5 Lent - Year B
March 22, 2015
Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX
John 12:20-33
Jesus’ response to the news that some Greeks were looking for him seems
odd.
“The hour has come for the son of man to be glorified.”
Just before this, Jesus had come into Jerusalem, the crowds cheered, and
the Pharisees said, “You see, you can do nothing. Look, the whole
world has gone after him.”
The Greeks’ appearance and searching confirms what was said by the
Pharisees – “the whole world has gone after him.”
The cat’s out of the bag and there’s no stopping it now.
They were right. Early church had no buildings or organized support.
They could not worship in the synagogues, nor in the Roman temples, and
yet the church, Jesus’ believers spread like wildfire.. They had to
believe in Jesus, trust in him, and risk for their belief in Jesus…and
the church thrived.
The Gospel of Jesus and belief in Jesus spread like
wildfire.
Contrast with:
How many articles, seminars, discussions have I read, attended, and
participated in which have to do with growing the church again and
reversing the decline of church attendance? People have spoken of
church as a business – we need more people in order to keep the lights
on.
I love our church, our buildings, etc. I recognize the reality that
with church attendance decline, the thought of this building not being
here in 100 years is a possibility. I don’t operate out of fear of that
possibility.
“Those who want to save their life will lose it.”
Ultimately, we’re talking about risk. Greeks risked. Early followers
of Jesus risked being kicked out of their synagogues, which they were.
Gentiles risked being ostracized.
Gospel of Jesus demands risk, and it demands that we invite others to
share in the Gospel, not solely for our sake, but for theirs as well, we
risk becoming something other than what we are.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Remove the Fig Leaves
4 Lent - Year B
March 15, 2015
Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX
John 3:14-21
Jesus said he came to bring light, to save the world. There seem to be a lot of "no"s with Jesus, e.g. the 10 Commandments. There are several things we are not supposed to do. Those "no"s, however, are really a way of saying "yes" to something else.
We say no to harming people (adultery, theft, murder, lies against someone) so that we might say yes to loving other people. We say no to putting things in front of or in place of God so that we can say yes to God, yes to life, love, beauty, and relationship. We say no to hiding in the darkness, to keeping ourselves covered with fig leaves.
In the Garden of Eden, the first thing Adam and Eve did after disobeying God was to cover themselves up with fig leaves. They were ashamed and they hid. That way they no longer had to connect to God or each other. They tried to stay safely hidden and invulnerable to each other.
There are all kinds of fig leaves with which we try to cover ourselves. Sometimes rules and law become those fig leaves that we hide behind. Jesus was talking with Nicodemus about the need that we have to be born from above, and Nicodemus totally didn't get it. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and as such, he had all the rules down pat, but those rules seem to have become fig leaves with which they covered themselves so they didn't have to be vulnerable with God.
March 15, 2015
Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX
John 3:14-21
Jesus said he came to bring light, to save the world. There seem to be a lot of "no"s with Jesus, e.g. the 10 Commandments. There are several things we are not supposed to do. Those "no"s, however, are really a way of saying "yes" to something else.
We say no to harming people (adultery, theft, murder, lies against someone) so that we might say yes to loving other people. We say no to putting things in front of or in place of God so that we can say yes to God, yes to life, love, beauty, and relationship. We say no to hiding in the darkness, to keeping ourselves covered with fig leaves.
In the Garden of Eden, the first thing Adam and Eve did after disobeying God was to cover themselves up with fig leaves. They were ashamed and they hid. That way they no longer had to connect to God or each other. They tried to stay safely hidden and invulnerable to each other.
There are all kinds of fig leaves with which we try to cover ourselves. Sometimes rules and law become those fig leaves that we hide behind. Jesus was talking with Nicodemus about the need that we have to be born from above, and Nicodemus totally didn't get it. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and as such, he had all the rules down pat, but those rules seem to have become fig leaves with which they covered themselves so they didn't have to be vulnerable with God.
