesus conquered death once and for all, removing any doubt that he was who he said he was. And while that is in many ways true, Easter day from the very beginning was a day filled with fear and doubt…fear of truths we don’t understand and doubt about the truths we thought we did understand. Spanish writer and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno once wrote, “Life is doubt, and faith without doubt is nothing but death.” I would, in fact, argue that doubt is an integral part of faith. If we believe in something without ever doubting it, is it really belief or is it simply accepting without consideration? It is through our doubts that our faith is strengthened. I’m reminded of the Apostle Paul’s great words from his second letter to the Corinthians, “Whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”

Faith comes to us not in an absence of fear or struggle or doubt, but in the midst of those very things. I’m reminded of the story behind the great hymn “It Is Well with My Soul.” Horatio Spafford wrote the incredible words to this song after a period of deep tragedy in his life. In a matter of 2 years, he had lost his business to the Great Chicago Fire, his 4 year-old son had died, and then his remaining four daughters were killed in a shipwreck in which his wife was the only survivor. She has informed him of this tragedy with a telegram that said, “Saved alone. What shall I do.” Spafford hopped on a ship and sailed to meet up with his grieving wife. It was on that journey across the very waters where his daughters had died that Spafford composed the words to his hymn, a hymn that concludes with these words, “And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight, The clouds be rolled back as a scroll; The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend, Even so, it is well with my soul.” In the midst of deepest tragedy, Spafford found faith…or perhaps faith found him.

Easter is not about dispelling our doubts and our fears. Easter is about embracing hope and celebrating life. It’s not about having the most faith or the best faith. It is about having a faith that is simply good enough. Jesus talks about faith and what just a small amount of faith can do. In fact he says this: “For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” We don’t need a faith that is full grown and abundant. We simply need a small seed of faith and that is good enough.

Kate Bowler, in Good Enough, the book that has been our conversation partner through this season of Lent, points out an interesting detail from John’s account of the resurrection of Jesus. She writes: “What a strange detail: the resurrected Christ is mistaken for a gardener. Maybe it’s because he stole the gardener’s clothes, since his were stripped and gambled over. Maybe because where Jesus was crucified was a garden. A tiny, beautiful detail that reminds us that death is never too far from new life. Maybe Jesus looks like his dad, the first gardener, who tended Eden barefoot. Maybe Jesus looks like the new Adam, the head gardener for the new Eden of the new heavens and new earth. Maybe it’s because he carries the pruning shears of a vinedresser, the careful tender of our souls, ready to pluck and plant, uproot and cut back. Maybe he looks ready to cultivate new life, to pull us toward resurrection with his fingers digging among the worms. Or maybe this gardener looks like he knows something about hope – hope that Mary desperately needs. A gardener knows the kind of hope it takes to sow a seed in the ground, to cover it with manure, to bury it in the cold winter dirt surrounded by naked trees. To leave it be for months, trusting that with the magic amount of water, air, and time something new will be born out of a single seed.”

On this Easter morning, may you find that whatever seed of faith you have is good enough for Jesus the gardener to plant and tend and grow into something new and beautiful and full of life. And may we realize that God loves us no matter what our faith. And may we embrace our doubts while simultaneously shouting Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Thanks be to God! Amen!