New and Familiar
There is a greeting that the early Christians used… that many of you are probably familiar with as well. One Christian would say to another: Christ is risen! The other would respond: He is risen indeed! So, let’s try that greeting this morning: Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed!) Halleluiah! Today I have a participatory sermon. I have sprinkled some of these greetings throughout my message today as a reminder of why we have gathered together. So, when you hear me greet you, I invite you to respond. Halleluiah! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed!) And because he is risen, the world is a new place.
What better time to celebrate Easter than in the spring? Spring brings the warmth of the returning sun together with lots and lots of rain. And, as a result, we see green all over the place… green in places that are never green at any other time of the year in Texas! New green leaves on the trees ... and green grass on the ground. And thousands of tiny wildflowers are poking their tiny heads above the ground. South of here… and soon here, I hope… blue bonnets are in glorious bloom. Life… has returned to Texas! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed!)
I love this time of year. Of course, I came to Texas from the Midwest with my love of thunderstorms and this is the time of year for that. But I have come to love this state in a way that I never loved Iowa or Illinois. Even when Texas was new to me, it fit me. It is not quiet… or timid… or shy…and neither am I. And Texas in the spring is, for me, the perfection of God’s creation. Chicago can… and usually does… surprise you with a snowstorm in mid-April, when you have already packed away all your winter clothes. Texas would never do that to you… Hail, maybe, but not snow… and it all melts by noon. Of course, you would be hard pressed to find a lot of days suitable for winter clothes down here… and I am talking down coats… snow boots… mufflers… wool scarves…but I like it that way. I can survive without any winter clothes. Still the trees lose their leaves and there is a bite to the air in winter…just enough that when the warmth returns, we are ready for it. And, when the wildflowers bloom, Texas is a spectacular place. As far as I am concerned, the Adirondacks can keep their spectacular fall leaves. I would rather see Texas wildflowers in the spring. Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed!)
People move outside in droves in the spring, doing things they haven’t done in months. Here, people are running… walking… playing in the park. Spring brings a lot of change to the world and change is not something that we, as humans, normally deal with effectively. But the changes that come with spring we seem to greet with joy. Why is that? Why is it OK to make changes in the spring, when change is usually something we dread or avoid altogether? Spring seems to be the time of year when we clean our houses, clean our closets, and throw out a lot of old stuff. It seems to be the time of year when we try new things and pick up new hobbies, too. There is an energy in the springtime that doesn’t seem to be there at other times of the year... maybe because we are too hot in the summer, too busy in the fall, and too tired in the winter. In the spring, we seem to be able to see life differently, to approach our problems with a fresh perspective, and to take risks we were unwilling to take before. Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed!)
Perhaps one of the reasons that all the changes that come in the spring don’t scare us is because while things around us change, there is something that feels familiar about it. The trees have new leaves, but they are still the trees we knew. The fields have new grass, but they are still the same fields we saw before. The roads have new wildflowers, but they are still the same roads we have driven before… except, perhaps, the roads in the Metroplex that seem to be in a constant state of construction and change and are never the same. It all looks new. It all feels new. But there is something that is familiar about it. Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed!)
In the garden on Easter morning, Mary’s whole life was different. Her Savior was dead. This man who had changed her life was gone. Her future had died in the dust on a hill outside Jerusalem on Friday. Now, in trying to do one last thing to honor her Lord, she discovered that his body was missing… gone from the tomb. She is devastated. She runs to tell Peter and he runs to the tomb. Mary also returns to the tomb, but she does not go inside. The pain is too great. Her Savior is gone. She stands outside and weeps. Even when the angels speak to her, she does not understand. Then, through her tears, she sees a man. She assumes it is the gardener. Then he speaks and she recognizes her Lord. But, he is different… and yet… he is so familiar. Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed.)
Jeremiah tells the children of Israel in exile that they will return to Jerusalem… to a city that has been destroyed by their enemies. And he says that the Lord will rebuild it and restore it. He promises them that they will once again rejoice and dance… that they will plant vineyards and eat from their own gardens again. Their memory of Jerusalem was of a city in ruins. Their memory was of Jerusalem’s people in pain and agony. Their memory was of Jerusalem through a veil of tears. But God was going to restore Jerusalem. It would be new … different… and yet… there would be something familiar about it. It would still be Jerusalem … but a new Jerusalem. Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed!)
