SERMON: BELIEVING AND HOPING.
It is Easter! It is Easter and once again we are here in this beautiful church.
We are embraced by the walls, the high wooden ceilings and the new wooden floors. We are embraced by the blue of the pews, the altar and the windows. We are embracing by the fellowship of being church together. We are here this morning because we believe and hope.
This church was built in 1995 on former fields of orange trees and green grass. Prior to this location the Danish Church was in Downtown which adds up to a history spanning from 1906 – 2025…. 119 years. We need to have a big celebration next year, don’t we?
But the church has so much deeper roots going back to Denmark and all the way back to the time when a bold bragging Harald Bluetooth ordered the Danes to be Christians. But from that year carved in Runes the church goes back, back in history to Reformation and to the Roman Catholic Church, and the very first church that sprung from the very Easter Morning, we hear about in the Gospel.
We are connected through time and history, but also through faith and hope. We are here because we believe and hope.
As a humble Dane, I might claim that we are here in the most beautiful church in California, but this church is so much more than beauty, history and tradition.
This is a place that shelters and strengthens us; a place that calls and comforts us; a place of Spirit and Hope.
Because there is so much more to say about the church than these walls, ceilings, windows, architecture, history and glory may convey. All of that is also the church, but the church tells us a story about more than that.
Because there is more to say. If the church were just another historical building, yet ever so beautiful and fair, if that was what we had to say then we would not be here today on Easter Morning. Would we?
But we are! Because there is more to say.
Christ is Risen. Indeed, he is Risen. Hallelujah!
In here, we are told that there is more than what we built and construct, what we make and accomplish. More than what we think, measure, weigh and calculate.
There is more.
There is more to believe in and hope for.
There is a gateway. There is a door.
There is a crack in something more. A crack where the light gets in just like the rock poet Lenoard Cohen said.
Leonard Cohen, the legendary Canadian poet, who is well-known for his “Hallelujah” but also a set of powerful lyrics from his song “Anthem.”
Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack, a crack in everything.
That is how the light gets in.
That message of hope in darkness is particularly meaningful for an Easter Sunday like today, but even more for uncertain times like ours. We do need hope, we do need light, we do need something to believe in.
This church is a place where there is a crack where the light gets in.
This is a place from where which grace, mercy, blessing and salvation have been flowing and preached through thousands of years.
A place filled with faith, hope and love because it is filled with living breathing humans.
Filled with us, who have arrived. Each of us with our own mind and story, each with what we carry in our memories, in our minds of pain or happiness.
And here in the room, in this church we are reminded of that more: of the crack that lets the light and hope in:
Christ is Risen. Indeed, he is risen!
When we are greeted by the old Easter Greeting of hope and mystery that is shouted and exclaimed all over the earth this morning, we know there is more to be said and believed.
When we once again listen to the mysterious Easter Gospel about the weeping women at the tomb, the dazzling angels of hope in the mysterious empty tomb and the encouraging words to remember what Jesus promised, we feel like Peter at the grace, looking around and amazed.
The Easter Gospel might be the weirdest and most mysterious story ever told into the history of mankind: the resurrection from the death. And yet the story has been told for thousands of years, churches have been built on this mysterious message and we still come here to listen, to be amazed and to hope.
The Danish Poet Soren Ulrich Thomsen once said: “I believe in the resurrection, because I find it impossible to believe in the opposite!”
The poet always claims that his poems have two levels: an ordinary comprehendible daily level and a more metaphysical mystic level. And if one is missing, the poem will collapse and either be too much or too little, too common or too ecstatic. Both levels must be there, connected, intertwined by a spirit. Body and soul. Mind and spirit.
I believe in the resurrection because I find it impossible to believe in the opposite.
There are two levels or two stories in our faith too. We have our daily lives, comprehendible, ordinary lives. And we have an upper level of faith.
Weird. Mysterious. Incomprehensible. Like a big hall on the first floor that I can only be invited into, as I cannot open the door on my own. Faith, spirit, hope and love may grant me access. May open the door and let a crack of light in. But I cannot live without that 2 level. Without it my life would be shallow, flat and one dimensional.
I believe in the resurrection because I find it impossible to believe in the opposite.
I believe in resurrection, Christ and God as I find it impossible to believe in the opposite.
I believe in kindness, love, and compassion as I find it impossible to believe in the opposite.
Yes, I believe in diversity, equity and inclusion as I find it impossible to believe in the opposite.
I do believe in the light and love that is a blessing in my ordinary life, as I believe in the light and love as a mysterious miraculous crack into God’s eternal light. I cannot believe the opposite.
As the Canadian Rock poet Lenord Cohen speaks about the light that gets in through the small crack, as The Danish Poet Soren Ulrich Thomsen speaks about the two levels of life, the British singer Sir Elton John talks about light too.
I recently listened to a new album by Sir Elton John and singer Brandi Carlile: “Who believes in Angels.”
There is a wonderful song called “A little light” that reminds me of Lenord Cohen Crack that lets the light in – and how we need that light to live and be:
“That is why we are gonna get up.
Point our chin towards the sun.
Say a little prayer.
and count our blessings one by one.
Do not hide yourself away.
Do not grow hard from what you have heard.
You got a break your heart wide open.
Let a little light into the world.
Thus, Sir Elton John and Brandi Carlile sing on the beautiful album. And the songs continue:
It is such a fine line.
Between faith and apathy
Pain can put you on your feet.
Or bring you to your knees.
If you are locked inside the end of days
And darkness pulls your mind.
Bend the bars and hold the fire.
Let every corner shine.
Do we see it to believe it?
Or believe it to be seen.”
Let there be light.
Let the little light into the world.
And sing into the darkness.
like a Sunday morning bird.
Break your heart wide open.
Let a little light into the world,”
What a beautiful ode to light and life. What a beautiful Easter call to sing into the darkness like a Sunday morning bird and break our hearts wide open to let a little info light into the world.
So, look at each other. Look at the ones who are light in your world. And count your blessings one by one: family and friends, blooming daffodils and happy kids looking for easter eggs.
And then look up, beyond and to the light that speaks about hope. A hope that dispels darkness. A hope that makes us believe in goodness, kindness, miracles and God as we cannot believe in the opposite.
It is Easter and we came to church, this place of hope and faith, this place that connects the two levels in our lives.
Easter is the story of light and hope. It is a continued story to be told.
And thus, we will break our hearts wide open to let the light in to us and shine the light into the world.
Responsive Easter Litany:
Pastor: How joyful it is, to celebrate the good news of God’s love!
All: We are called to be Easter people!
Pastor: Darkness cannot claim us!
All: Fear cannot bind us!
Pastor: Christ is Risen!
Congregation: Indeed, He is Risen!
Pastor: Hallelujah!
Congregation: Indeed, He is Risen! Hallelujah!