The Mayberry Preacher

The Mayberry Preacher on Sabbatical

Hey folks!  This is to let you know that there will be a period of inactivity on The Mayberry Preacher for the next few months, as I am taking a three-month sabbatical.  I'll return to the pulpit on the second Sunday of August, and you can expect the sermons to start flowing again and be posted right here.

In the meantime, let me encourage you to subscribe to my other blog, Thoughts & Musings, where I'll make regular posts about my sabbatical experience.

Take care, and thanks as always for reading!

Steve

IF JESUS WAS IN YOUR CONFIRMATION CLASS.....

Luke 2: 41-52
Steve Lindsley
April 25, 2010

With a sermon title like the one for today, the one-liners are a-plenty, aren't they?

• If Jesus was in your confirmation class, he'd already know the gospel of Luke before you read it.

• If Jesus was in your confirmation class, his statement of faith would read, “I believe in me.”

• If Jesus was in your confirmation class, when you talked about Death and Dying, he'd say: “Death – been there, done that.”

• If Jesus was in your confirmation class, you'd want to cheat off his paper, but that'd kinda defeat the whole purpose, wouldn't it?

• If Jesus was in your confirmation class, no one would want to play Judas during the re-enactment of the Lord's Supper.

• If Jesus was in your confirmation class, he'd keep his mentor happy by turning water into wine.

All kidding aside, today is a special day in the life of the church as we welcome six new confirmands into church membership – none of whom are named Jesus.  Rather, their names are Aimy, Dalton, Taylor, Jack, Sara, and Anna.  But what if there was one more member in that group, the son of a Jewish carpenter from first-century Palestine?  What if Jesus was really part of your confirmation class?

It's a strange thought, I know.  We don't think of Jesus much as a kid.  In our 21st-century mindset he pretty much goes from being a baby in the manger to a full-grown man in a matter of verses.  In the four gospels of our New Testament there simply aren't many accounts of Jesus' childhood or teenage years – except one, the passage Bill read just a minute ago.

It's quite a scene to envision.  I imagine him there, all of twelve years old, the perfect confirmation age.  I see him standing in the entrance hall to the grand temple in Jerusalem.  He is one of many there, tens of thousands perhaps, as it was Passover and everyone went to Jerusalem when Passover came around.  I imagine him blending in with the crowd, not standing out in any noticeable way; except for the fact that he was all alone.  His parents weren’t with him.  They had left town a few days before, heading back home.  Apparently they had assumed their son Jesus was with their entourage somewhere and they’d come across him at some point in time. 

But he wasn't with them.  Jesus just had to be at the temple that day because he was searching for something – something he couldn't find back home in Nazareth.  Maybe Jesus was trying to learn more about himself by being in this special place, this temple to the almighty God.  I mean, that is the ultimate quest we each face, isn’t it – discovering who we are?  We spend the better part of our lives sorting it out, gaining a sense of who we are and how our life has meaning and purpose.  It is the single question that defines our very existence.

So maybe that is what motivated Jesus to hang out at the temple for a few extra days.  And we can understand that, can’t we?  Because when we ask that question of ourselves, we almost always encounter conflicting answers. Some tell us that we are what our job is, or who our family is.  Others tell us we are how many digits we have in our paycheck, or what college we get into.  Some tell us we are what we wear.  Everywhere we turn, we encounter all kinds of answers to the question of who we are.  And the more we ask, it seems like the more answers we get.  If we’re not careful, we can lose sight of things.

There's a powerful scene in the epic movie Roots where Kunta Kinte, a young African man, is captured by slave traders and taken across the Atlantic.  When he arrives on American soil, he is put through the typical ritual of being made into a slave and sold to plantation owners.  It was a brutal process.  The slave trader takes Kunta Kinte aside and begins beating him mercilessly with a belt.  And as he hits him over and over again, he yells, “Your name is not Kunta anymore, your name is Toby!  Toby is your name!”  After a while he stops and asks him what his name is.  The African man defiantly answers, “My name is Kunta Kinte!”  He begins beating him some more, all the time telling him that his name is Toby.  He stops.  “What’s your name, boy?”  Weaker this time: “My name is Kunta Kinte.”

This goes on and on, until finally, with his life hanging in the balance, he relents.  “What’s your name, boy?  What’s your name?”  He looks at his captor, defeated.  “My name is Toby.”