Sunday, March 8, 2015
This Won't Do - Transformed
3 Lent, Year B
March 8, 2015
Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX
John 2:12-33
Philippians 4:1
I stopped drinking coffee last week, not out of a Lenten discipline, but simply because I was drinking too much, still tired all the time, and I thought, "This won't do." The week was fine until Thursday. I had a long day leading to a long night, and I wanted just one cup of coffee in the afternoon. Then I thought, "I can do all things through God who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:13). I prayed that scripture, and I was suddenly no longer tired. God answered yes, and gave me strength.
I realized then that my comments in weeks past about diet coke and chocolate not meaning that much as Lenten sacrifices were wrong. If giving those things up can bring you to pray, "I can do all things through God who strengthens me," then it is a great disciple. Anything in your life that just won't do is a great Lenten sacrifice.
Jesus saw the money changers and the animals in the temple and thought, "this won't do." He was not, however, cleansing the temple as many Bible section headings say. Jesus was seeking to reform the temple. Money was paid to the temple for its upkeep, and the money changers were there to trade foreign coins for coins proper for the temple. It was like a currency exchange when we go to other countries. There was likely however some underhanded profit going on, and that wouldn't do. The animals that were there were supposed to be there. People were supposed to bring animals for sacrifice, the best they had. If their animals were deemed unworthy sacrifices, they would be redeemed for a certain amount of money. This was practice recorded in Leviticus.
It seems that for Jesus, however, the practice had gone on long enough. My guess is that the heart of the practice (giving the best you had to the Lord) had departed somewhat, and it had simply become a transactional arrangement. Not to mention that for centuries, God had been speaking through the prophets saying, "stop sacrificing animals. I made them all and I don't need any from you."
March 8, 2015
Saint Mark's Episcopal Church, Bay City, TX
John 2:12-33
Philippians 4:1
I stopped drinking coffee last week, not out of a Lenten discipline, but simply because I was drinking too much, still tired all the time, and I thought, "This won't do." The week was fine until Thursday. I had a long day leading to a long night, and I wanted just one cup of coffee in the afternoon. Then I thought, "I can do all things through God who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:13). I prayed that scripture, and I was suddenly no longer tired. God answered yes, and gave me strength.
I realized then that my comments in weeks past about diet coke and chocolate not meaning that much as Lenten sacrifices were wrong. If giving those things up can bring you to pray, "I can do all things through God who strengthens me," then it is a great disciple. Anything in your life that just won't do is a great Lenten sacrifice.
Jesus saw the money changers and the animals in the temple and thought, "this won't do." He was not, however, cleansing the temple as many Bible section headings say. Jesus was seeking to reform the temple. Money was paid to the temple for its upkeep, and the money changers were there to trade foreign coins for coins proper for the temple. It was like a currency exchange when we go to other countries. There was likely however some underhanded profit going on, and that wouldn't do. The animals that were there were supposed to be there. People were supposed to bring animals for sacrifice, the best they had. If their animals were deemed unworthy sacrifices, they would be redeemed for a certain amount of money. This was practice recorded in Leviticus.
It seems that for Jesus, however, the practice had gone on long enough. My guess is that the heart of the practice (giving the best you had to the Lord) had departed somewhat, and it had simply become a transactional arrangement. Not to mention that for centuries, God had been speaking through the prophets saying, "stop sacrificing animals. I made them all and I don't need any from you."
Friday, June 6, 2014
Return to Eden
Brad Sullivan
7 Easter, Year A
Sunday, June 1, 2014
St. Mark’s, Bay City, TX
Acts 1:6-14
Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36
1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11
John 17:1-11
On Thursday, the church celebrated the feast of the Ascension. Today, we heard the story in Acts of Jesus ascending into heaven and the angels telling the disciples, “what are y’all doing standing around looking up at Heaven. Go. Live the way of Jesus.”
Thinking about Jesus’ ascension made me think about why Jesus came here. Why did God become human? Why did he teach us and minister to us and heal us? Why did he let us kill him? Why was he resurrected, and why did he ascend into Heaven. I hear the answer in our reading from John’s Gospel this morning. “Father, protect them in your name you have given me, that they may be one as we are one.”
Jesus came to make us one with God and one with each other. Jesus came to return us to Eden.
