Easter Sermon Believe – do not be afraid!
There is always light if only we are brave enough to see it….
The Danish Poet Benny Andersen wrote in a poem:
Livet er smalt og hojt.
Maalt paa langs er livet kort,
Men lodret uendeligt.
Life is narrow and high.
Measured lengthwise life is short.
But measured vertically endlessly.
The poet tells us that: horizontally life is narrow and short But vertically life is high and endless.
Slide 20 Do you remember the first time you thought about eternity and the expanse of the universe?
Trying to understand what eternity is, and how something can be without beginning or end, but just continues. You get dizzy trying to imagine eternity and the expanse of the endless universe, don’t you? But it is also fascinating and we have gone on many interstellar journeys with Star Wars, 2011 A Space Odyssey, and Interstellar
The universe is so big and so vast and different from this little beautiful blue planet of ours. Filled with stars and planets and galaxies, we get dizzy just looking and trying to comprehend.
Do you remember last year, when the Mars Expedition from JPL and NASA the rover Perseverance finally landed on the red planet of Mars?
It was breathtakingly beautiful to witness and mindboggling and difficult to comprehend.
Some astrophysicists were interviewed, and they explained that the different galaxies move at accelerating speeds away from each other. The grand universe is expanding quicker and quicker, and we don’t understand why. The endless universe keeps getting bigger and bigger, vaster and vaster.
“Dare Mighty Things.” This is the unofficial motto of JPL – and the expedition certainly did, and so do we when our minds turn to wonder.
We are located safely here on the blue planet, and wonder: how can that be? How can the endless universe continue to expand? And become even more endless? You get dizzy don’t you, when you try to comprehend something that is beyond your imagination, your time, and your space. Eternity and endlessness cannot be grasped by our limited consciousness.
As the old but still good jokes say:
Gladys is asking her husband George if he wants to join her for Easter Service at their lovely local Lutheran Church.
George shakes his head and looks at Gladys saying: “No, I will not. My intelligence hinders my beliefs.” And the wife says as she leaves for worship: “That is a small hindrance then!”
Usually, we are in charge and in control of our lives and situations. We know where we are going, what we are doing, and what we are planning and we anticipate the outcome. We predict and we plan. We have routines and schedules.
But when life expands, when our daily routines and our human intelligence is challenged, we might get afraid.
As we might get dizzy when we try to understand eternity and the vastness of our universe, - the women coming to the tomb Easter Sunday were shaken and rattled in everything they thought they knew and understood. There was no rational explanation, no proof to rely on, - only faith and hope to cling to.
There is always light if only we are brave enough to see it and if only, we are brave enough to be it.
These icon profound words by young poet Amanda Gorman ring loudly in my heart today when I hear the Easter Shout: Indeed, He has Risen. Hallelujah!
Because there is indeed always light if only we are brave enough to see it this Easter Morning.
If only we are brave enough to believe it! So Easter Morning proclaims: believe and do not be afraid!
Do not be afraid!
That is how the glowing angel Gabriel greeted young Mary when she was told she was mysteriously and quite unexpectedly pregnant and carrying the Son of God.
Do not be afraid!
That is how the glowing angel greets the grieving Mary Magdalene at the tomb as she and other women came to the gravesite early Easter Sunday morning.
Do not be afraid! That promise given to the women frames the very life and being of Jesus, from mysterious birth to mysterious death. Dare Mighty Things!
The most frequent command in the Bible is “Don’t be afraid.”
Don’t be afraid is repeated more than 300 times…. More than “do good, love your neighbor, and don’t sin.” Often it turns out that we have a harder time obeying “don’t is afraid’ than any other of God’s commandments.
There are so many things we are afraid of.
We are afraid of darkness and emptiness. We are afraid of not being able to see and of seeing nothing.
We are afraid of getting old. We frantically exercise, diet, and detox to stay younger, fitter, and longer living.
We are afraid of being human.
We are afraid of changes and challenges. We are afraid of sudden turns, unknown paths, and unusual ways.
Fear and worry and anxiety run deep in all of us.
We are afraid of being alone, unloved, or looking dumb.
We are afraid of losing: our loved ones, control, or success.
We are afraid of taking chances, but also afraid of missing out.