Doesn’t life feel like that sometimes – not to that extreme, of course, but doesn’t it feel like the world just beats our name right out of us?  We try to search for the answer to that all-important question who are we, but the world just won’t let us get there.  It tells us that we are someone different and gives us a new name that is strange to our ears.  But we hold on to it anyway, because often it’s all we’ve got.  And so we walk this earth, not really sure who we are, but certain it’s not what the world tells us.  Because that name just doesn’t sound right.

If Jesus was in your confirmation class, I think he'd want you to deal with this.  The right way, of course.  I mean, it's no wonder that we struggle with the whole “who am I” question.  Because when you ask it that way, the task of discovery, of searching for and finding one’s identity, rests solely on the shoulders of the one asking the question.  The journey of self-awareness begins and ends with the same person. That's a pretty heavy burden for any individual to bear, don't you think?

Which is why I think we should follow Jesus' lead.  Maybe, just maybe, we've been asking the wrong question all along.  Maybe the real question is not “who am I” but “whose am I.”  Do you see the difference?  It shifts the whole dynamic because we do not bear sole responsibility for coming up with the answer.  We don't have to create something out of nothing.  The journey that leads us to the answer is shared with someone else – the one to whom we belong.

And you know, the more I think about it, the more I believe that’s what Jesus was busy doing at the temple those three days– asking himself, whose am I.  His parents hightailed it back to the city when they discovered he was not with their group of travelers, as they had thought.  They made their way to the temple only because they didn’t know where else to go – and there he was, twelve-year old Jesus, sitting in the portico talking it up with the rabbis.  They ran to him, not sure if they wanted to hug him or choke him.  And it was his him Mom who spoke first, asking Jesus why he had put her and Joseph through this nightmare. 

What came out of Jesus’ mouth was surely not what they were expecting.  With every bit of seriousness, and even the slightest tinge of surprise that they would ask such a thing, Jesus answered their question with a question of his own: Did you not know I would be in my Father’s house?  Did you catch that?  His “father’s house” – not the house of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all his forebears.  Not even God’s house.  His Father’s house.  Jesus had found his identity those three days not by asking “who am I” but ”whose am I.”  He was God’s son, he was God’s child.  And that temple was his Father’s house.  Jesus had been searching to discover who he belonged to, and now he knew – he belonged to God. 

Today in this worship service we have witnessed six wonderful young people make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ and join our church family.  And a large part of the journey that has led them to this today, and the even more important journey that is yet to come, a large part of all of that is forever intertwined in that single truth Jesus discovered long ago.  We belong to God.  It is who we are at the very core of our being; the foundation of everything we believe in and everything we do.

But sometimes I wonder to myself – do we really know that?  We may know it here (point to head).  But do we know it here (point to heart)?  Do we really know whose we are?  When we wake up every morning and head out into the day ahead of us, whatever that day brings, do we truly know who we belong to?  That we do not belong to our job or our school or our social clubs?  That we do not belong to our past sins or the mistakes we’ve made or the guilt that grabs hold of us?  That we do not belong to each other; that we certainly do not belong to ourselves?  Do we know, with every conviction in our heart, that ultimately we belong to God and are now, and always will be, a child of God? 

Do we really know that?  Jesus did.  And not because he had some super-human powers being God's son and all.  He knew whose he was because he grounded himself in the faith of his parents, the faith of his community, the faith of his people.  He asked questions.  He built relationships.  And he followed his calling, living out that faith in real life for everyone to see.

And that's not something that's just reserved for the Prince of Peace, you know.  All joking aside, if Jesus really were in your confirmation class, I'm not so sure he'd look or act all that different.  Later, maybe; but not at twelve.  Because what he had going for him at that age is the same thing you have going for you.  You, too, are called by God, claimed by God, baptized into God and into the family of faith.  And that sort of thing stays with you for a long, long, long time.

Which is good to know, incidentally.  Because sometimes the world will try to tell you who you are.  Sometimes the world wants you to believe that you are defined by things which bear little meaning to what really matters.  But you know differently, don't you?  You know there’s something else that makes up who you are.  You may forget it from time to time; we all do. 