In Eden, we lived in union with God and each other. Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed. They walked with God. They shared vulnerability and knew each other intimately without shame or fear. Then came the fall.
They decided the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil looked tasty and that they wanted knowledge more than intimacy and union with God and so they ate, and what was the first result of their disobedience? Shame.
7 Easter, Year A
Sunday, June 1, 2014
St. Mark’s, Bay City, TX
Acts 1:6-14
Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36
1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11
John 17:1-11
On Thursday, the church celebrated the feast of the Ascension. Today, we heard the story in Acts of Jesus ascending into heaven and the angels telling the disciples, “what are y’all doing standing around looking up at Heaven. Go. Live the way of Jesus.”
Thinking about Jesus’ ascension made me think about why Jesus came here. Why did God become human? Why did he teach us and minister to us and heal us? Why did he let us kill him? Why was he resurrected, and why did he ascend into Heaven. I hear the answer in our reading from John’s Gospel this morning. “Father, protect them in your name you have given me, that they may be one as we are one.”
Jesus came to make us one with God and one with each other. Jesus came to return us to Eden.
In Eden, we lived in union with God and each other. Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed. They walked with God. They shared vulnerability and knew each other intimately without shame or fear. Then came the fall.
They decided the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil looked tasty and that they wanted knowledge more than intimacy and union with God and so they ate, and what was the first result of their disobedience? Shame.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Taking a Hammer to Your Faith
Brad Sullivan
6 Easter, Year A
Sunday, May 25, 2014
St. Mark’s, Bay City, TX
Acts 17:22-32
Psalm 66:7-18
1 Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21
If God were made of gold or silver or stone, then I could understand fighting over God. That’s what people used to do. When one tribe attacked another tribe, the first thing you’d do is steal their little gods; that way their gods might fight for you, or if you didn’t like their gods, then you could just destroy them. That way they’d have no gods fighting for them. So if god were made of gold or silver or stone, then it would make a lot of sense to fight over God. We fight over all kinds of stuff we don’t want other people to take.
Paul tells us, however, what we already know, that God is not made with gold or silver or stone, or something crafted from the imagination of people, so no one can take God away from you. No one can destroy your conception of God, except of course when they do…destroy our conceptions of God.
Those are actually good times, or they have been for me, when I’ve had my conception of God, whatever it was, and someone’s said something or done something, or something has happened in my life, and that concept of God has been smashed with a hammer, and I’ve been left wondering. God is different than what I thought God was, and that’s a good time because then God gives his Holy Spirit to say, “here’s a new way of understanding me.” It’s like the old way, but different. I don’t believe in God the same way I did when I was four years old. So God grants us his Spirit to take our conceptions of him and smash them with a hammer, so his spirit can then grant us a new understanding, a new concept, a new revelation of himself.
Now, we’ve got the creeds in the church which give us our basic understanding of our faith. We’ve got the Apostle’s Creed which we pray at our baptisms. We’ve got the Nicene Creed, the church’s creed which is what we all believe together about God, and within those creeds, there is an awful lot of wiggle room, and awful lot of variation in what we believe about God.
I hear people talk about what they believe the creed means, and I think, “really? Because that sounds really different than what I believe, but it fits within the creed.” So there is a lot of variation and wiggle room within our faith for what exactly we believe and how exactly we believe it, and that’s good thing because there is a lot of variation in all of us, and God helps us believe in and understand him in different ways.
I just decided not to have a confirmation class this year. I’ve held classes for the pasat nine years, and we’d get folks signed up for the classes and make schedules and prepare what were well-planned classes, people wouldn’t be able to make all of the classes. I realized that over the course of those nine years, I spent more time in make-up sessions with those who couldn’t make the schedule classes than I did in the classes themselves, and without fail, the make-up sessions were better than the classes themselves because we could have about our faith and question and wonder together. That’s what God wants us to do, to understand him and love him with joy and wonder and some questioning too. That way when the hammer blow comes to our faith, it doesn’t destroy our faith and grind it to dust. It just chips a little off here and a little off there, and God’s Holy Spirit comes and reforms where it needs to reform.
