Oops!
I just realized I never posted either my Easter Vigil or Easter Day sermons, so here you go!
Paul’s words to the Romans are a fairly well known passage. We hear it at every funeral, in a section aptly titled “Thanksgiving for Baptism”. But we don’t always hear it at baptisms. After all, in a tradition such as ours, where we offer baptism to infants, no one really wants to talk about death then. No new parent - indeed, no parent - wants to consider the death of their child at this, or any other, time.
But regardless of what we want to acknowledge, death is a part of life. Deep down, we know that eventually we will have to say goodbye to those people we love, because, after all, we’re human - we are not immortal. “Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes,” as my favorite songwriter says. And St. Augustine said, “It is as when a physician leans over a sick man’s bed and declares, ‘He is dying; he won’t get over this’, so on the first day of our life, one could look into our cradle and say, ‘He is dying; he won’t get over this”.
Now, I’m not trying to get us down. The birth of a new child is quite possibly one of the most joyous things I’ve ever observed. But from the moment we are born, we begin our path to what would be our final destination: death.
At least, it used to be. Again, we’re human, and there’s absolutely no way that we can avoid a physical death at the end of our life. But Paul is not talking about the physical death - Paul is talking about the spiritual death we experience in our baptism into Christ Jesus, baptism not into his life, but into his death.
William Willimon, a Methodist bishop and former Dean of the Chapel at Duke, relates the following story:
“I posed [a] question to a group of ordinary, every day laypeople in an ordinary Mississippi church. ‘Has anyone here had to die in order to be a Christian?’ Silence. Then they began to testify.
‘I thought that I couldn’t live in a world where black people were the same as white people. When segregation ended, I thought I would die. But I didn’t. I was reborn. My next-door neighbor, my best friend, is black. Something old had to die in me for something new to be born.’
“Another said, ‘I used to be terribly frightened to be alone by myself. When my husband went out of town on business, I either went with him or took the children and stayed with a neighbor. But the night that my eight-year-old child died of leukemia, I stopped being afraid.’
‘Forgive me,’ [Willimon] said, ‘but I don’t get the connection’.
‘You see,’ she explained, ‘once you’ve died, there is nothing left to fear, is there? When she died, I did too.’”
For these women, death was but a beginning. It is the same for us, who are freed from the power of death through one’s death and resurrection.
In our baptism, we are not released from the impending physical death that each one of us will encounter at some point in our lives. We are released from the power that Sin has over us, so that death does not have the final say, and we are united with the one who suffered death for us, ironically through our own death to self and rebirth in the light of Christ.
And the word translated as “united” is so much more than a joining with Christ. It is better to think of it as “grafted” - grafting onto the great family tree that has as its base God, the father and mother of us all. We are grafted through the death of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, whom God raised from the dead, to that tree, the tree of life.
Baptism is more than simply an initiation rite into the church. It is more than simply dribbling a few drops of water on a person’s head, or being fully immersed in a pool or river. As Martin Luther says in the Large Catechism, baptism is water infused with God’s Word: “God’s name is in it. And where God’s name is, there must also be life and salvation. Thus it is well described as a divine, blessed, fruitful, and gracious water, for it is through the Word that it receives the power to become the ‘washing of regeneration’.”
Baptism is the sign from God that we have been given a new identity, that we have been grafted onto God’s family tree. It is the opportunity to leave behind the old, sinful self, and walk in the newness of life that we receive through the death of Jesus Christ, into whose death we are baptized. And while baptism is a one-time event, it is not a one-time reality. We live our baptism every day of our lives. Every day we die to sin and rise a new man or woman in Christ. Every day God upholds the promise made to us in our baptism. Every day we are called to live out the promises that we make in our baptism.
In a few moments, we will stand here, in the presence of God and one another, and affirm our calling to live out those promises. Let us not look at our baptism as a one-time reality that took place long ago at the beginning of our lives. Let us embrace our baptismal promises, living in the assurance that God will always keep God’s promise to us as children of God.
Little Philip, born with Down’s syndrome, attended a third-grade Sunday school class with several eight-year-old boys and girls. Typical of that age, the children did not readily accept Philip with his differences. But because of a creative teacher, they began to care about Philip and accept him as part of the group.
The Sunday after Easter the teacher brought Leggs pantyhose containers, the kind that look like large eggs. Each child received one, and was told to go outside on that lovely spring day, find some symbol for new life, and put it in the egg-like container. Back in the classroom, they would share their new-life symbols, opening the containers one by one. After running about the church property in wild confusion, the students returned to the classroom and placed the containers on the table.
Surrounded by the children, the teacher began to open them. After each one, whether a flower, butterfly, or leaf, the class would ooh and ahh. Then one was opened revealing nothing inside. The children exclaimed, “That’s stupid. That’s not fair. Somebody didn’t do their assignment.”
