Sermon - 2016-03-27 - Easter

Some of you may be wondering why I have this shovel today.  I want you to think of the hard work that it really does take to use a shovel.  We are hopefully finishing up with the season of winter and will not have to use those snow shovels anymore.  However, we will be able to use a shovel like this.  With this shovel, we use it to move dirt.  We have simply turn over a small area so that we can plant something special.  We may use it to dig up around a plant so that we can move it.  Or we may use a shovel like this to dig a grave.  

Do you know why we bury the dead? Why we place a person into the ground when they die?  Now some of you may say the words that are often spoken in the church, “It’s the way, we have always done things.” Or “It’s tradition”.  We do it because it reminds us, that God created us out of the dirt and out of the ashes of this world and breathed life into us.  We return the person back into the world, into that dirt and that ash, but also that we may be reminded of the promise that God will breathe new life into us.  

Now we reminded ourselves of this fact on Ash Wednesday, when we put ashes upon our foreheads.  It reminded us, that we are dust and to dust we shall return.  A day in which we are reminded that we are mortal.  It also begins our Lenten Journey.  Now this year, we did something special, we shared our own personal stories from members of the parish so that we may grow in our faith but also understand the differences in our own journeys.  We did this to grow closer together as a parish, to learn about one another and also to help each other in our own faith.  As I read through them, I was amazed at people’s depth, honesty and their faith.  We heard their stories, life events that have shaped their life but also how faith in God has shaped their life as well.  

Which bring us to this past week.  We celebrated Holy Week.  Now this is a week that anyone can attend to learn and grow in their faith, to understand more fully and with others what our whole Christian faith is all about.  However, I notice that only the strong in their faith are the ones who are present.  The ones who have heard it over and over again but there are many who were not there.  Now I get it, we don’t like facing our own our death.  We don’t like being reminded that today, we are one more day, one more step and one more moment closer to our death.  Yet it is also this death, the fact that our life will end that also gets us thinking, what are we doing with our life.  

But if you are anything like every single other person in the world, we remember our failures far more than our own successes.  That’s right, a hundred things could go right today, but we will remember the one thing that went wrong. We remember the failed test, we remember that time we dropped the ball and lost the game, and we remember that time when the love of our life told us, “No.” When we asked them to marry us.  We remember all of these things. However, It’s not until we put things into perspective that we are aware that really things are pretty good.  There is a balance in which God is working for us and God promises not to abandon us. It is in this promise that God speaks that nothing will separate us from the love of God.  

We call this breathing of a new life, Resurrection.  Now please understand this is very different from another word that sounds very similar of reincarnation.  With reincarnation, you receive a new life in this world, a new earthly body.  But with a Resurrection, you receive a new spiritual life that is found in God and one that is eternal. In the Christian faith, we receive resurrection, this new spiritual life in our Baptism.  That moment when water and God’s Word is spoken directly to you.  Yet Baptism is not a one way ticket into heaven, because there is a life and love that God has shared with us.  Yes it is that same cross that is put upon your forehead of water, that same cross that is put upon your forehead of ash, and that same cross that Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world died upon, that you receive.  

Today, we gather to share in that promise, to celebrate, to remember but also to experience that it is indeed true.  Because in our broken world, we long for it to be true.  So today, you shall receive the body and blood of your Savior and Lord who loves you, who died for you, and even gives you His life.  

WAIT, WHAT?  I get a new life?  So we do believe in reincarnation?  No, for this is a spiritual life.  A renewed calling, a clean slate, and yet we take the lessons that we have learned so that we do not repeat them.  So I wonder, what are you going to do with this new life in Christ?  Will you hide it away?  Will you squander it?  Or will you answer the difficult call to discipleship and be a beacon of light into this world?

Today, we celebrate and remember but also hear the calling that God has for us as disciples once again.