Confirmation and the classes that went with it had almost became a hurdle where you had to believe exactly how the bishop or the priest believed. There were tests you had to pass. I never had to pass a test, but I heard about them, and this was 24 years ago, that I heard about having to pass Bishop’s tests. I never had to, and yet today, I still hear questions from people thinking they have to pass tests in order to be confirmed. We haven’t taken test for confirmation for a long time, but people still remember it. I think the point was to help give people a good solid foundation, but it ended up being this barrier. The bishops and priests were barriers to confirmation making sure they held the sacraments holy so that anyone who didn’t believe just in the right way didn’t get to it.
What a bunch of hogwash. Jesus never said that. He didn’t say, “well, if you can claim at least 85% intellectual assent to the creeds of the church, then people will know that you are my disciples.” No, he said they’ll know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.
What we have here and believe in the church is what we have here and believe in the church. We don’t come to worship here in this building to protect anything made of gold and silver, to protect God from his church.
God is in our homes as well, and we worship God and we pray in our homes together. We pray and believe in God a little bit differently in each of our homes, so when parents say, “I want my child to be baptized,” or “I want my child to be confirmed,” I say, “great, teach them about the faith.”
Those are the promises we make whenever we have our children baptized. We say, “I am going to raise my child as a disciple of Jesus.” The church says, “we’re going to help you with that, but we’re not going to take it over for you.” So we raise our children, our family our friends, we raise each other in the faith, and there’s going to be some variation in what and how we believe, and God is not diminished by that. God is glorified in that.
The differences we share and the other ways we believe…I’ve had arguments with people when their beliefs about God were very different from mine. These are Christians I’m talking about, and I’m thinking “that’s just weird,” and they’re thinking, “you’re a heathen.” I’m thinking, “but it’s in the creed!”, and Jesus is looking down saying, “You silly people. Just love each other; that’s what I commanded y’all to do.”
Our beliefs are important, but there’s a lot of wiggle room within them. Our beliefs, sometimes we end up making them into little idols themselves. They aren’t made of gold, or silver, or stone, but they are every bit as rigid. Sometimes we need that hammer to come down and break them so God’s Holy Spirit can enter into us again and say, “love me, and I will reveal to you once more who I am.” Amen.
6 Easter, Year A
Sunday, May 25, 2014
St. Mark’s, Bay City, TX
Acts 17:22-32
Psalm 66:7-18
1 Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21
If God were made of gold or silver or stone, then I could understand fighting over God. That’s what people used to do. When one tribe attacked another tribe, the first thing you’d do is steal their little gods; that way their gods might fight for you, or if you didn’t like their gods, then you could just destroy them. That way they’d have no gods fighting for them. So if god were made of gold or silver or stone, then it would make a lot of sense to fight over God. We fight over all kinds of stuff we don’t want other people to take.
Paul tells us, however, what we already know, that God is not made with gold or silver or stone, or something crafted from the imagination of people, so no one can take God away from you. No one can destroy your conception of God, except of course when they do…destroy our conceptions of God.
Those are actually good times, or they have been for me, when I’ve had my conception of God, whatever it was, and someone’s said something or done something, or something has happened in my life, and that concept of God has been smashed with a hammer, and I’ve been left wondering. God is different than what I thought God was, and that’s a good time because then God gives his Holy Spirit to say, “here’s a new way of understanding me.” It’s like the old way, but different. I don’t believe in God the same way I did when I was four years old. So God grants us his Spirit to take our conceptions of him and smash them with a hammer, so his spirit can then grant us a new understanding, a new concept, a new revelation of himself.
Now, we’ve got the creeds in the church which give us our basic understanding of our faith. We’ve got the Apostle’s Creed which we pray at our baptisms. We’ve got the Nicene Creed, the church’s creed which is what we all believe together about God, and within those creeds, there is an awful lot of wiggle room, and awful lot of variation in what we believe about God.
I hear people talk about what they believe the creed means, and I think, “really? Because that sounds really different than what I believe, but it fits within the creed.” So there is a lot of variation and wiggle room within our faith for what exactly we believe and how exactly we believe it, and that’s good thing because there is a lot of variation in all of us, and God helps us believe in and understand him in different ways.