But God doesn’t.  You are God’s child.  You belong to God.  In everything we do in life, with every day we walk this earth, let us never, ever forget whose we are.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

THE SEVENTH-INNING STRETCH

Exodus 20: 8-11, Psalm 63: 1-11
Steve Lindsley
April 18, 2010

I'm not a huge baseball fan, but I do appreciate the mark that “America's favorite pastime” has left on our culture.   Specifically, I'm fascinated with all the little traditions and rituals the sport continues to cling to, holdovers from a different time in this modern age of wireless internet and ATMs.  Like the uniforms – those skinny pant legs and button-over jerseys.  Only on a baseball field does that attire look appropriate.  I love the smell of ballpark food, not really the cost of it; I love the metal bleachers and fold-up seats, the singing of the national anthem behind home plate, the fireworks at game's end.

And I really like that thing called the seventh-inning stretch.  Now they don't show it on TV, at least much of it, so you really have to be at the game to appreciate it.  But you're sitting in one of those fold-up bleacher seats, your legs are kind of going numb – it's time to take a break.  And in the middle of the seventh inning, right before the home team comes to bat, you're invited by the loudspeaker to stand up.  You stretch your arms high above your head, you bend from side to side, shake out your legs.  You hear the organ launch into “Take me out to the ballgame” and you sing the last line with gusto: For it's one, two, three strikes you're out at the old ball game!

Baseball historians have not been able to arrive at a definitive explanation of where the seventh-inning stretch came from.  The earliest account appears to date all the way back to 1882, at a home game for Manhattan College.  It was a hot and muggy August afternoon; and the team manager started to notice the fans becoming restless around the seventh inning – to the point that even the players were noticing it.  And so, to break the tension, he called a time-out and instructed everyone in the bleachers to stand up and unwind for a bit.  It worked so well that they did this same thing at every home game that year, and some of the visiting teams began to take the practice back with them.  And thus a sacred baseball tradition was born. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_inning_stretch"    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7th_inning_stretch, visited on 4.12.2010)

It's a pretty good idea, this seventh-inning stretch.  But it would be incorrect to think that its origins lie exclusively in baseball.  I mean, if you want to be technical about it, it goes back much further; all the way to the very beginning:

And on the seventh day, God rested from all the work that was done.

At least that's how the second chapter of the book of Genesis remembers it.   It's the tail end of the creation story; the chronicling, as best the human mind can capture, of how the universe and this world and everything in it came to be.  And after six pretty busy days, however one defines a “day;” after God had been hard at work in the shop, the scriptures states pretty clearly – God took a seventh-inning stretch.  We don't know exactly how God rested, and it's not like God's up there stretching out legs and humming a baseball tune.  But as far as metaphors go, it's really not a bad one, all things considered.  In God's own way, God took a little break. 

Now I could be over-thinking things here – it certainly wouldn't be the first time – but have you ever wondered why God needed to take a break?  I mean, that's not something an “omnipotent,” all-powerful God really needs to do, is it?  Besides the fact is that God was coming off a pretty successful run in the creating business, six pretty awesome days – so why stop?  To borrow a baseball image, why should you put down the ball when you're batting a thousand?

Makes you wonder whether God was really resting for God's benefit, or if it's more likely that God was resting for ours.  The cycle of work and rest; six days of labor and one day off, is built into the very DNA of the Bible.  There's that passage from Exodus that Mark read earlier, part of what we know as the Ten Commandments.  And that fourth commandment – the one that's often reduced to a one-liner that we think simply  instructs us to go to church – it actually says a whole lot more if we read on a bit:

Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work.  But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work.  For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; but rested the seventh day.

This notion of “sabbath” – a Hebrew word that literally means, “to rest from labors” – this is found throughout the scriptures, intricately woven into its very fabric.  When the Israelites are wandering in the desert for a generation, they are fed a day's supply of manna and quail – except on the sixth day, when they get a double dose to cover them for two.  The Leviticus code contains specific “do's” and “don't's” of holy sabbath for the practicing Jew, such as restrictions on what you can eat and drink or even how far you can walk.  When Jesus comes along he drives the religious authorities nuts by performing miracles on the Sabbath, apparently crossing the line in their minds between rest and work.

To say that the idea of sabbath has changed dramatically would be a huge understatement.  We Christians came along and moved our sabbath to Sunday in a nod to the day of Jesus' resurrection.  But this is just a cosmetic change.  The real change happened in more substantial ways.  For instance, we are prone to think of “sabbath” as just a few hours in church rather than an entire day of observance.  Sundays are no longer different from any other, as we use this day to frequent our offices, schedule soccer practices, mow the grass, open the store. 

