Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "He Is Risen – Now What?!"

Text: John 20:1-18

every year at about this time …

We see the lilies and azaleas …

we color Easter eggs,

we buy a new outfit, or wish for one,

we sing special hymns and hear special music,

and we know Easter is here.

It seems as though we’ve been building up to it,

in both the sacred and the secular realm,

for quite some time.

And here it is, and here we are,

and for this time together, we celebrate …

but then what?

What happens,

after we get in our cars and go home,

and go back tomorrow to school or work,

or whatever the so-called "real world" holds for us?

Our Lord is risen,

but what do we do with him,

now that he’s out of the tomb?

Easter is an awfully hard act to follow.

Perhaps that’s why,

even though churches fill to overflowing on Easter,

they’re full of empty seats the following Sunday.

I’ve told many of you, I know,

that in seminary we used to call the Sunday after Easter "Cannonball Sunday,"

because, the theory is,

you could fire a cannon right through the middle of the sanctuary,

in the middle of the service, and not hit anyone!

We’re going to try to change that paradigm this year,

by having worship in the park next Sunday!

Easter is a hard act to follow …

God has raised Jesus from the dead –

and we can’t top that …

the preacher can’t top that …

probably even God can’t top that …

So it’s easier to stay home

than cope with the after-Easter letdown.

Easter seems, in many ways,

like the end of a great and wonderful story.

And we aren’t sure how to follow it up.

But perhaps the answer, so far as there is one,

is found right there in the text,

in the Easter story itself.

I don’t think you can find a better example

of resurrection follow-up

than in the actions of the women

who were the first witnesses to the resurrection.

Whether it’s just Mary, as we hear it in John’s gospel,

or various combinations of women, as the other writers have recorded it …

if we want to discover what we should do now that he is risen,

Mary and the other women provide us with all the example we need.

And if we follow in their footsteps,

we will find, as they did,

that Easter is not an ending,

but a glorious beginning.

Now the first thing to do

is deceptively simple: believe.

Mary saw the angels, then saw Jesus,

and recognized him after hearing his voice,

and knew immediately what had happened.

And with her grief and fear gone,

she went to the disciples and announced to them,

"I have seen the Lord."

I say that "to believe" is deceptively simple because,

at some level or another, we all believe,

or we wouldn’t be here today.

We recite a creed every week,

and we accept the basic statements contained in it,

but are those just words on our lips,

or are they really in our hearts and heads?

For many of us, coming to believe the things we state

is a lifelong journey.

Jesus Christ – risen from the dead … ? Literally?

That’s a stumbling block for many:

we weren’t there to see it happen then,

we haven’t seen it happen since,

and we’re skeptical.

But then, much as we don’t like to admit it,

our intellect isn’t always the best judge of what is true;

there are places it cannot take us.

The next thing, I suppose,

that we are called on to believe,

is that Jesus Christ is, indeed, the Son of God.

Maybe that seems a little backwards,

like we should believe that first.

And perhaps for some, it does happen in that order.

But even if his whole life and his actions

hadn’t convinced us for certain,

surely his death and resurrection must.

Remember that even the Roman centurion,

standing guard at the crucifixion,

came to the realization, "Truly this was the Son of God!"

At Easter, we are called upon also

to believe that we are forgiven.

That, too, can be a stumbling block …

Sometimes, because we don’t want to admit

we have done things we need to be forgiven for …

Other times, because we know all too well we have done those things,

and are fairly aure we can never be forgiven …

Either way, we are wrong!

But because of the death and resurrection of our Lord,

we have forgiveness for our sins,

even the ones we didn’t know we committed,

even the ones we didn’t know were sins when we did them,

and even the ones we thought were too awful for even God to forgive.

We also have power over sin.

Which is not to say that we will never again sin …

we are, after all, human …

But in Jesus Christ, we have the power –

theoretically, anyway! –

to overcome its power

and to live all of life in God’s light rather than in shadow.

And, in a way, that leads us into

this last thing the we ought to believe about Easter:

We need to believe, at the very heart of our being,

that Easter is more than just bunnies and eggs,

and it’s more than just a neat conjuring trick by God.

Easter is the demonstration of God’s power …

God’s power for us, not against us.

Easter proves to us once and for all,

that the power of good

is stronger than the power of evil.

That the power of love

is stronger than the power of death.

And somehow … and I know this is difficult sometimes …

we need to come to believe and to trust

God’s good intentions for us, and for all of humankind.

And then, we need to stop putting so much trust in

those things which try to replace God in our hearts…

like money … technology … security.

God alone is Lord.

The power of the resurrection is infinitely more powerful

than anything we humans could ever dream up.

Believe it.

Our second response to Easter – after believing –

again needs to follow the example of the women:

we need to run right out and tell the world!

Mary ran first to tell the disciples,

since that’s what Jesus instructed.

Though in Luke’s version, anyway,

the disciples thought it was idle gossip,

and didn’t believe a word,

but that’s their problem!

I think that perhaps over the centuries

we have lost a sense of what good news Easter is.

It’s become sort of ho-hum, yes,

he rises from the grave every year about this time.

Almost like the groundhog regularly coming out

on the second of February every year.

We’ve almost forgotten

how radical and exciting Easter is.

It should make us

want to run right out and tell the world what has happened:

"He is risen, as he said!"

We should be almost bursting with the news.

After the resurrection,

Jesus himself commands the disciples to spread the word.

As we find it in Matthew’s gospel, we call it the Great Commission:

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,

baptizing them in the name of the Father,

and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,

teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you."

One of our responses to Easter

has to be sharing our faith

with friends, and neighbors,

and, if we feel so called, strangers.

Sharing it, not in a pushy or aggressive way,

but in a caring way, an excited way.

Like news that’s too good to be kept to ourselves:

The Lord is risen!

Believe it! Tell it!

He is risen indeed.

Alleluia! Amen.

© 2004 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)