We are afraid of hurting others and being hurt.
We are afraid of dying and afraid of losing.
The Priest & The Taxi Driver
A priest and a taxi driver both died and went to heaven. St. Peter was at the Pearly gates waiting for them.
‘Come with me,’ said St. Peter to the taxi driver. The taxi driver did as he was told and followed St Peter to a mansion. It had everything you could imagine from a bowling alley to an Olympic size pool.
‘Oh, my word, thank you,’ said the taxi driver.
Next, St. Peter led the priest to a rough old shack with a bunk bed and a little old television set.
‘Wait, I think you are a little mixed up,’ said the priest. ‘Shouldn’t I be the one who gets the mansion? I was a priest, went to church every day, and preached God’s word.’
‘Yes, that’s true.’ St Peter rejoined, ‘But during your Easter sermons, people slept. When the taxi driver drove, everyone prayed.’
No one likes fear, but it is like the air we keep breathing.
It fuels our world. Whole industries exist to profit from our fears. Politicians practically depend on our fear of others, the change, the depth ceiling, the taxes, or the III WW.
The Fear of Being Happy is More Common Than You Might Think
The fundamental fear is that if you let go, and are happy and carefree, then something terrible will happen.
Like not daring to shout your faith aloud on Easter Sunday, because who knows what will hit us in the days to come.
So, we anticipate and imagine the worst and then we miss out on the best.
That is challenged today on this Easter Sunday:
There is always light, if only we are brave enough to see it, be it, and believe it.
Easter Sunday is all about light.
The abundance of light that can do amazing things – the surprising light that can push back any darkness even the stone of death. The light of hope that captures our hearts and souls when we sing the beautiful easter hymn; when we see the daffodils in bloom; when we find those easter eggs; when we share that Brunch with the ones we love and taste that fresh Mimosa, - when we feel that even as time and death has separated us, we still love and feel the light of the ones we miss.
There is always light, if only we are brave enough to see it, be it, and believe it.
That is exactly what easter tells us with the wondrous mysterious easter gospel
Life is short, but faith is endless.
Life’s horizon might be short and narrow, but life’s vertical vies is endless and mysterious.
When The gospel tells us about the most mysterious and unbelievable story ever told, it is carried by light and hope. It speaks to the fundamental fear of the unfathomable and unbelievable.
If we open our eyes and ears, our senses, we know that life gives us the small everyday wonders and the metaphysical wonders.
It is like there are two floors: the everyday horizontal narrow one and the magical, mysterious, unbelievable, metaphysical endless one.
The one floor we can see, touch and understand.
The other floor we can believe, sense, feel, and hope for.
We need both floors in our faith, in our lives, and in our hopes. Without the upper floor of mystery and wonder, life turns bland and narrow, and flat.
We need to have that light, that ignition, that imagination that can combine and connect those two floors: the horizontal and the vertical.
The upper floor makes life bigger, grander, wider, brighter, and endless, while the first floor makes it understandable, relational, touchable, and real.
The biggest is often understood best through the smallest.
In our everyday experiences of the beauty of daffodils, the grandeur of the green hills of spring, the taste of a delicious meal, the hug of a friend, the love of our family – through all of that heavens expand over us. And life becomes grander and bigger.
There is always light if only we are brave enough to be it, see it, and believe it.
So on this beautiful Easter morning, marked forever by the cross that connects earth and heaven, human horizons and divine heavens: on this beautiful Easter morning we dare to believe that life is more than what we see with our eyes…. For as the Little Prince so truthfully said in the book: “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
Today we see with our hearts and we believe in the small daily resurrection of hope, and the grand mysterious resurrection of life. We don’t understand it, but we believe it, sense it, and hope for it. And we have hope than fear……
So, let us live our faith and hope out – let us leave all fear behind and let the light come in. Let us believe in divine wonder and earthly beauty. Let us embrace today and tomorrow with the hope for the best instead of the fear of the worst.
“Someday, we will all die, Snoopy.” Charlie Brown says to his beloved dog.
And Snoopy replies: “True, but on all the other days, we will not.”
Why do not we live like that… with a smile and with courage. Because there is always light if only we are brave enough to see it, be it, and believe it.
Slide 23 Happy Easter!