I just decided not to have a confirmation class this year. I’ve held classes for the pasat nine years, and we’d get folks signed up for the classes and make schedules and prepare what were well-planned classes, people wouldn’t be able to make all of the classes. I realized that over the course of those nine years, I spent more time in make-up sessions with those who couldn’t make the schedule classes than I did in the classes themselves, and without fail, the make-up sessions were better than the classes themselves because we could have about our faith and question and wonder together. That’s what God wants us to do, to understand him and love him with joy and wonder and some questioning too. That way when the hammer blow comes to our faith, it doesn’t destroy our faith and grind it to dust. It just chips a little off here and a little off there, and God’s Holy Spirit comes and reforms where it needs to reform.
Confirmation and the classes that went with it had almost became a hurdle where you had to believe exactly how the bishop or the priest believed. There were tests you had to pass. I never had to pass a test, but I heard about them, and this was 24 years ago, that I heard about having to pass Bishop’s tests. I never had to, and yet today, I still hear questions from people thinking they have to pass tests in order to be confirmed. We haven’t taken test for confirmation for a long time, but people still remember it. I think the point was to help give people a good solid foundation, but it ended up being this barrier. The bishops and priests were barriers to confirmation making sure they held the sacraments holy so that anyone who didn’t believe just in the right way didn’t get to it.
What a bunch of hogwash. Jesus never said that. He didn’t say, “well, if you can claim at least 85% intellectual assent to the creeds of the church, then people will know that you are my disciples.” No, he said they’ll know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.
What we have here and believe in the church is what we have here and believe in the church. We don’t come to worship here in this building to protect anything made of gold and silver, to protect God from his church.
God is in our homes as well, and we worship God and we pray in our homes together. We pray and believe in God a little bit differently in each of our homes, so when parents say, “I want my child to be baptized,” or “I want my child to be confirmed,” I say, “great, teach them about the faith.”
Those are the promises we make whenever we have our children baptized. We say, “I am going to raise my child as a disciple of Jesus.” The church says, “we’re going to help you with that, but we’re not going to take it over for you.” So we raise our children, our family our friends, we raise each other in the faith, and there’s going to be some variation in what and how we believe, and God is not diminished by that. God is glorified in that.
The differences we share and the other ways we believe…I’ve had arguments with people when their beliefs about God were very different from mine. These are Christians I’m talking about, and I’m thinking “that’s just weird,” and they’re thinking, “you’re a heathen.” I’m thinking, “but it’s in the creed!”, and Jesus is looking down saying, “You silly people. Just love each other; that’s what I commanded y’all to do.”
Our beliefs are important, but there’s a lot of wiggle room within them. Our beliefs, sometimes we end up making them into little idols themselves. They aren’t made of gold, or silver, or stone, but they are every bit as rigid. Sometimes we need that hammer to come down and break them so God’s Holy Spirit can enter into us again and say, “love me, and I will reveal to you once more who I am.” Amen.
Monday, May 5, 2014
Jesus Was a Bullfrog
Brad
Sullivan
3
Easter, Year A
Sunday,
May 4, 2014
St.
Mark’s, Bay City, TX
Acts
2:14a,36-41
Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17
Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17
1 Peter 1:17-23
Luke 24:13-35
Luke 24:13-35
I wrote earlier this week about the
joy and wonder of faith and belief without, of believing in Jesus without
having seen him. The scripture last week
was about Thomas and Jesus appearing to the disciples and we always call this
story “doubting Thomas,” a though he did something wrong, but he didn’t. Jesus appeared to the other disciples and
immediately he showed them the marks of the nails in his hands and side. Then when Thomas said he wouldn’t believe
unless he saw those same marks, all he was asking for was exactly what Jesus
had shown the other disciples right away.
So Thomas asks Jesus to see the marks and Jesus shows him and he
believes, and then Jesus says, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have
come to believe.” And so we think, “Thomas
doubted! Bad Thomas.”
