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Sermon of the Month Sermon preached by Fr. Spencer on Sunday, March 30 Easter Sunday I have been reading a book on preaching by a leading preacher in our church—Barbara Brown Taylor. She says that when she preaches she feels like a go-between between two lovers who occasionally have trouble finding the right words for each other. You know, like when you were in school, passing messages between two friends who were flirting with each other. Remember those innocent days? “What did she say then? Really?” “What? What did he say when he heard that?” And a good friend helps by passing messages and by interpreting them. She believes the preacher is like that, passing messages back and forth between God and his people. It is not that that is the only way God and his people communicate. Just that the preacher is supposed to facilitate and clarify these messages. Frankly, I find this absolutely terrifying, since preachers can have as much trouble discerning God’s word as anybody else. But today, this Sunday, this Easter Sunday, I have a message for you from God, and I am quite sure that I have got it right. [Whispered] God loves you. He really, really, loves you. He loves you so much that he came to earth in human form and demonstrated through the death and resurrection of one in human form that through him you triumph. He loves you so much that he wants to share everything with you. He loves you so much that he wants to enrich your life with every good thing. He wants you to triumph in all things. He wants you to live a life of victory. And he wants to spend eternity with you. This is the Gospel message. And if you want me to return a note to him with your response, I will. But let me encourage you to do that yourself. Let me encourage you to accept this love and to do all that you can to grow into it, to let it shape your life, to return it to God, and to share it with others. This is a love that truly makes the world go round. And it is a wonderful thing to live within this love. This is the story of Easter Sunday, the Sunday of the resurrection. But Easter does not stand alone. Easter is the climax of a week of holy observances. And there is more to the life of faith than simply the celebration of new life at Easter. Easter takes on its full meaning only in its context, coming as it does at the end of Holy Week and a whole series of other celebrations and observations. Just in case you missed some of these, let me recapitulate. If you missed it, on Palm Sunday, here, we also celebrated a triumph, Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, being acclaimed King by the people waving palm branches. It was wonderful. But if we had stopped there, we would have had a triumphalist faith of cheap grace and cheap success. And on Thursday, Maundy Thursday, we saw in the washing of each others feet, that our faith was rooted in this world and that it demands that we serve and care for others. This is central to our faith, but if we had stopped there, we would have had a faith rooted in our own works. And on Good Friday, as we knelt before the cross to honor it, we saw that this very emphasis upon our care for others rendered us vulnerable, with Jesus, to suffering. We need this lesson, that our faith does not exempt us from suffering, but if we had stopped there we would have been stuck in suffering and tragedy. And on Holy Saturday, between crucifixion and Easter, we live in the absence of Christ and in the absence of hope. It is in this place that that we have only the prophecies that we have from Isaiah, Zephaniah, and others. It is here that we have the promise. But if we stop here, we have only the promise. Because we don’t stop at Palm Sunday, our faith is not cheap grace. Because of Maundy Thursday, our faith is not escapist or other worldly. Because of Good Friday, our faith is not one of denial; it is not merely a “feel good” faith. Because of Holy Saturday and the promise, our faith is rooted in history and we know not to despair. We have a faith that is about Hope. And because of Easter Day, because of the message I hand to you in this note from God, our faith does not fail. Because of Easter Day we triumph. Fr. Spencer |
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