We've even altered the way we understand “rest from our labors” in general. Somewhere along the line someone thought it'd be a good idea to create this incredibly contradictory thing called “working vacations.”  I'd like to get a hold of that guy.  Our beloved Blackberries and laptop computers keep us constantly connected, constantly expending ourselves.  We've even gotten to the point where we proudly display, like a badge of honor, the last time we took a vacation or mental health day, the number of hours we clocked in at the office this week, the amount of miles we put on the car running errands.

I imagine it was someone under circumstances like these who, in the depths of their exhaustion, at the height of their being “sabbath-deprived,” carved out just enough time and energy to put pen to paper and write these words:

O God, I seek you.
My soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

The psalmist was on to something, here wasn't he?  When we deny ourselves “sabbath” in its may forms, when we interrupt the normal cycle of work and rest that you and I were created for, we find ourselves in the wilderness with this person, seeking God, thirsting for God in a land where life-giving water is scarce.  And the thing is, we may not even realize we're doing this.  But in the depths of our soul, we know – we know that six days of work must be followed with that day of rest.  A seventh-inning stretch.

In a few weeks, as you know, you and I are going to embark on a seventh-inning stretch of sorts, a seventh day of rest.  And it's not by accident that the name given to this is similar to the Hebrew word “sabbath.”  Like the day that's set aside on God's calendar, a sabbatical is a chance for both pastor and congregation to engage in a period of rest together.  Except this “rest” is not simply doing nothing – it's not passive, it's active.  It's activity that refreshes and renews rather than wearing down; one that takes stock of the past so that the future can be imagined together. 

It's new, this idea of sabbatical, I know.  It's something I've never done before. Likewise, in its 152-year history, this church has never gone on a sabbatical with its pastor.  It's something new for both of us.  And, as sometimes happens with new things, apprehensions arise.  I'm heard a little talk about how this sabbatical is a precursor to me leaving or that I'm burned out or, as I heard most recently, I'm planning on launching a full-time music career.  Which, incidentally, would be news my wife!  None of these bear any resemblance to the truth, of course, but it's human nature to be apprehensive. 

In fact, to be honest, there's a bit of apprehension on my part as well.  See, so much of a pastor's self-identity – not just how they see themselves as a minister but how they see themselves as a human being – so much of that identity is tied up in the church.  In the work of the church, in the tasks of ministry, in the people pastors are called to serve.  So the thought of being apart from all that, which is such a large part of who I am, is a bit unsettling. 

But see, that's just one more reason why this sabbatical, this period of “holy rest” is something you and I can be excited about!  It's a chance we don't get much in life; a life that churns along mercilessly, non-stop in our “check-things-off-the-list,” running-from-point-A-to-point-B-and-C” kind of world. This sabbatical is an opportunity for you and me to step off the treadmill for a spell and think about why we love doing what we do together. 

And while we're doing that, it also happens to be a time for us to experience some pretty neat renewing activities!  I'm looking forward to seeing the look on my boys' faces when they set foot in Disney World for the very first time.  I'm looking forward to actually getting to sit with my family in worship somewhere!  I'm looking forward to listening to music in ways other than just sticking a CD in the car stereo on the way to some appointment.   And I'm equally excited about the renewing activities you'll be taking part of on your sabbatical – the privilege of listening to a wonderful preacher like Steve McCutchan every Sunday morning, concerts with Bryan McFarland and Melva Houston.  And together, you and I will read Marjorie Thompson's book on Christian spirituality, Soul Feast,  which you can pick up at no cost to you in the hallway on your way out of church today, one for each family.

So you and I have a lot of reasons to be excited about this period of mutual rest.  But you know something?  None of them are the best part of all of this – not even close!  That's because the best part about the seventh-inning stretch is the baseball that comes after it!  The great thing about God resting on the seventh day is that on the eighth day, and every day after that, God gets right back to work – creating, never-ending.

So may our sabbatical in the coming months be about graciously receiving the holy rest we need and deserve.  And may it also be about preparing us for the work in ministry that is to come after, the new ways that you and I will continue to help build the kingdom of God on earth right here, together, at the corner of Church and Main. We've got a lot of game left in us, folks.  So let's rest for a spell, and then let's play some ball!  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

LIFE AFTER THE HAND IS CAUGHT IN THE COOKIE JAR

Matthew 27:62-66, 28:11-15
Steve Lindsley
April 11, 2010

One of my favorite comedians is Bill Cosby.  Back when he had his own sitcom on NBC I used to tune in every Thursday night.  He also released a few comedy albums in his time.  One of them - Bill Cosby as Himself - I memorized verbatim.  In one memorable sketch Cosby is expounding on his theory, developed through years of parenting, that children in general are brain-damaged.  He arrives at this conclusion after one incident he refers to as the “cookie jar story.”