No, that’s not what Jesus
said. Jesus didn’t say, “everyone else
is so much better than you, Thomas because they have believed without having
seen.” He didn’t say that. He said blessed.
We aren’t blessed because of some
greatness or some meritorious act on our parts.
We’re blessed because blessings happen.
When we wake up in the morning and the sun comes up, we are
blessed. We didn’t do anything to earn
the sun coming up. It just comes up and
its rays warm our bodies, and we are blessed.
Jesus didn’t say, “Thomas, you are in so much trouble now and everyone
else is so much better….you’re like a worm and it’s a good thing I already love
you or you’d be out.” He didn’t say
that. He just said blessed are those who
believe even if they haven’t seen.
I think part of that blessing is
the joy and fascination and wonder of believing without knowing. Children have that joy and fascination and wonder,
and believing without seeing allows us to have that same childlike joy and
wonder that is so abundant in children.
Jesus said come to the Kingdom of God as a little child. Come with that childlike joy and faith and
wonder that comes with believing without having seen.
Now today we have Cleopas and his
companion walking on this 7 mile journey to Emmaus and Jesus shows up. They have no idea who he is. Their hearts are burning as they’re talking
to him on the way, then they share a meal and they realize it’s Jesus, and they
said, “were not our heats burning on the way?”
Two things happened here. They met Jesus in a very unexpected place and
way. We wouldn’t expect to meet Jesus on
the way to Van Vleck, but he might show up, and suddenly we get there and we
realize, “I think I just encountered Jesus; it was awesome.” And then they recognize Jesus and knew him in
sharing a meal together.
Jesus shows up in unexpected
ways. We have no idea when and where
Jesus is going to show up, and we probably won’t realize it until afterwards,
and like “wow, my heart was burning there and it felt like God was
present. I’m not sure because I’m supposed
to meet Jesus in churchy stuff, and I was just helping someone out, but I think
it was Jesus.” We can meet Jesus in
anyone, because he dwells in all of us, right?
“It is no longer I who live but Christ who dwells within me.”
We get to encounter Jesus in anyone
or anywhere in creation. In music. In people.
In nature. In whatever. Good.
If your heart is burning and you feel like there is this experience of
God and you think to yourself, “I think that was Jesus,” good. Trust it.
Go with it. Question with
childlike fascination and wonder, sure, but trust it. If you think you’ve just encountered Jesus,
you probably have.
The next thing that happened on the
Emmaus journey was they had a meal together and their eyes were opened, and
they realized it was Jesus they encountered in the meal. We do this meal really well in the Episcopal
Church. We gather together. We share stories of our faith. We pray together and for each other, and then
we share the meal, and we encounter Jesus in the Eucharist. We don’t know exactly how. We encounter him with childlike fascination and
wonder. Kids get it when they bounce up
for communion to encounter Jesus. They
don’t understand it, they just love encountering Jesus. We do this great here, and this is not the
only meal where we get to encounter Jesus.
We can encounter Jesus in any meal
that we have. Think about feast kinds of
meals that we have: Thanksgiving,
Easter, Christmas, Weddings, etc., and we have a bunch of people who love each
other who are sharing stories and laughter and joy…maybe there are a couple people
we don’t know that well, but now it’s like we’re family because we’ve shared
this meal together. The joy, the
laughter, the love shared around a meal:
that is Jesus. The fascination
and the wonder and the love of people:
That is Jesus. So when we share
these meals together, knowing Jesus isn’t that crazy. We get it if we would just let ourselves get
it. We understand if we would just see
with the eyes of childlike fascination and wonder and love, then we see, there
Jesus was all along.
So when you have these moments,
just trust them. Just trust that it
really was Jesus whom you encountered and then, do exactly what Cleopas and his
companion did. They went immediately to
the other disciples and said, “Guess what?
We just encountered Jesus!”