Philip spoke up, “That’s mine.” “Philip, you don’t ever do things right!” the students retorted. “There’s nothing there!” “I did so do it,” Philip insisted, “I did do it. It’s empty. The tomb was empty!”
Sometimes all it takes is the words of a child to be able to express the meaning of this day. Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
Mary Magdalene and the “other Mary” believed, like most of us, that once a person dies, he or she remains dead. So on this day, they went to the tomb. Matthew doesn’t tell us why. Perhaps it was to be certain that they had really seen him die, that it wasn’t just some really bad dream. Perhaps they just wanted to “talk” to Jesus, and felt they could best do so when they were near his body.
But then extraordinary events happen. There is a great earthquake. An angel of the Lord descends from heaven, rolls back the stone, and sits on it. The guards are so frightened that they shake and “become like dead”.
The women must have been amazed to see an empty tomb, and frightened at the sight of the angel. But before they can become paralyzed or run away in fear, the angel speaks: “Do not be afraid”. The angel continues to explain that, Alleluia, Jesus is risen (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!) just as he said, and the women have been charged with the responsibility to go and tell others. They are not supposed to sit in astonishment, gawking at the empty tomb. They are not supposed to leave and keep quiet about what they have seen and heard. They are told to leave and spread the good news that, Alleluia, Jesus is risen (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!).
And that’s exactly what the women do. In the face of their “fear and great joy”, they listen to the message the angel has given them, and run to tell the disciples about the good news. But as they run on their way, suddenly Jesus appears to them. And the women who came to see the dead Jesus end up encountering the living Christ.
Jesus greets them, and they fall to his feet, worshiping him. Then Jesus gives them the message they are to deliver: “Tell my brothers to go to Galilee, there they will see me”.
What a statement from Jesus! After all he endured from the disciples - betrayal, denial, abandonment - he still calls them “brothers”. Despite all the hurt and sorrow they caused him, Jesus still considers them his brothers. The disciples may have done their best (or worst!) to distance themselves from Jesus, but that does not stop Jesus from continuing to draw them to himself.
Through these appearances, God shatters our perceptions of what should happen. The women should go to the tomb and find the dead body of Jesus lying there, inside a closed tomb. But they don’t. God calls women - who, at that time, could not even serve as a witness - to be the first witnesses to the resurrection. Not only that, but they also serve as agents of reconciliation, taking Jesus’ message to the disciples, and sharing with them the love of Christ that the women have experienced. So not only has the disciples’ attitude about death changed - there is life after death - but the attitude of people whom society called “the least” has been transformed.
Jesus promises the disciples that “they will see me”. But it is not only a promise to the disciples - it is Jesus’ promise to us. Despite our own failings, despite our own betrayal, denials, and abandonment of Jesus, Jesus makes the promise to us. Despite the fact that we may not seem “worthy”, Jesus still loves us, and opens his arms to us, promising us that we will see him.
We see Jesus every day throughout the world - in the beauty of the earth, in the faces of others. Because of Jesus’ resurrection, we live with the faith that one day, we will see Jesus face to face. We know that one day, we will join all the heavenly hosts in their eternal praising of God. There is great joy in that belief. In the meantime, we expect “to see God’s glory revealed through life and in the lives of people who place their trust in God, who was revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ” .
The women went to the tomb that day not expecting anything amazing to happen. The disciples did not expect Jesus to reappear to them after his death. After all, once a person is dead, he or she stays dead. But God pulled another of God’s cosmic jokes and said, “You thought you had it all figured out…but you didn’t. Gotcha!”.
God says the same thing to us. We think we know the outcome of a horrific event, but we don’t. We think there is no way new life can spring from the dead, but God shows us that we are wrong.
When I was down in Biloxi for disaster relief work after hurricane Katrina, we were told that we should take one day to tour the area and take in the destruction that had occurred. So on the Sunday that we were there, we went to church in the morning, and then started our tour.
We had already been there for a week, so we had become accustomed to seeing trees knocked down, building partially or fully destroyed, and foundations standing where homes once were. But to take the time to actually take it all in was different.
Two places in particular stand out to me. We stopped on the beach where a large Episcopalian church once stood. Much of the building had not survived the storm; the building had been gutted, and only the frame and one wall remained. On the one wall, which was the altar wall, hung a huge cross - a bit dirty from the storm, but otherwise undamaged.
Later that day, we were traveling through what used to be a neighborhood. Remnants of furniture, dishes, toys and clothing littered the street. Most haunting were the front door steps, which now led into nothing. But amidst all the destruction, we found a poster - undamaged - of Rosie the Riveter, with the statement, “We can do it!”.