Now he and his wife had told their daughter, who was five at the time, that she was not allowed to have a cookie without Mom or Dad’s permission.  And under no circumstances was she to touch the cookie jar, which was located on the top of the kitchen counter.  So what, of course, does this five-year old do?  While Cosby is in the living room one day watching TV, his daughter pulls a kitchen chair next to the counter, stands on the chair, stretches out her arm, pulls the top off the cookie jar, reaches inside and grabs a large, scrumptious chocolate chip cookie.

Cosby, hearing the ruckus, enters the kitchen to find his youngest in the process of bringing this cookie to her mouth.  Stop!  He says.  With fire in his eyes – after all, they had mentioned so many times before, no cookies – he asks her what in the world she is doing.  To which she replies, with a performance worthy of an Oscar, “I was just getting a cookie for you, Daddy.”  Caught off-guard and slightly agitated, he tells her that he does not want the cookie.  To which his daughter quickly replies, “Well, then, can I have it?”

It's amazing, isn’t it, what a five-year old can think up when trying to wiggle out of a sticky situation?  And let’s be honest here – this skill is not limited to just children.  Call it whatever you want: self-preservation, self-defense, or simply brain damage, we all can be rather adept at damage-control when we’ve been caught with our hand in the cookie jar.

And in some ways I’m reminded of Bill Cosby’s story when I read our text today.  For three years the priests and Pharisees had not known what to do with this man Jesus because he challenged the very structure they had grown so comfortable with.  The institution of religion had become more important to them than the faith that burns in the human heart; and Jesus was threatening to them because he dared to actually live out that faith.  Remember earlier in Matthew when he said, I have come not to abolish the law but to fulfill it?  Jesus lived out the love of God at its deepest and most intimate level; and it threw the religious authorities' world upside down.

So they set into motion a plan that would bring about Jesus' demise.  It was an elaborate scheme that partnered them with the Roman Empire, an odd pairing to say the least.  You know the story.  They accuse Jesus of high treason, saying he had claimed himself to be king of the Jews.  Now, they know all too well the kind of king that Jesus is talking about – they know it has nothing to do with powers of the world.  And to be honest, that scares them all the more.

But they also know the Romans, and they know what would grab their attention.  Claims of being king and challenging Caesar could only be interpreted by the Romans as one thing: treason.  Rome is left with no other choice but to put him to death.  They do so on a Friday at noon.

And yet the chief priest and Pharisees know that this is not the end of the story.  They have heard the assertions Jesus made about him coming back from the dead, and they figure his disciples will do anything to further that claim – including stealing Jesus’ body once it's placed in the tomb.  After all, if a body can't be found there’s no way to refute the resurrection, is there?   So they go before Pilate and ask him to seal the tomb and station guards around it to prevent any chance that his body might be taken. 

Now we get to the good part. The sun rises on the third day and finds the tomb empty.  Word gets back to the religious leaders.  Their worst fears have come true – the plan they had tediously set in motion, the plan that could not fail, has now left them with a situation perhaps even more precarious.  They are faced with the reality that a resurrected Jesus – even if in theory only – could very well be more powerful than the pre-Easter Jesus ever was.  They are caught with their hand in the cookie jar!
So they summon the soldiers who had been guarding the tomb and offer them what scripture says is “a large sum of money.”  And it's kind of like that new Facebook group I've seen a lot of people joining these days – it's called, Ok, if we get caught, here's the story.  The story the Roman soldiers agree to tell if asked is this: that the disciples came while they were sleeping, rolled back the massive stone on the tomb, and walked away with the body of Jesus without waking the guards up.  The soldiers agree to this, even though they were essentially broadcasting to the world that they, mighty Roman soldiers, had fallen asleep on the job!  Nevertheless, the guards take the money and agree to the plan.

One biblical scholar observes that this situation involves “the height of irony, as (the religious leaders) now become the perpetrators of the very story that setting the guard and sealing the tomb were designed to prevent…”  And it didn’t come without a cost, either.  In fact, it wound up costing the priests and elders more to suppress the resurrection than it did for them to engineer the crucifixion in the first place.  That’s the kind of thing that happens when you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar.

