Slow Down. Enjoy.

Brad Sullivan
Easter Vigil, Year B
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Emmanuel, Houston
Genesis 1:1 – 2:4a
Genesis 22:1-18
Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21
Isaiah 55:1-11
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Romans 6:3-11
Matthew 28:1-10  

 Whew.  We made it.  Lent, Holy Week, the Vigil, and now, here we are.  Easter.  Jesus is risen from the tomb.  The long-awaited messiah has triumphed, defeating death itself and allowing us to share in that victory over death.  In the resurrection, Jesus showed himself to be more powerful than death, and through his death and resurrection, Jesus gives us the gift of reconciliation with God. 

Being an overly analytical, always questioning and wondering kind of guy, I can’t help but almost immediately wonder, “how’s that work?”  How does Jesus’ death and resurrection reconcile us to God?  I’m not questioning if it does, just wondering how exactly.  A few of us were in Bible study this morning, looking at a previous passage in Romans in which Paul state three different ways Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection reconcile us to God.  So, we were discussing these different understandings of how Jesus reconciled us to God, and at some point, we started thinking, “do we have to have it all figured out?” 

Can’t our reconciliation to God through Jesus kinda just be a mystery and we accept it and be glad?  Sermons are often the time when things are explained, but I was thinking that maybe this Easter, we could just accept our reconciliation to God through Jesus’ victory over death and be glad and thankful. 

That idea got me thinking about how much we do as Christians.  We are called to do.  We are called to action as Christians.  Those about to be baptized are first going to be asked to accept the beliefs of the church and accept our reconciliation to God by Jesus’ victory over death, and then, the baptismal candidates will basically be asked so what are you going to do about that. 

Those are good questions.  How are you going to live as a piece of the new creation, the resurrection life that Jesus has given?  How are you going to make your faith embodied in your actions?  How are you going to live out the God love life?

These are good questions that we need to address, and I encourage all of us to listen closely to the questions asked, “are you going to live the God love life?”, and I encourage us to listen to the answers given.  “I will with God’s help.”  We share in Jesus’ resurrection and live that out by partnering with God.   

So, then, having listened to questions asked of the baptismal candidates and the answers given by the baptismal candidates, I encourage us not to think too hard about what we’re going to do or how we’re going to live, at least for tonight and tomorrow.  Ideally we’ve just spent all of Lent examining how we live our lives.  For this Easter, let’s just enjoy the resurrection.

We know that Matthew’s gospel ends with Jesus’ command to his disciples to go and do, but tonight, we don’t hear that command.  Tonight, we just get to hear about Jesus’ victory over death.  Enjoy it.  Share it.  Soak up God’s love for us in becoming human, living with us, dying for us, and defeating death for us.   As Paul writes in Romans, chapter 8, I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)  Rejoice, and enjoy God’s love for us in Jesus’ resurrection.  Amen.

All Shall Be Well

Brad Sullivan
Maundy Thursday, Year B
Thursday, April 5th, 2012
Emmanuel, Houston
Exodus 12:1-4, 11-14
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-17, 31b-35   

(Sung)  “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

I can’t help but think that is some of what Jesus was trying to convey to his disciples during their last Passover meal together, sitting in the upper room, sharing with them the bread and the wine, his body and blood, and washing their feet, commanding them finally to love one another.  Remarkably similar to the other commandments God gave, love God and love your neighbor, Jesus commanded his disciples to love one another.

(Sung)  “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

Jesus had already told his disciples that he was going to be killed; they had to be a little anxious about that.  As much as they tried to deny it, I’m guessing they knew by this point that Jesus pretty well knew what he was talking about.  So there had to be this fear and anxiety with them.  What was going to happen to Jesus?  What was going to happen to them?  What were they supposed to do once he was gone?  So Jesus tells them.  “Love one another.”

 (Sung)  “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

I was talking with some clergy colleagues this week about Holy Week and one commented on how dark this week seemed for her.  There’s been a month of Lent and penitence, and now we basically have a whole week remembering God dying for our sake.  We have this time when we seem to focus on the fact that the world was so messed up that it took God dying to fix it.  Add to that the fact that we’re in this in between time.  The cure has begun with Jesus’ death and resurrection, and yet the final restoration of creation has yet to take place.  So talking together, this clergy colleague and I, we were getting a little down, thinking about all the bad things going on in the world.

And yet we have this hope, in Jesus’ resurrection, that despite all the bad things going on in the world, there is still a lot of good and beauty and love in the world.  The fact that God bothered dying to redeem the world tells us there is hope for the world yet.  The resurrection tells us that at least in God’s eyes,

(Sung)  “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

So, like the disciples on the night of the last supper, we’re left in an in between time.  We’re left between Jesus’ resurrection and the final restoration of creation.  On the night of the last supper, Jesus’ disciples were left between Jesus’ proclamation that he would be killed and then on the third day, rise again, and the fulfillment of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  In this in between time, Jesus didn’t tell his disciples, “cure every illness; fix every problem.”  Jesus told disciples “love one another.” 

See each other, see people as human beings, as people with needs.  Sometimes we see others as those annoying things that are interfering with my life.  Jesus said to see people with compassion.  Loving people and seeing them with compassion, serve people as you can.  We’re not going to be able to fix every problem everyone has.  Jesus didn’t command his disciples to, and he isn’t commanding us to.  Jesus’ command is that we love one another. 

In this often crazy world, in this often anxious in between time in which we live, and we wonder, “what’s going to happen” and “what are we supposed to do,” Jesus commands us to love one another.

(Sung)  “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”  Amen.