Sermon by The Very Rev Chris Yaw, 4/20/2025, Easter Sunday
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, with your power, All things are possible!
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, what a glorious Easter Sunday!
You and I have awakened to a new dawn that paints the sky with hues of promise - and swells weary hearts with the prospect of joy - for we are here to bask in the glory of God's power!
But we are here *not merely to commemorate a historical event, a far-fetched and faraway moment in somebody else's history -
But to consider this transcendent resurrection miracle as a living, breathing keystone to our world, our souls, and our sanity.
Please turn to your neighbor and ask, "Could you use a little sanity?"
(PAUSE)
Well, we have come to the right place! For, as we gather amidst the lilies in bloom and the air filled with songs of new life,
we are reminded that even in the darkest valleys and the coldest nights,
even amidst the shadows of despair and the storms of confusion,
the radiant light of God's presence is here - alive and well -
For Jesus is not dead, but has risen.
This morning we gather at the foot of the empty tomb - alongside those women on that first Easter morning-
Standing in that very place that symbolized absolute finality - that place of death!
And that place that God chose to tell us something very different:
That no matter
how many years ago the train left the station,
how long the odds, or
how cold the case -
never, ever give up hope.
We know there are dark forces at work seeking to bury hope.
How many of us regularly endure the crushing weight of injustice and oppression that is quite effective at
taking the wind out of our sails
and the air out of our tires,
so that the greatest hit in our top 40 is the psalmist's cry,
"How long, O Lord, How Long?"
But the God of Easter says, "It's time to change that tune!"
Easter is God's resounding affirmation that even
when things look their darkest,
hope seems to be lost,
and the powers of this world tell us that change is impossible;
that the God of justice and truth,
of possibility and purpose
has the final word.
And so our question for you, weary traveler, on this pinnacle day of Christian celebration is:
Where do you need hope?
Where have you given up?
How are you giving up?
What are you giving up?
And is it possible, that God's delay is not God's denial?
I ask you to help me think about this - and a few other things this morning as we make our way to that empty tomb -
For there was news there 2,000 years ago -
and I believe there is news there for you and me today -
For just as those two angels had a word for those first visitors -
let us look for a word for its latest visitors!
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Yes, we join Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and others,
who have packed up their spices in full expectation that death has won - it always does -
and our job now is to deal with it -
all that's left is a lifeless body in need of refreshment -
yes, that's what we'll find.
But, beloved, we know that is not what they found!
For the stone had been rolled away-
And not by men, by God!
The tomb was empty-
Not because somebody took the body, but because God took action!
And the two heavenly Messengers came with a word *not of earthly wisdom, but of divine glory!
And they asked a profound and eternal question, "Why do you seek the living among the dead?"
This is a keen query worthy of our observation:
If we want hope, why do we look in hopeless places?
If we want positivity, why do we hang around negativity?
If we hunger for the enlightenment of spirituality, why do we spend so much time in the darkness of the worldly pursuit?
Hope is not a trait we're born with - but attitude we cultivate.
I know it's hard to have hope today.
We watch the news - we see an economy spiraling, international relations in a tumult, and the demons of war winning way too many battles.
We are adrift upon the cresting waves of chaos;
hapless and helpless against the breakers of injustice and oppression.
But God is not off getting a pack of cigarettes.
Even when Jesus felt his most alone, crying bloody tears of compassion, in the throes of unanswered prayer.
God was busy, very busy, making the impossible, possible.
And that has not changed.
What needs to change, dear brothers and sisters, is us.
Hope is not a trait we're born with - but attitude we cultivate.
How limited is our vision of God this morning?
What are the guardrails and wagon circles we've drawn way too tightly?
Were the Eagles correct in singing:
"We live our lives in chains, and we never even know we have the key"?
The Resurrection should not have been a surprise to Jesus' disciples - he told them about it time and again - but they were not or did not take it seriously.
Jesus' words to you and me should not be a surprise either.
We should, and we are, to take them seriously.
These are words of personal provision and protection:
God will take care of you,
God will never leave you, and
God has a purpose for you.
Jesus also has words for the broader, human condition,
that there is plan and purpose -
that thy kingdom come, thy will be done!
Hope invites us to imagine a world:
Where no one is in need;
Where from cradle to grave, we care for one another in the way we would like to be cared for;
And where the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
Let us learn from the disciples - and believe God's words to us-
Let us cultivate hope.
Let us order our worlds around that hope!