With the hope of the life to come that we receive through Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, we say, “We can do it!”. We can do it with the love and support of the one who has given us new life through death. Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
Paul’s words to the Romans are a fairly well known passage. We hear it at every funeral, in a section aptly titled “Thanksgiving for Baptism”. But we don’t always hear it at baptisms. After all, in a tradition such as ours, where we offer baptism to infants, no one really wants to talk about death then. No new parent - indeed, no parent - wants to consider the death of their child at this, or any other, time.
But regardless of what we want to acknowledge, death is a part of life. Deep down, we know that eventually we will have to say goodbye to those people we love, because, after all, we’re human - we are not immortal. “Life is a series of hellos and goodbyes,” as my favorite songwriter says. And St. Augustine said, “It is as when a physician leans over a sick man’s bed and declares, ‘He is dying; he won’t get over this’, so on the first day of our life, one could look into our cradle and say, ‘He is dying; he won’t get over this”.
Now, I’m not trying to get us down. The birth of a new child is quite possibly one of the most joyous things I’ve ever observed. But from the moment we are born, we begin our path to what would be our final destination: death.
At least, it used to be. Again, we’re human, and there’s absolutely no way that we can avoid a physical death at the end of our life. But Paul is not talking about the physical death - Paul is talking about the spiritual death we experience in our baptism into Christ Jesus, baptism not into his life, but into his death.
William Willimon, a Methodist bishop and former Dean of the Chapel at Duke, relates the following story:
“I posed [a] question to a group of ordinary, every day laypeople in an ordinary Mississippi church. ‘Has anyone here had to die in order to be a Christian?’ Silence. Then they began to testify.
‘I thought that I couldn’t live in a world where black people were the same as white people. When segregation ended, I thought I would die. But I didn’t. I was reborn. My next-door neighbor, my best friend, is black. Something old had to die in me for something new to be born.’
“Another said, ‘I used to be terribly frightened to be alone by myself. When my husband went out of town on business, I either went with him or took the children and stayed with a neighbor. But the night that my eight-year-old child died of leukemia, I stopped being afraid.’
‘Forgive me,’ [Willimon] said, ‘but I don’t get the connection’.
‘You see,’ she explained, ‘once you’ve died, there is nothing left to fear, is there? When she died, I did too.’”
For these women, death was but a beginning. It is the same for us, who are freed from the power of death through one’s death and resurrection.
In our baptism, we are not released from the impending physical death that each one of us will encounter at some point in our lives. We are released from the power that Sin has over us, so that death does not have the final say, and we are united with the one who suffered death for us, ironically through our own death to self and rebirth in the light of Christ.
And the word translated as “united” is so much more than a joining with Christ. It is better to think of it as “grafted” - grafting onto the great family tree that has as its base God, the father and mother of us all. We are grafted through the death of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, whom God raised from the dead, to that tree, the tree of life.
Baptism is more than simply an initiation rite into the church. It is more than simply dribbling a few drops of water on a person’s head, or being fully immersed in a pool or river. As Martin Luther says in the Large Catechism, baptism is water infused with God’s Word: “God’s name is in it. And where God’s name is, there must also be life and salvation. Thus it is well described as a divine, blessed, fruitful, and gracious water, for it is through the Word that it receives the power to become the ‘washing of regeneration’.”
Baptism is the sign from God that we have been given a new identity, that we have been grafted onto God’s family tree. It is the opportunity to leave behind the old, sinful self, and walk in the newness of life that we receive through the death of Jesus Christ, into whose death we are baptized. And while baptism is a one-time event, it is not a one-time reality. We live our baptism every day of our lives. Every day we die to sin and rise a new man or woman in Christ. Every day God upholds the promise made to us in our baptism. Every day we are called to live out the promises that we make in our baptism.
In a few moments, we will stand here, in the presence of God and one another, and affirm our calling to live out those promises. Let us not look at our baptism as a one-time reality that took place long ago at the beginning of our lives. Let us embrace our baptismal promises, living in the assurance that God will always keep God’s promise to us as children of God.
Little Philip, born with Down’s syndrome, attended a third-grade Sunday school class with several eight-year-old boys and girls. Typical of that age, the children did not readily accept Philip with his differences. But because of a creative teacher, they began to care about Philip and accept him as part of the group.
The Sunday after Easter the teacher brought Leggs pantyhose containers, the kind that look like large eggs. Each child received one, and was told to go outside on that lovely spring day, find some symbol for new life, and put it in the egg-like container. Back in the classroom, they would share their new-life symbols, opening the containers one by one. After running about the church property in wild confusion, the students returned to the classroom and placed the containers on the table.
Surrounded by the children, the teacher began to open them. After each one, whether a flower, butterfly, or leaf, the class would ooh and ahh. Then one was opened revealing nothing inside. The children exclaimed, “That’s stupid. That’s not fair. Somebody didn’t do their assignment.”
