Matthew 28:1-10

Let us pray.
Glorious Lord of life, by the mighty resurrection of Jesus Christ you overcame the old order of sin and death to make all things new in him.  Grant that we who celebrate here this Easter morning Christ's rising from the dead, may today be raised ourselves to new life.  Now open your Word to our hearts and our hearts to your Word.  In the Spirit of Jesus Christ, our Risen and Reigning Lord, Amen.

Here we are this morning, the whole family, young and old, novice and veteran, believer and agnostic, a part of God's family gathered at the corner of Boylston and Dartmouth Streets for the “Great Sunday,” as Easter used to be called.  And gathered around an event which we can barely believe and yet rarely refuse to celebrate.  Strange.  I think every Easter how improbable an event as the Resurrection should call us away from bed, brunch, the Boston Globe or the New York Times, and tasks undone.  Yet, here we are, and it is wonderful to see each of you.  I am so glad you could be with us this Easter morning, to share in the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We celebrate this morning a revolutionary Easter. This is not merely a re-telling of an ancient story, not the same old same old, not business as usual, not the routine and the familiar.  This Easter day we celebrate the truth found in an old saying:  “God is not an uncle; God is an earthquake.”  As I read the Gospels on Good Friday and came to those verses in the Gospel of Saint Matthew where the Evangelist writes, the sun was darkened and darkness covered the earth.  All the earth did quake and the rocks were split apart and the graves opened wide.  I thought, that sounds like an earthquake to me.  Yes, God is not an uncle, God is an earthquake.  This is good news.  This is the Gospel for Easter morning.

Easter is the day God has made by bringing Jesus Christ from the grave. This is God's day.  On Good Friday humankind did its worst; on Easter God did God's best. This is the day God has made, all that is asked of us is that we rejoice and be glad in it – and try always to be worthy of it.  Easter is a day not for affirming old truths, but to celebrate a new truth for the strengthening and sustaining of your life and mine.

This revolutionary Easter faith which seeks to make all things new, most especially you and me, is an act of defiance.  John Updike, our Ipswich neighbor, wrote in The New Yorker magazine (November 29th, 1999) in an article entitled: The Future of Faith: Confessions of a Church Goer,  “Much of religious loyalty is after all a mode of defiance, insisting, ‘This is what I am.’”

Your being here this morning is an act of defiance.  It is counter cultural.  It is saying, “This is who I am and what I am on the basis of God raising both Jesus and me from the dead.”  It is this act of defiance, whether we know it or not, that brings each of us here this morning.  The cross and the grave do not have the last word.  The final word is always with God and it is a word of life and love.  Yes, Easter is the day God has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

God has not simply given new life, important and powerful as that is, but just as many and those disciples were called from mourning and grief to new life, so too, you and I are given new life today.  Exactly as the angel said to the women on that first Easter morning: "Do not be afraid.. .he is not here for he has been raised as he said." so, too, God speaks to each of us today:  Be not afraid.  God seeks to raise us from the dead and the world is never to be quite the same again because of this revolutionary Easter faith.

This is an act of defiance -- to believe this and trust this, against all the conventional wisdom of the world and some of our skeptical friends.  It is an act in which now by grace we are participants.  This is a faith which will empower you to stand up to life.

The Easter faith is not a pleasant interlude from the realities of life: Jesus did not live in a make-believe world or Easter basket and bunnies.  The Easter faith gives us the faith and the courage to live life fully and abundantly.

This is the reason why one of my favorite verses of scripture is found in the 15th chapter of Saint Paul's first letter to the church in Corinth:  "Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore (because Christ has been raised from the dead), therefore," the apostle writes: "be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain."

Life is not easy.  To go to work each day (and some of you carry heavy burdens), to care for your children (some of whom struggle with extraordinary challenges), or perhaps to assist a sick or elderly spouse or partner.  Life is not easy: to make your witness as a Christian citizen as bravely as you dare, to act courageously in opposing racism and military empire building and sexism and ageism and homophobia where it is found and it continues to exist all around us -- as in these well known words of Dante:  "This revolutionary Easter faith, this act of defiance, gives us strength to live boldly courageously, graciously and generously for others."

Why?  Because Christ lives and you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.  Every deed of live, every act of speaking truth to power, makes a difference and will not be lost.  Yes, this is the day God has made and we will rejoice and be glad in it.  And we will live and act differently because of it.  The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a time of great crisis, maintain their neutrality.  John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote:  "Life is short, death is certain, the life to come is everlasting."

I trust I will not ruin your Easter by reminding you of a couple of truths about your life and mine.

Life is short.  You do not have all the time in the world.  Though when you are young it may seem so, there will come a day when you will say: "It all went so fast - so much left undone."

Death is certain. We shall all die.  No one will escape, whoever you are - CEO or street sweeper, all are going to come to the same inevitable end.  Wise Christians have always prayed that they would not die unprepared.

