Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "A Window on God’s Power"

Text:  John 20:1-18

or books you have read,

or at least know about,

in which someone or something returns from the dead.

Mummies … zombies … poltergeists …

it’s nearly always something scary, isn’t it?

Something evil, with murder or mayhem on its mind.

Revenge for an evil suffered in life,

or a need to finish some kind of unfinished business.

Things that come back from the dead

are supposed to send us screaming into the night

and cowering away in fear.

Yet here we are, in our Sunday best,

with flowers to celebrate,

and about the loudest music we sing all year …

which some of us might scream, but it’s not quite the same!

Unlike all those horror flicks,

Christ’s return from the dead is not about the power of evil;

it certainly isn’t about the power of death …

but do we really live as if we believe

it’s about the power of God?

Or is it just a wonderful story that we repeat annually,

use as an excuse for buying a new outfit

and overindulging in chocolate,

and then just go on as before?

One thing about mummies and zombies and poltergeists …

at least according to the stories,

once you have experienced one,

your life is never quite the same.

At least, that is, if you survive the encounter!

Can we say the same about ourselves

and our encounter with the resurrected Christ?

Does the power of God … does knowing about the power of God …

make that kind of difference in our lives?

A couple of years ago Annette Heye gave me an article

which suggested that lilies are really an inappropriate flower for Easter.

Sure, they bloom in the spring,

and they’re beautiful, and all that,

but they’re kind of fussy.

Need lots of coddling and tending,

have to be treated just right,

or they will die and not come back to life.

The article suggested that a much more appropriate symbol for Easter

would be the dandelion.

You cut them down …

they spring back up.

Too much water … not enough water …

they don’t care.

Yank them up by the roots …

they’re back!

Poison them …

only a temporary setback.

Dandelions rise from the dead –

or at least, appear to do so –

with great regularity, tenacity,

and it seems, sometimes, even a sense of humor.

Would we view Easter differently,

would we think about Christ’s rising from the dead differently,

if we imagined it like a never-say-die little dandelion

instead of a beautiful but fragile lily?

Whether that matters to us, and how much,

may depend on how powerful we need God to be.

Which depends in large part on

how powerful or how weak we perceive ourselves to be.

Let me share with you a story

that comes from the book we’ve been reading in Sunday school,

so for those of you who’ve read it recently,

sorry for the repetition …

The story is told by the author, Jim Wallis,

about South African archbishop Desmond Tutu,

in the days before the apartheid system was dismantled.

Wallis attended a service at which Tutu was preaching,

and in which great numbers of the South African Security Police showed up,

lining the walls of the cathedral,

running their tape recorders and madly scribbling down his words,

waiting for him to say something they could charge him with,

and arrest him.

Tutu was having none of their intimidation.

"You are powerful, very powerful," he said to them,

acknowledging their military force and their jails and the like.

"But," said the archbishop,

"I serve a God who cannot be mocked"

Then, as Wallis describes it,

"in the most extraordinary challenge to political tyranny

I have ever witnessed,

Archbishop Desmond Tutu told the representatives of South African apartheid,

‘Since you have already lost,

I invite you today to come and join the winning side!’

"He said it with a smile on his face and enticing warmth in his invitation,

but with a clarity and boldness that took everyone’s breath away.

The congregation’s response was electric.

The crowd was literally transformed

by the bishop’s challenge to power.

From a cowering fear of the heavily armed security forces

that surrounded the cathedral

and greatly outnumbered the band of worshipers,

we literally leaped to our feet, shouted the praises of God,

and began … dancing.

We danced out of the cathedral

to meet the awaiting police and military forces of apartheid

who hardly expected a confrontation with dancing worshipers.

Not knowing what else to do,

they backed up to provide the space

for the people of faith to dance for freedom

in the streets of South Africa." (God’s Politics, pp. 347-348)

Do we understand that God is that powerful?

Are we willing to let the God we worship

transform the political and economic authorities

which both benefit us and oppress us?

Do we even believe that God will do that?

I think that part of the difficulty with being

twenty-first century, well-educated, American Presbyterians

is that we really don’t need God very much.

Maybe in times of personal grief and trauma, certainly.

We welcome God’s comfort and healing

when we are suffering.

We expect that of God, really.

That’s kind of God’s job description,

so far as we are concerned.

But can we imagine a God who would say to corrupt politicians,

"I know that you won this last election.

But since you have already lost,

why not join me now on the winning side?"

Can we imagine God’s word to an overpaid/overpriced CEO:

"Yes, I know you’re fabulously wealthy

and you make more than two hundred of your assembly-line workers

all added together.

But it means nothing.

Why not give it all up,

and receive everything I can offer you in return?"

Can you imagine God saying to a dictator,

"Yes, I see that you have had thousands of protestors killed.

They are with me in paradise now.

Would you care to change the way you are,

and join us here?"

Is our God that powerful?

Check out the Easter window.

Here, as in no other of the windows,

we don’t see the light of God streaming down from above.

We see it rising from the ground,

from the tomb that is empty.

We see that the worst we humans can do to one another

is no match for the power of God.

We see that the light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness has not overcome it.

Those words, which we usually hear at Christmas,

are even more appropriate for Easter.

The darkness of death, the darkness of murder,

the darkness of hell,

cannot trump the power of God.

Even more than that:

the power of God comes into play

as a result of what appears to be weakness.

Could Jesus have saved himself?

I believe so.

But instead, he allowed human power

to look as if it had had the last word.

He surrendered his own power,

so that God’s power might have a place to show itself.

The cross is, first and foremost,

a symbol of weakness.

Of Jesus’ weakness, in the face of oppressive power.

Only today, as we see it empty,

does it become a symbol of power.

The power, not of Jesus himself,

and not of those who nailed him to it,

but of God, who took him out of that tomb

and left the cross empty.

The Lamb of God,

which we also see in the same window,

tells us much the same thing.

Who ever heard of a strong lamb?

Do they pull plows,

or kick down the doors of their stalls,

or pull children from a burning building?

They do not.

They are weak.

And so they remind us of the weakness of Christ,

offering himself as a sacrifice,

but also carrying with him the power of God in the cross.

Whatever difficulty any of us may have

wrapping our minds around the question of resurrection …

Honestly, what use is a God who does not have such power?

The difference between God as we understand God,

and the gods worshiped by many other ancient cultures,

is that our God is not only powerful,

but also loves us.

We learned this at the foot of the cross.

God is willing to permit God’s own son to be sacrificed

because God loves us like any parent loves his or her own children …

foolishly, extravagantly, more than they deserve.

God raises him from out of death,

because God is powerful even over the forces of evil,

of human fear, selfishness, and stupidity,

and even over death itself.

Easter is for us

a window on God’s power.

Power that is not only more immense than we can imagine,

but which is on the side of human beings against evil.

Power that masquerades as weakness,

but which cannot be held back.

Christ is risen!

Alleluia!

Amen.

© 2006 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)