Philip spoke up, “That’s mine.” “Philip, you don’t ever do things right!” the students retorted. “There’s nothing there!” “I did so do it,” Philip insisted, “I did do it. It’s empty. The tomb was empty!”
Sometimes all it takes is the words of a child to be able to express the meaning of this day. Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)
Mary Magdalene and the “other Mary” believed, like most of us, that once a person dies, he or she remains dead. So on this day, they went to the tomb. Matthew doesn’t tell us why. Perhaps it was to be certain that they had really seen him die, that it wasn’t just some really bad dream. Perhaps they just wanted to “talk” to Jesus, and felt they could best do so when they were near his body.
But then extraordinary events happen. There is a great earthquake. An angel of the Lord descends from heaven, rolls back the stone, and sits on it. The guards are so frightened that they shake and “become like dead”.
The women must have been amazed to see an empty tomb, and frightened at the sight of the angel. But before they can become paralyzed or run away in fear, the angel speaks: “Do not be afraid”. The angel continues to explain that, Alleluia, Jesus is risen (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!) just as he said, and the women have been charged with the responsibility to go and tell others. They are not supposed to sit in astonishment, gawking at the empty tomb. They are not supposed to leave and keep quiet about what they have seen and heard. They are told to leave and spread the good news that, Alleluia, Jesus is risen (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!).
And that’s exactly what the women do. In the face of their “fear and great joy”, they listen to the message the angel has given them, and run to tell the disciples about the good news. But as they run on their way, suddenly Jesus appears to them. And the women who came to see the dead Jesus end up encountering the living Christ.
Jesus greets them, and they fall to his feet, worshiping him. Then Jesus gives them the message they are to deliver: “Tell my brothers to go to Galilee, there they will see me”.
What a statement from Jesus! After all he endured from the disciples - betrayal, denial, abandonment - he still calls them “brothers”. Despite all the hurt and sorrow they caused him, Jesus still considers them his brothers. The disciples may have done their best (or worst!) to distance themselves from Jesus, but that does not stop Jesus from continuing to draw them to himself.
Through these appearances, God shatters our perceptions of what should happen. The women should go to the tomb and find the dead body of Jesus lying there, inside a closed tomb. But they don’t. God calls women - who, at that time, could not even serve as a witness - to be the first witnesses to the resurrection. Not only that, but they also serve as agents of reconciliation, taking Jesus’ message to the disciples, and sharing with them the love of Christ that the women have experienced. So not only has the disciples’ attitude about death changed - there is life after death - but the attitude of people whom society called “the least” has been transformed.
Jesus promises the disciples that “they will see me”. But it is not only a promise to the disciples - it is Jesus’ promise to us. Despite our own failings, despite our own betrayal, denials, and abandonment of Jesus, Jesus makes the promise to us. Despite the fact that we may not seem “worthy”, Jesus still loves us, and opens his arms to us, promising us that we will see him.
We see Jesus every day throughout the world - in the beauty of the earth, in the faces of others. Because of Jesus’ resurrection, we live with the faith that one day, we will see Jesus face to face. We know that one day, we will join all the heavenly hosts in their eternal praising of God. There is great joy in that belief. In the meantime, we expect “to see God’s glory revealed through life and in the lives of people who place their trust in God, who was revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ” .
The women went to the tomb that day not expecting anything amazing to happen. The disciples did not expect Jesus to reappear to them after his death. After all, once a person is dead, he or she stays dead. But God pulled another of God’s cosmic jokes and said, “You thought you had it all figured out…but you didn’t. Gotcha!”.
God says the same thing to us. We think we know the outcome of a horrific event, but we don’t. We think there is no way new life can spring from the dead, but God shows us that we are wrong.
When I was down in Biloxi for disaster relief work after hurricane Katrina, we were told that we should take one day to tour the area and take in the destruction that had occurred. So on the Sunday that we were there, we went to church in the morning, and then started our tour.
We had already been there for a week, so we had become accustomed to seeing trees knocked down, building partially or fully destroyed, and foundations standing where homes once were. But to take the time to actually take it all in was different.
Two places in particular stand out to me. We stopped on the beach where a large Episcopalian church once stood. Much of the building had not survived the storm; the building had been gutted, and only the frame and one wall remained. On the one wall, which was the altar wall, hung a huge cross - a bit dirty from the storm, but otherwise undamaged.
Later that day, we were traveling through what used to be a neighborhood. Remnants of furniture, dishes, toys and clothing littered the street. Most haunting were the front door steps, which now led into nothing. But amidst all the destruction, we found a poster - undamaged - of Rosie the Riveter, with the statement, “We can do it!”.
With the hope of the life to come that we receive through Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, we say, “We can do it!”. We can do it with the love and support of the one who has given us new life through death. Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed! Alleluia!)