JESUS CHRIST IS RISEN TODAY!

Sermon preached by the Reverend John E. Kitagawa at the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist on Easter Day, 12 April 2009 (The Sunday of the Resurrection), at St. Philip’s In The Hills Parish, Tucson, Arizona

Isaiah 25: 6 -9; Acts 10: 34-43; John 20: 1-18

Is the downturn in the economy making you feel “blue”? Are you feeling emotionally “drained” for other reasons? Are you obsessed, or anxious about the future due to the impact of the economy, or for any other reason? Are you ready for this? Today is your day. Rejoice and be glad in it! “Jesus Christ is risen today … our triumphant holy day”[1].

Do you feel broken in mind, body or spirit; or, do you feel at your wit’s end; or, do you feel like you are barely holding on to the frayed end of your rope? Today is your day. Rejoice and be glad in it! “The strife is o’er, the battle done, the victory of life is won, the song of triumph has begun”[2].

Are you unable to get really excited or passionate about anything; or, do you sense a lack of meaning and purpose in your life? Today is your day. Rejoice and be glad in it! “Spirit of power, now flow in us, fount of our being, light that dost lighten all, life that in all dost abide: Praise to the giver of good! Thou Love who art author of concord, pour out thy balm on our souls, order our ways in thy peace”[3].

Are you experiencing a sense of failure, or disappointment, or heartbreak, and are you having a hard time seeing how the trajectory of your life will change? Today is your day. Rejoice and be glad in it! “Come ye faithful, raise the strain of triumphant gladness! God hath brought his Israel into joy from sadness”[4].

Do you feel isolated, or distant or alienated from people you love? Are relationships frayed or breaking apart? Today is your day. Rejoice and be glad in it! “Welcome happy morning! Age to age shall say; hell today is vanquished, heaven is won today! Lo! The dead is living, God for evermore! Him their true Creator, all his works adore!”[5]

Does life too often feel like drudgery or predictable boredom? Do you know what it feels like to live without hope and joy? Today is your day. Rejoice and be glad in it! “He is risen, he is risen! Tell it out with joyful voice: he has burst his three days’ prison; let the whole wide earth rejoice: death is conquered, we are free, Christ has won the victory”[6].

Yes! Today is Easter. Rejoice and be glad in it! Today we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Today, we celebrate the truth that after the resurrection, everything changed and nothing is the same. The resurrection of Christ

… reverse[s] the inexorable process of decay, the running down of the universe, and establish[es] all things in Christ in a new creation …[7]

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is full affirmation of the love of God—the One who promises to “make all things new” (Revelation 21:5). The resurrection of Christ

… shouts to every dark place in the world that brokenness, disappointment, failure, heartbreak, [lack of meaning, isolation, absence of hope] and death, are not the final words. The final word is the love of God. The gift of Easter [is] a second, third, or infinite number of opportunities to start all over again[8].

For me, the most important aspect of Easter is hope. As I noted in my letter in the Easter issue of Loaves and Fishes:

Hope is not the same as optimism. Optimism is based on indications that things are going well; optimism assumes that the trajectory will continue and bring positive results. Hope does not arise from a perceived pattern of success. Hope can come into being amid the worst kind of gloom, the kind fit only for a thoroughgoing pessimist. Hope arises not from the situation itself but from something outside the situation. It is a dim light gleaming through the darkness. Hope is not based on what I can do but on what another is doing[9].

In our present economic reality, there are not a lot of reasons for optimism. A cursory look at the world reveals such horrors and outrages as governments choosing genocide as a public policy option; starvation of civilians as a weapon of war or instrument of political control; potential ecological self-destruction; and the continuing threat of nuclear holocaust. More personally, the objective facts of situations in our lives may not give rise to optimism. But, today, I can say with conviction, there is reason to have hope. The Resurrection of Jesus is not the end of the story, but the start of many resurrection stories—the first among many stories of God’s work bearing the fruit of new and abundant life. Do I expect God in Christ, for example, to come swooping in the resolve our economic problems? No. I am saying, however, the hope of new or renewed life in the risen Christ is as sustaining, nourishing and empowering as our daily bread. Easter tells us we can we have confidence in the power of God at work in the world. The power of the Easter message makes it possible to sustain hope “amid the gloom of other promises gone awry,”[10] and against all discouraging evidence.

Here is an insight I would like you to contemplate.

If Easter were the end of the struggle, its message could promise immunity from the evil of this world. [repeat]

I think a careful reading of Scripture, particularly Paul’s writings, would indicate Easter is not that end of the struggle, but the “penultimate event, the beginning of a conquest which is yet to be completed.” So, in this time, we will live by hope. In this time, we will need hope in order to “immerse ourselves in the struggle to undo patterns of evil, terror, death and destruction.” Without hope it is difficult to believe in healing, and to sustain our struggles with life-threatening illnesses, self-destructive behaviors like addiction, or stressed-out relationships. The hope of the resurrection does not make life’s issues, concerns and struggles disappear. “Hope gives us the capacity to participate in the struggle, even when no end is in sight”[11]. Hope, I believe, is essential for seeking meaning and purpose in life, and for dreaming and envisioning a new future.

I have seen the power of hope at work. I have seen it in people battling cancer, in people who knew the downward trajectory of medical facts, but who were sustained by the hope of the resurrection, by the eternal and abiding love of God. I have seen it in survivors of tragedies, whose lives have been shaken to the core, even decimated, but carry on with dignity and courage, animated by hope born of faith. I think of those who campaigned for civil rights in the 1960’s, facing police dogs, cattle prods and fire hoses, whose colleagues were shot or beaten, whose children were firebombed in church basements. They were sustained by a faith that if they were killed, there would still be hope. I think of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and the central importance of hope in the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa.

Hope is a big deal! Give hope a chance to work in your life. Hope may be a key ingredient in, and a catalytic agent for the changes you want or need in your life. In my view, true hope emanates from that empty tomb.

As many of you know, Henri Nouwen is one of my spiritual gurus. In his book, Our Greatest Gift: A Meditation on Dying and Caring, Nouwen reminds us of something about Easter that we tend to overlook.

The resurrection of Jesus [was] a hidden event. Jesus’ resurrection was the full affirmation of [God’s] love. Therefore, he only showed himself to those who knew about this love. He made himself known as the risen Lord only to a handful of his close friends. There is probably no event in human history that has had such importance, while remaining, at the same time, so unspectacular. [He only showed himself to those] whom he wanted to send out to announce God’s love to the world just as he had done.[12]”

They had no internet, no cable TV news, no wire services, not even a reporter for the Jerusalem Times to assist them. But, I think we would have to say they were fairly effective in getting the word out about God’s overflowing and effervescent love. The risen Christ keeps showing himself again and again, and Christians have gone out to witness to God’s love in every language, in every land, and in every age. Now, through this liturgy, its magnificent music, and the bread and wine of Holy Communion, the risen Christ comes to you, and shows himself to you because your presence suggests you know something about the love of God. Our baptismal liturgy says that in the water of Baptism, we are buried with Christ in his death, by it we share in Christ’s resurrection, and through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit[13]. Consider yourselves commissioned and sent from this church to make known God’s love to the world, just as Jesus has done. Through your words, and most effectively through your actions and examples, you are Christ’s ambassadors to a world sorely in need of your witness to God’s redeeming love that makes the renewal of all possible.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! Alleluia!