Now we, of course, have the luxury of being able to look back on this 2000 years after the fact.  And when we do, chances are we find ourselves shaking our heads and declaring that those priests should have come clean and confessed to their shenanigans.  After all, honesty is the best policy, right?  And history has proven that those in positions of power who try to hide their indiscretions usually suffer more damage in the long run. 

But see, what we have to understand is that coming clean was not really an option the priests.  After all, we’re talking about a Hebrew people who, for a great part of their history, had lived under the oppression of some stronger nation: whether it was Babylon or Persia or now Rome.  Their faith spoke of a messiah who would come and save them – and no matter what persecutions they may have to put up with, nothing can take away that promise, that hope.  This man Jesus was the closest thing they’d had to that since the days of King David.  And if any room was left open for the possibility that Jesus is not dead and had come back to life, it would lend strong credence to the belief that he was in fact the Messiah.  The religious leaders knew this.  They knew all too well that hope, when it burns inside a human heart, cannot be easily extinguished.

So they really have no other choice but to continue down the path they had started on and continue their cover-up by repeating their story over and over again: Jesus did not come back from the dead. There is no resurrection.  That silly idea was concocted by people who wanted so desperately to believe in it that they took the body of a dead man from its final resting place. Jesus is not alive.  He is DEAD.  He will forever be dead.  That’s what they kept saying.

And our scripture today says this cover-up has been perpetuated down through the years and is still in many ways being conveyed today.  In fact, if we pay close attention, we can hear it whispered everywhere we go.  It is not hard to see the effects this cover-up has had on us and on the world in which we live.  It is not hard to recognize how we, like the religious leaders back then, have in effect denied ourselves the possibility of a true and lasting resurrection hope. 

I mean, look at us – we are a species who flies airplanes loaded with people into equally populated skyscrapers.  We are a people who pursue the almighty dollar at any cost, even when it means leaving the collapse of an entire world market and countless individuals in our wake.  We are a human race who divides ourselves into parties and makes it our primary agenda to berate the other with any method of fear-mongering and deceit we can conjure.  We live as if the hope of the resurrection is a distant memory; as if it never existed at all, as if the story those religious leaders told long ago to cover up their mistake is true.

And yet the reality of the empty tomb that Easter morning is that neither the fire of faith that burns within us, or the hope of new life, can be forever put out.  And it's not because we have eye-witness accounts in the Bible of those who saw Jesus after his death.  Even if that were some kind of “proof,” that’s not really what keeps the fires burning. 

The reason that the gospels' story takes precedence over the one the religious authorities tried to sell is because at the heart of the gospel lies a truth that goes beyond some “tale” that can be manipulated to serve one’s means.  It is much more than a legend shared around the family table and passed down from generation to generation.  Its significance transcends the holiday we celebrate once a year in March or April, coupled with Easter bunnies and chocolate, and then returning to our normal lives the very next day.

The story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is categorically different from a “wise tale” because it has a life of its own.  It has lungs that breathe and a heart that beats.  And no “trying to covering up the hand in the cookie jar” is going to change that.  The resurrection is bigger than one person – it is bigger than you and me, it’s bigger than the religious leaders back then who tried to cover it up; it’s bigger than the church universal today, it is even bigger than Jesus himself.  It is the culmination of God’s good work in our world, the redemption of Creation to the Creator.  It is the climactic point in a beautiful symphony; and for that reason it is not something that can be adapted or abridged or condensed into Reader’s Digest format.  And nothing can snuff it out.  Perhaps in a way, the priests and Pharisees knew this all along.  And if we look deep within ourselves, we know it too.

The challenge for us, friends, is that we are faced with this living reality every day of our lives – this Sunday after Easter, and the next Sunday, and the Sunday after that, and all the days in between and beyond.  We must face this reality every morning that we roll out of bed; go to school or jobs or run errands.  Every day as we celebrate the joy of life, sometimes mourn the loss of it, sometimes just cruise through the hours on automatic pilot.  Every day that we love and hate and cherish and stress.  And at the end of these days, we wind up back in bed, set to begin it all again tomorrow.  And lying there in that quiet, that still place between awake and slumber, we are aware, perhaps more than ever, of the finiteness of our existence, and the hope that wells eternal in our soul.

We do not need to buy into the mentality that is perpetuated by those whose hands are caught in the cookie jar.  We can proclaim with our voices and with our lives the truth that has always been made known to us: Jesus Christ lives.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.