Yes, Christ is risen. And yet, the Christ who rose from the dead is not the same Jesus we knew before. He has been changed. He is changed. And he asks us to change as well. Christ wants us to be transformed as he has been transformed. We are to be different. It is not enough to blindly follow where he leads… as the disciples followed Jesus through the hills of Galilee. It is not enough to treat each day with the sameness of life as before. We need to be transformed. For you see, Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed!)
Christ is changed… from the inside out. He has a new body and a new purpose. He is familiar… and yet different. There is a new energy…a new message. Sin and death have been conquered. God has raised our Savior in triumph. Nothing can defeat him. The kingdom has come… the kingdom is coming. And we are his followers… and we are its leaders. We are his disciples... and we are the workers in the vineyard. If Christ has been… and is now transformed …then we, as his chosen ones, must also be transformed. It is kind of like listening to a familiar song to a new tune. It is familiar… but different.
Let me give you an example of that. All of you know the Lord’s Prayer. We recite it each Sunday in worship. Many of you, I know, have heard the version of the Lord’s Prayer that is sung in church… often at weddings. It begins like this: “Our Father… which art in heaven… hallowed be… thy name.” Let me share a different version with you this morning. It is basically the same words to new music. See if it doesn’t sound familiar… but different to you. “Our Father… which art in heaven… halloweda be thy name. Thy kingdom come… thy will be done…halloweda be thy name.”
Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed!) He has conquered sin and death. We, then, have nothing to fear. In fact, President Roosevelt said it very well… “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself!” The fear that comes from our own lack of belief… our lack of belief in the power of the resurrection of our Lord. Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed!)
So, what is this transformation that we must make? The first is to recognize our Lord when we see him… wherever we might find him. For we… like Mary in the garden… we might not recognize our Lord as we go about our daily tasks. Do you remember the story that Jesus told about the sheep and the goats? Do you remember how he said that the king would recognize the blessed ones because they fed the hungry, gave the thirsty something to drink, provided clothing to those who were naked, visited the sick, and gave comfort to those in prison? These people were blessed because each time they did such things for those in need …they did those things for Christ. Mary did not recognize the face of her Savior in the figure who was standing in the garden on Easter morning. Will we recognize our Savior when we see him in our lives? It is not enough for us to cry, “Lord, Lord” on Easter Sunday morning. We must see the face of our Lord in the faces of those around us every day. We must learn to recognize our Savior transformed in those whose lives we touch unknowingly. Only when we expect to see our Savior in every situation… in every person we meet… will we recognize him when we see him. You see, Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed!)
Secondly, Christ told Mary not to try to hold him, but to go and tell his brothers what she had seen that day. So, too, are we to go and tell our brothers… to tell everyone… what we have seen… who we have seen. That was Christ’s last instruction to his disciples. At the very end of his ministry, after his resurrection and before his ascension, Jesus told the disciples to go into all the world, making disciples, baptizing them and teaching them about Christ. Now, the way that this passage actually appears in the Greek, it says: Go into all the world… and, as you are going, make disciples, baptize and teach. Jesus doesn’t ask us to change our lives completely… to stop what we ordinarily do from day to day… or even to change our profession… though some of us do. What Jesus said was that, as we do whatever it is that we ordinarily do, we should share what we have learned from him with others. We should be transformed. Yes, we should be transformed… but there will still be something familiar about it. We will still be doing the same things that we usually do… but in a different way. We will be doing them in a way that reveals to others that we have been changed… that we are different… even though we are still the same. For Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed!)
We are also risen… risen to a newness of life… transformed by the knowledge that our Savior lives… undergirded by the conviction that the One who died for us now lives for us… and lives in us… so that we can live for Him… and live in Him… all the days of our lives. This is the message of Easter: That the One who is the same and unchanged… is different and transformed… so that we can be the same… and yet different… as well… transformed by the power of Christ’s resurrection into the people that God created us to be. Easter people! Easter people who recognize the face of their Savior in everyone they meet… Easter people who tell others what we have seen and what we know of our risen Lord. Easter people who are transformed by our Savior… the same… and yet, somehow, different. Halleluiah!
Texts: John 20:1-18; Jeremiah 31:1-6; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24