With that said, what I really want you to hear this Easter morning is the affirmation of faith that the life to come is everlasting.  it is this affirmation which enables us to live faithful lives today, for when there is no faith in the future there is no power in the present.   David Brooks says that people today are hooked on what he calls "Heaven Lite."  It is a sign of the easy-going narcissism that surrounds us every day.  An example of this is the book Five People You Meet in Heaven, which last time I looked is still number 3 on the best seller list.  Brooks says in the book that, to the extent God exists, God is a sort of genial Dr. Phil and heaven is a therapy session, where hurt and not sin is washed away.

In a recent Harris Poll 82 percent of Americans said they believed in heaven; of these 68 percent said they were likely to go there.  Only 1 percent said they were going to hell.  I wonder where the other 31 percent think they are headed.

With all this interest in the world to come, there have been a number of books written in addition to the five people who will meet in heaven, books which speculate on whether SUVs in heaven will have cup holders for all the manna, to Mr. Edwards on television who contacts the dead, and Tru calling on FOX which receives prime time messages not only from the dead but also from God.

This narcissistic view of heaven reminds me of the old story of the elderly couple who are killed in an automobile accident.  Saint Peter is showing them around heaven: "Here is your condo, there is the health club, over there is the golf course."  Whereupon the elderly gentleman turns to his wife and says, "Damn you, if it hadn't been for all that chicken and broccoli we would have been here years ago."

Reinhold Neibuhr remarked, "beware of those who want to tell you about either the furniture of heaven or the temperature of hell.  Pay no attention to them unless they have been there and come back to tell you about it."  I give you this counsel as your pastor and friend: do not listen to any of them, for they do not know what they are talking about.
What we do know is this: Love never ends.  Faith, hope, love, abide these three, but the greatest of these is love.

As Saint Paul said so powerfully to the church in Rome, "neither life nor death, nor anything else in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."  This is what eternity is about, and it is what we remember in the midst of life.

It is this revolutionary Easter faith, this act of defiance, which delivers us from fear and encourages us to fight the good fight with all our might, because it is later than you think and you have less time now than when this sermon began.

There is a wonderful story of Henry David Thoreau who is dying.  His relatives and friends have gathered around his bed.  His maiden aunt asks her dying nephew, "Have you made your peace with God?"  Henry replies, "I never knew we had quarreled."  What a lovely way to go.  You and I do well when we try so to live, praying the ancient prayer - May Almighty God have mercy on you and give you time to attend your life.

I suggest to you this morning that we are a people who take problems much more seriously than we do promises.  We constantly hear about the problem with this or the problem with that; to be sure our own lives and the world in which we live are filled with problems.  Yet why take the problems more seriously than the promises, most especially the promises of God?

I suspect it is because we don't want to appear gullible.  We have learned the lessons of life the hard way: "When it is too good to be true, most often it is too good to be true"

"Fool me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on me."

The Easter faith, this revolutionary message, this act of defiance, is a promise from the God who does not forget God's people, a God whose love stretches far beyond what we can see or hear or comprehend.  I choose to believe the promises of God.  I believe in the Resurrection for many reasons, not the least of which is I have seen people become serious about their faith and turn their life around: stop drinking, defend unpopular causes, and die with courage and dignity in faith.

Yes, I choose to trust the promises of God.  I believe in the Resurrection because I have seen people change their lives because of their faith and become kinder and more compassionate, and braver and bolder in witnessing to their faith.  I trust the promises of God and place my hope in the Resurrection not only for tomorrow, but because I know I need this change in my own life today, and maybe you will believe because you need and long for it also.

You are invited this morning to invest your love and compassion and your hope in the firm foundation of this ancient promise - this revolutionary faith.

The late E. B. White wrote an essay about his wife Catherine, who preceded him in death. She was a gardener, every year planning her garden, ordering seeds and bulbs, designing the garden and planting. When she became ill she refused to stop.  Armed with a diagram and a clipboard, Catherine would put on a shabby old raincoat and a little round hat and proceed to the Director's chair at the edge of the garden.  There she would sit, hour after hour, with the wind and the weather.  The small, hunched over figure, her studied absorption in the implausible notion that there would be another Spring, oblivious to the end of her own days which she knew perfectly well were near at hand - still there with her garden chart under those dark skies in early spring calmly plotting the resurrection.
As the angel said on that first Easter morning, "Be not afraid for he is not here; He has risen."

Be not afraid - live boldly and bravely.  This is the revolutionary Easter faith which calls us here this morning - empowers us to an act of faithful defiance.

God is patient and will invite you over and again to live your life grounded on God's love and promises.  It can happen anywhere, any time - on your way home this morning, in the office tomorrow or walking along the street dreaming or day dreaming, or even this day in this church - right now!

Yes! This is the day God has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.
Alleluia, Christ is risen!

Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

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