Let us live into the promises of that heavenly Jerusalem brought down from heaven above, to our world below -
Let us be a people of hope - which is not a trait we're born with, but an attitude we cultivate.
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After the two men in dazzling clothes had finished speaking with the women, they left the tomb.
We know they had been terrified there,
and had bowed their faces to the ground.
But theirs was a holy terror - that only silenced them for one moment,
for in the next, they had headed back home where they told everyone what had happened.
These God-fearing, God-loving women became the first witnesses to the Resurrection.
And when they told the 11 men what they had seen - nobody believed them.
And this is another point worthy of our consideration:
Listen to the women!
Believe the voice of the faithful, the devoted, the committed!
Look for God in the witness of the marginalized and dismissed, as women were in Jesus' day - unable to even give testimony in court.
God speaks through shepherds, tax collectors, and thieves.
Abraham was a liar,
Old Moses was a murderer,
King David an adulterer,
Because God chooses the imperfect and the unexpected to do divine work so that we can make sure it was really God working all along!
Listen to the women.
This means giving everyone equal treatment.
One life is not worth more than another.
Class, color, political affiliation or stock portfolio do not matter to God - and it should not matter to us.
But every civilization has its caste system, especially ours,
where skin color, family name, education, money, power, body type, gender preference, and celebrity all produce distinctions that our fears exploit -
- and then take us to entitlement, greed, division, and hatred.
"Listen to the women" means acting out of mutual respect and shared dignity.
It is the recognition that difference is not to be used to profit or persecute - but to educate and expand - giving us a deeper understanding of the wondrous breadth of God's creation.
Ours is a fearful world of silos, gates, and ceilings whose technology and intelligence has built a neighborhood,
but whose distrust and selfishness has yet to build a brotherhood.
Our vast scientific strides, our incredible advances in medicine, communication, transportation, and production have built a world that would have our great-grandparents heads spinning in wonder.
But our moral advances are lagging sorely behind.
When one tenth of one percent of the world controls more wealth than the bottom 50% - most of whom languish in stinging poverty and life-shortening disease - we must ask, how advanced we have really become?
Society should not be judged by how well the best of us are doing, but how well the least of us are doing.
For, time and again, the least of us are the God-bearers-
The Gospel-bearers -
Always listen to the women.
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Thank God Peter did!
Our story ends with his sprint to the tomb - where he validated its vacancy - thus beginning his work and ours.
For we are told that Peter went home amazed.
What would it look like for you and me to go home amazed?
What would it mean to have our eyes opened to new potentials and novel prospects:
Maybe you wonder, as I do - about all that we can accomplish -
as God's called and chosen here in Southfield –
What's the rest of the year going to look like?
How many more PLARN mats, prayer quilts, and hungry families will we tend to?
Who will be the next Jim Wallis or Peter Bienert to grace our sanctuary - and fill our church with inquiring minds from the greater community?
Oh, and when is The Daily Show coming back?
When we talk about amazement - we talk about fear - because the embrace of something new always requires the letting go of what we had.
So as we consider what new thing God has for us - let us cast this fear aside – and not be scared and cower, but wide-eyed, awakened, and amazed!
For amazement hints at the grand and great - let our dreams follow suit:
What would it look like for the crushing stone of injustice, oppression, and division to be rolled away?
How about seeing the funeral clothes, the binding cloth of poverty, discrimination, and hatred, left behind?
Or how about that haunting sting of death itself - and leaving behind the fear of our demise -
Because when we think about what it would be like to put aside our fear of death - then multiply it! That would take a lot of stress out of the world.
Easter is a day of beginnings, newness, and the power of possibility -
So let us *not leave this place with doubt - but with determination. Remembering that God's delay is not God's denial.
Let us leave *not with despair, but with hope - remembering that hope is not a trait we're born with - but attitude we cultivate.
And let us go forth *not as protectors of the status quo, but as agents of radical change - always listening to the women – God’s bearers of light in a dark and desperate world.
For the empty tomb is not just a symbol of what God has done, but a promise of what God will do - what God can do - what we can do with God!
So let us lock arms in a brotherhood of expectation and determination - to shine that light, and spread that news:
That the ties that once bound our Lord - need not bind you, me, or the rest of humanity!
For the power of liberty, freedom, and possibility for all God's people has come into the world - beckoning us to come, my brothers and sisters, with utmost haste and unbounded heraldry - and go - tell it from the mountain!
Amen.