Amazed!

Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007
“Amazed”
Luke 24:1-12

Copyright 2007 Rev. Dr. Christopher W. Keating

The resurrection of Jesus Christ calls us to remember the promise of God’s amazing love.


John Hawes gave me a new understanding of this resurrection business.

John Hawes isn't a theologian, and I don’t think he’s ever preached a formal sermon. In fact, he probably can't spell theologian because he's only six years old. Despite that, little John Hawes can teach us all a lot about resurrection. This boy, you may remember, was the six year-old kindergarten student from Seattle who ran into our hearts as he jumped into his father’s arms last week. John’s father, a Navy Petty Officer, returned home from his deployment and decided to surprise his son at school. Someone tipped off a television news crew, and the whole event was captured on TV. His father stepped into the classroom, looked his son in the eye and said, “Hey, Buddy.” Like any self-respecting six year old boy, John dissolved into tears as he ran into his father’s waiting arms.

His face melted. His legs ran, and there he was reaching for his father’s arms. Daddy. Daddy. Daddy…a moment of truth, and a moment of revelation for their family but also for all of us as we heard Navy Petty Officer Bill Hawes whisper into his son’s ears over and over again: “I’m home. I’m home. I’m home.”

The look on John’s face was amazing as it was precious….could it be true? Could this be the moment? Tears streaming down his face, he little arms wrapped firmly around his father’s muscular body.

It needs to be said, of course, that not all children of military personnel will have the option of greeting their parents again. For them, this image is probably not helpful. For them, this is but an “idle tale,” at best, and probably painful at worst. But as I looked into that little boy’s eyes, there was something about him that said, “amazing!” And I think it struck a chord within our culture. Kleenex is about to report all time profits! Two hundred thousand persons downloaded the tape on YouTube, and nearly seven hundred thousand viewed it on MSNBC. It’s emotional, because it reminds us that over half of the servicemen and women in Iraq are mothers and fathers. Each of those mothers and fathers has at least one John waiting for them at home. Each of them has at least one pair of eyes yearning for the chance to be amazed and delighted by the site of their parent walking through a door. Each one of them has at least one pair of arms that longs to be touched, to be filled…to be loved with that love which reverses lonely absence with grace and laughter-filled presence.

And that is what amazed Peter and Mary and Joanna. Listening to the angels, the two women begin to put together the pieces. Running from the tomb, they surely must have been repeated over and over again the angel’s words, “He is not here, but has risen. He is not here, but has risen.”

Say it to yourself now: “He is not here, but has risen.”

Say it to yourself now, a bit louder, and keep saying it. Say it until you remember what it was like to run at break-neck speeds into the arms of someone who was waiting to lift you up and hold you. Say it until you are able to move beyond the crucifixion to the joy of this morning Say it until you begin to remember God’s amazing love bursting into your life this day. Say it over and over again until you begin to feel the amazement Peter must have felt as he stooped into that tomb and saw the empty linens lying there.

Say it until you begin to remember how resurrection reverses the emptiness of our lives. Afterall, as Shirley Guthrie once observed, the impact of Jesus’ resurrection is not just that it has significance for us after we die and leave this world, but that it also changes the way we live here and now.[1] Jesus’ resurrection amazes us not only because of its eternal consequences, but because it lifts us above the emptiness which so often clogs our every day life.

Say it again, “He is not here, but has risen.”

It is the sort of news which fills us with such incredible joy that, like the women at the tomb, we cannot keep it to ourselves. We must go and tell others, which is a good thing, but so many have forgotten the story. Knowing that something is missing in their lives, but unsure of where to go to make it different, so many keep seeking the living among the dead…filling their lives with another story, a story not about resurrection but about emptiness and hopelessness, a story that dimisses talk about Christ as nothing more than idle chat. A local DJ was rambling on the other day, filling in time between songs, making casual comments about Easter. “Just where do all these traditions come from?” he wondered. “What traditions?” his sidekick asked. “Oh, you know, the real meaning of Easter…the chicks, the candies, the eggs, the bunnies…”

So, the sidekick turned to that most reliable of all sources for information about Easter, the Internet. Google “Easter eggs” and you may find out all sorts of curious information about ancient Egyptian legends about giving decorated eggs at springtime, or rabbits as a sign of new life. But you will find nothing about the power that raised Christ from the dead, or the hope which transformed those earliest Christians, lifting them from despair to faith.

Say it again, “He is not here, but has risen.”

The women then quickly discover that the true work of Easter is not done in graveyards, but in Christian community. And look at this picture of community. It is far from a perfect picture. They have their doubts about this resurrection business. It is, in fact, not until much later that Luke tells us the lives of apostles are fully changed. But they remain in community. They discover the meaning of grace, even as they retell the story of the prodigal son. They discover what it means to share in each other’s joys and sorrows, to pray for each other, to feed the poor and proclaim the power of God that is at work. In that community, they keep telling the stories, over and over again. And it is in that community that they are transformed by the amazing love of God…a love which prompts them to say, finally, “He is not here, but has risen.” They remember the amazing love of God. Transformed, they run into the arms of God and trust in the power of that love to hold us secure.

There is the challenge for us this Easter: to remember what it is like to run toward that love which lifts us, that love which amazes us with its fullness, which seeks to reverse our emptiness, and which reminds us not to keep looking for the living among the dead. Safe in those arms, we become giggling and all smiles, opening our mouths to proclaim this Easter message.

Say it again to yourself, “He is not here, but has risen!”

The amazing message of Easter: absence does not have the last word on our lives. God lives! By raising Jesus from the dead, God has transformed the experiences of absence in our lives with the grace and laughter-filled presence of the living Christ. So now say it with me now, with loud voices. Stand up and say it with conviction, come now let’s say it together: The Lord is risen! He is risen, indeed! AMEN.

I

[1] Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, p. 276