We share these stories. When our hearts are burning and we thing we
encountered Jesus, then we go and we share these stories. We tell people…maybe not a total
stranger. “I just saw Jesus in a
bullfrog.” Ok, don’t tell that to a
total stranger. Tell that to your family
and friends and share these stories so we can experience together Jesus
everywhere. Everywhere in this world, we
get to share these stories of joy and faith and wonder that come with the
blessing of believing even though we haven’t seen. Amen.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Light On the Horizon
Brad
Sullivan
Easter Sunday, Year A
Sunday,
April 20, 2014
St. Mark’s,
Bay City, TX
Jeremiah 31:1-6
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Colossians 3:1-4
John 20:1-18
It has been a wonderful Easter so far, starting last night with the ancient service of the Easter Vigil. My daughter Ellie was baptized at the service and it was a joyful time all around. We lit the new fire outside in the courtyard, symbolizing the new light of Jesus' resurrection coming into the world, and Ernie reminded me of another ancient custom of which I was unaware which we apparently used to celebrate here at St. Mark's. We were preparing for the new fire of Easter, and Ernie asked, "are the kids going to road marshmallows on the fire before the service?" I said, "Of course they are!"
It was great, the kids had a wonderful time eating S'mores, the acolytes started roasting marshmallows, and I thought, "wait, that's going to get on your robes...oh who cares, enjoy!" It's been a wonderful celebration of life and new life after the season of Lent and Holy Week in which we're really focused on death.
I'm so glad we have that time to focus on death, to honor that there is death in our lives, to celebrate that Jesus is with us not only in life and in resurrection, but also in death, but today is all about resurrection. Jesus was resurrected from the dead, promising us that we will share in his resurrection after our lives have ended, and as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, we follow Jesus' way of resurrection throughout our lives, resurrection following the thousands of deaths that occur in our lives, the failures, disappointments, the broken relationships, etc.
I'm about to sing a song about resurrection from these kids of deaths in our lives. The story from the song is from a friend of mine whose marriage ended. I was thinking of two friends whose marriages died, one ended in divorce, and the other ended up staying together. The one couple, their marriage was dead, absolutely dead and in the tomb; they acknowledged it, said, "we're done." Not long afterwards, they realized they didn't want their marriage to be dead, and they worked hard and prayed hard, and their marriage was resurrected from the absolute death that it had suffered.
My other friend, his marriage ended in divorce; he wanted it to survive, but it just couldn't happen and so for months his marriage was dead and in the tomb and starting to smell, and he was calling his friends, telling them that he was getting divorced, and one friend said to him, "Wow, a shot to the engine room! Your life is going up in flames. This is so exciting my friend! Your life is never going to be the same."
That was exactly what my friend needed to hear. Having sat in the tomb of the death of his marriage for months, he needed to hear words of resurrection, and that's what his friend gave him, and I heard this story and thought, "that's the story I need for this song." So I asked him, "hey, can I use the story of what your buddy said when you got divorced for this song I'm writing?" He said, "of course, Brad, there's no copyright on the Holy Spirit." So, this is song about resurrection. This is called, "Light On the Horizon."
Light On the Horizon
Words and Music by Brad Sullivan, BMI
Traveling some forgotten road; Light on the horizon comes
I’ll journey on and bear my load; Light on the horizon comes
I’d spent a lifetime worrying,
If this was that or right or wrong, always a fight
Then coming up for air
And down again to wrestle on
I won’t let go, but the blessing was never right,
Or never really there
A man said, “be not afraid.”
“Win or draw you may lose just the same,
There’s far worse, and far less.”
“So my son, let it go.
Remember life is a song,
A song in progress.”
I’ll traveling this forgotten road; Light on the horizon
comes
I’ll journey on and bear my load; Light on the horizon comes
Leaning back on the hood of my car,
As the ferry takes me across the bay,
Neither here nor there
Singing songs with my guitar,
Remembering why they call it play,
Music and open air
The job was bad and the hours long,
The money was not worth losing my soul
She said she understood.
“For better or worse, for rich or poor.”
Seems better and rich was far as she would go,
Or far as she could
I’ll traveling this forgotten road; Light on the horizon
comes
I’ll journey on and bear my load; Light on the horizon comes
A shot to the engine room; your life is up in flames
Exciting times my friend, you’ll never be the same.
Light on the horizon comes.
Light on the horizon comes.
Light on the horizon comes.
Light on the horizon comes.
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