In case you can’t tell, this is a participatory sermon. Anytime I say “Alleluia, Christ is Risen,” you know your line and if you have a bell feel free to ring it.
Have you even wondered how we get from Good Friday to this night? How do you get from death to resurrection? How do you get there? In the years that I tried to be an atheist, that was one of my big questions, how do get from death to resurrection? How do you get from Good Friday to Easter? No one had ever talked about it, at least in my hearing. Every time I asked, the solemn reply was, it’s a mystery. Indeed it is a mystery, but God has planted in the world, in us, in the things that we know, hints that help us to unfold the mystery. Not fully to understand it, but to glimpse how you get from death to resurrection, how you get from Good Friday to Easter.
Tonight the glimpse we have is all based in water. Water is how you get from death to life, from Good Friday to Easter. Did you listen to all those readings? Water everywhere, water, water, everywhere. First, something that none of us has ever fully known but we’ve all glimpsed: how water cleanses us from chaos, brings new life out of the chaotic mess of the world. Did you hear it, there in Genesis, before there was anything, before there was any thing; God brought life, life out of chaos. And it says that God did that by hovering over the face of the waters like a bird. The verb in Hebrew suggests a mother bird beating the water with her wings, the way that a mother bird warms her young in her nest. God hovered and beat the waters until life happened.
Do you know about that? Do you know about creativity, bringing life out of chaos? Sure you do. None of us would be here tonight, whatever we believe about this night, none of us would be here if we hadn’t found some way, some way to join God in that creativity that brings some order out of chaos. Life where there was only a mess before. Sometimes it’s in the form of forgiveness. Sometimes it’s in the form of taking disparate pieces like wheat, grapes, crushing them, making bread, making wine, making a meal where there wasn’t a meal before. But you know how you’ve done it; you know how you’ve glimpsed life, creativity coming out of chaos.
Do you know what the church says about that? There was Christ at the beginning creating life out of chaos and there was Christ in your life bringing forgiveness out of hurt, bringing a meal out of things that just looked hard at first, like grains of wheat and grapes. There was Christ, Christ was dying and rising in those moments we say. The Christ who has always been bringing life out of death. Do you believe this? If you do, Alleluia, Christ is Risen. (The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!)
But it doesn’t stop there, it’s not just primal chaos where new life comes. There’s also those bloody moments in life, bloody like the exodus. Where we need new life, where we feel enslaved, where we feel dominated by powers far greater that what we can control. And God comes into our lives, as God came into the lives of those enslaved Israelites, and invites us to freedom. But it’s not an easy passage. There is blood along the way. There’s blood along the way from death to life. You saw it in the story; you heard it, didn’t you? It’s a sad story as well as a triumphant one. Rather like Good Friday, sad and triumphant all at once. The Egyptians had to die for the Israelites to be free. We may not like that part of the story. There was blood and out of it God brought life and freedom.
If you ask, what’s that like in my life, where is that in my life? Think about a time when you faced some power far greater than you. Maybe it was a power that oppresses you because of your color, or because of your gender, or because of your sexual orientation or because you’re poor, or because you’re an illegal immigrant. Or maybe it was a little simpler than that, though just as painful. Maybe you were the new kid in school, you didn’t know anybody. They made fun of you because your accent was from a different part of the world. How were you going to find new life?
The exodus story says that God comes into those places and brings new life by crushing what gets in the way, crushing it. Sometimes the crushing is fast like a cascade of water drowning the forces that are against you. But more often it’s slow, a slow crushing, a slow bloodying, a slow freeing. Maybe you’re in the midst of your passage right now and you wonder whether there is a promised land on the other side. Or maybe you’re afraid because you don’t want someone else to have to be crushed so that you can be freed. What do you do? We do what the Israelites had to do which is we have to trust that God is going to bring us through. Bring us through including bringing those through who get crushed. You know, there is a story that our Jewish brothers and sisters tell that’s not in the Bible. They call it a Midrash about this story. As Miriam and the Israelites were rejoicing because they were freed, an angel of the lord came down and asked them why they were not weeping? And pointed back and said God is standing on the seashore weeping over his children. We have to trust that the God who brings new life, freedom out of crushing old oppressive forces, will somehow rescue the crushed oppressive forces too. Do you believe this? If you do then, Alleluia, Christ is Risen. (The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!)
So we have the Creator Christ who hovers over the face of the waters. We have the Compassionate Christ who leads people into freedom and stands on the seashore weeping that others have to die so that people may be freed. And the one Christ who is left is the convivial spirit Christ. You heard about that Christ in the reading from Ezekiel. Come, come on, come to the waters even if you don’t have money. Eat bread, drink milk, drink wine, there’s plenty for everyone. This is the convivial, spiritual Christ who transforms everything including water into something better, more substantial. For who of us wants to or can live just on water. We want something with more substance to it. We want bread, milk, wine. We want something that will give us joy. Something to celebrate with on the other side of that freedom that Christ grants us. How does this happen? It’s usually a little slow. Any of you who are bread bakers or wine or beer makers know that it takes time to brew conviviality. Bread doesn’t rise and get baked all at once. Grapes don’t get crushed and get fermented all at once. Hops doesn’t do its work all at once. It takes time and in that time God invites us to go deeper, to go beyond watery depths into more substantial depths, fed by bread and milk and wine. Fed so that we can rejoice, fed so that we can be part of the rejoicing body of Christ.
The sad truth here that we’re reminded of in Baptism is that to do this we have to die a bit. It’s not just others that have to die; we do. Its not just wheat that gets crushed, or grapes that get crushed, we have to be crushed a bit if we are going to go deeper, if we’re going to be of more substance. And so if you have asked why, why am I having to go through this crushing? What is this dying that I am going through all about? The answer that Christ gives is it’s about more substantial life. Will you feel it all at once? Probably not. The crushing is painful. Will it come? That joyful life? That conviviality in Christ? Will it come? Yes it will. Do you believe this? If you do then, Alleluia, Christ is Risen. (The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!)
But perhaps it’s too much for you to believe all this, even though you’ve been ringing your bells and saying you believe it. Maybe you are rather like the women at the tomb, caught between fear and great joy. Wanting the great joy but fearing that this is all an idle tale told by fools. It’s my assumption that you are here tonight because joy is winning out over fear. And that we’re here together because joy wins out over fear as we gather. Because sometimes when fear is winning out in my life, joy is winning out in yours and vice versa. And we can hold each other up into this new life. We can rise with Christ beyond our fear into great joy. It’s my prayer for all of you that this night you are feeling that great joy, but if you are not, do not despair. Great joy is on the way. Easter is 50 days long. Not one night, not one morning, 50 days. And just as the women and the disciples were commanded to go on ahead and you’ll find Him. Go home, go home to Galilee, you’ll find Him. So he invites us to go out into the world and find that great joy, if not tonight or tomorrow morning then sometime in the 50 days or beyond. Whether or not you believe this tonight it is true.
One last thing: God has given us a great sign tonight in little Susannah, new life, but not just new life. With a symbol that she’ll bear her whole life, it’s on her forehead, sealed by the Holy Spirit as Christ’s own forever. But it’s also in her name. Do you know what her name means? Susannah is Hebrew for lily. Lily, Easter lily and the linguists tell us that it comes from an Egyptian root that means lotus. Both lily and lotus are signs of rebirth in all the religions of the world because they grow up mysteriously out of what looks dead. Lotuses out of muddy chaos at the bottom of a stream and lilies out of stone hard seeds, bulbs that look dead. So if you need yet one more sign, look at Susannah and rejoice for it is true. Alleluia, Christ is Risen. (The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!)
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