A NEW CENTER

Every year I am taken by the fact that there are so many of us here on this morning - and there were so few of us here Friday evening by comparison.  So what is the deal with this? 
 
I believe it has a lot to do with the fact that we view Easter as a kind of annual festival of optimism.  I heard someone say on the radio this week that Easter is an "annual optimism festival."  But I have a concern about that.  In so thinking, we run the risk of divorcing Easter from Good Friday, splitting them apart and gutting them of their real power.  Easter and Good Friday are heads and tails of the same coin; inseparably linked. You can’t have one without the other.

How can I ever fully appreciate the truth of this Resurrection Day until I own up to the terrible reality it is my sin that nailed him to the cross and brought him to his death? It is my sins of commission and especially omission (the stuff I don’t do; the suffering I ignore; the clutching self-indulgence I hang onto) that allows a considerable amount of pain and injustice to continue in this world. 
 
I cannot appreciate the grace and forgiveness of the risen Lord until in the midst of his unspeakable agony I hear his unbelievable prayer to God his Father to not hold my sins against me.  It’s on Good Friday that we see God give the very best that God can give, in the face of the absolute worst of humanity’s deeds.

Today is not an optimism festival.  We are not celebrating that all is well in the world and all our dreams will be fulfilled.  I don’t know about you, but quite frankly I am not all that optimistic.  There is a lot to be bummed-out about.  I know people fighting diseases and issues of aging who are not going to get much better but only slowly get worse.  I know people for whom the clock of mortality is ticking so loudly it’s deafening, and the alarm of death is about ready to sound.  I experience a world that is teetering on the brink of oblivion with so many frightening and overwhelming issues: poverty, oppression, injustice, disease, conflict, war, hunger; nuclear proliferation; the list is frighteningly formidable.      

Perhaps a reason so many of us pass up Good Friday is because it appears to be the same old story; a painful reminder of how things are much of the time in the world:   

IT’S FRIDAY when we quote Murphy's Law as if it's the ultimate truth.
IT'S FRIDAY when suffering and injustice rule so many lives on the planet.
IT'S FRIDAY when the depressed and guilty think it will never get better.
IT'S FRIDAY when dreaded diseases don't disappear.
IT'S FRIDAY when death-beds keep their victims, and we grieve the loss of our greatest loves.
IT'S FRIDAY when people and nations are ruled by parochial, fear-filled attitudes.
IT'S FRIDAY when despair causes us to imagine that nothing more than oblivion waits for us all.

But on the other hand, “Good” Friday is not the same old story, for the truth of Good Friday is that God does not withhold himself from the world, but in Jesus Christ, God fully enters the world and takes into his soul the pain, injustice, pathos and sin of the world; and even takes death into his own sweet flesh.  The Good Friday message is that God leaves no stone unturned in God’s passionate effort to seek us out, and restore the relationship that has been fractured by our sin.

But when we left here Friday evening, Jesus was as dead as anyone has ever been.  He was laid in a tomb, and it was sealed shut. The disciples had scattered into hiding dragging their heavy hearts.  Their hopes, dreams and expectations of what might have been had turned to ashes. 

Like being drawn in to an inescapable gravity well, it’s impossible to escape the harsh realities of Friday.  “Friday-Events” characterize our life landscape like craters on the surface of the moon. And, of course the world has a huge investment in Friday.  Let's face it, power, fame and fortune are made by advancing Friday’s death-dealing agenda. 

When Mary came to the tomb that Sunday, it may as well have been Friday.  She came to lay the dead weight of her grief at death's door.  It's no wonder that even when Jesus was standing in front of her she didn't recognize him, mistaking him for the gardener!  She was “seeing” life through the spectacles of Friday's pain and grief!  It wasn’t until the risen Lord spoke her name, “Mary,” that she considered the possibility of a new day, and began to live her life with a new center.

Like Mary at that tomb so long ago we too, today in this very place and time,  are presented with the possibility of a new center around which to orient our lives; a new heart; the beating heart of our risen Lord Jesus Christ.  You see, that’s what this day is ultimately all about – a new center; a new core to our being and living!

It was a new center that made all the difference for those broken, defeated, and despairing disciples.  In my mind, it’s the only thing that can explain the radical change that came over them and the growth of the early Christian community. Nothing else explains it but their experience of the risen Lord and the new center that came with him.  Resurrection happened in the long shadow of Friday’s weeping and weariness, fear and confusion, despair and depression.  They went from being defeated to daring; grieving to gregarious; floundering to being filled with a new purpose and new commitment to which they were willing to give their lives. 

Jesus wasn’t raised from death so that the disciples could sit around and bask in some vague sense of comfortable optimism that everything was going to have a fairy tale ending.  Easter is not about optimism, but about resurrection.  Resurrection can only happen to dead things; dead dreams; dead people; dead disciples.  The resurrection of Jesus galvanized that despairing bunch of broken rag-tag people to selfless, loving and courageous action for the sake of the wider community and world.

In making Easter a festival of shallow optimism, we gut it of its real power.  Those early disciples knew all about suffering and injustice, they lived immersed in it, and would continue to experience it, but they also knew after encountering the risen Lord, they were called to fearlessly go into a suffering world and proclaim God’s kingdom of peace, reconciliation, and justice, and that God’s call required sacrifice and servant-hood on their part; sacrifice and servant-hood they were willing to give because fear, despair and death no longer occupied their center. They were liberated to serve at the cost of great personal sacrifice and hardship, enduring even the pain and suffering of their neighbors because that’s exactly what Jesus did – their crucified and risen Lord. 

Remember, it was the very same disciples who fearfully deserted him during his trial and crucifixion and who were now ready to willingly give their lives for their risen Lord.  The Lord was alive, and because he was, so were they, no matter what happened!   Above all, they knew that they needed to continually turn to the risen Lord to be filled again and again with deeper, stronger currents of his love, grace, strength, hope and courage to carry on in a death-dealing world. 

Today is not an optimism festival but a celebration of the good news that God didn’t allow the worst Friday in history to write the final chapter of Jesus’ life – or your life - or the life of this world.  It may in fact be Friday all week long for you and for our teetering world, and you may even end up on some kind of cross for Christ's sake, but in Christ God has gutted the absolute power of Friday's death-dealing agenda and given us a new reality, a new orientation, a new center from which to draw strength and live – the risen Lord Jesus Christ – who promises to lead us into a world of Friday’s empowered by a Resurrection Day hope that death no longer has the last word; that God’s love is ultimately stronger than hatred; that God’s kingdom of justice for the oppressed is alive; that reconciliation with God, neighbor and self is God’s highest intention for this teetering world; that forgiveness of sin and grace rules.   Now that is something to live for – and die for!   He is risen!