"Raised with Christ"

4/20/14 (Easter Sunday, Year A)
Sermon Text John 20:1-18; Colossians 3:1-4

Raised with Christ

     Today, we celebrate together.  We celebrate for a multitude of reasons - we celebrate because it is Easter.  We celebrate because we will be baptizing people into the family of God.  We celebrate because we are welcoming so many people into our specific church family through their baptism, confirmation, transfer, and profession of faith.  And we celebrate because as one, holy, universal church we affirm together that wonderful news proclaimed throughout the centuries - “He is Risen!”
    

     It’s a wonderful time in the church year - many of us have spent the last six weeks in Lent, having given up one thing or another.  Today, that time of fasting comes to a close as we celebrate the Resurrection: for those of you who have given up chocolate, I hope you’ve already taken the time this morning to devour a bunny or two from your Easter basket.  Our confirmation class has spent the season of Lent learning about what it means to be Christians, to be Presbyterians, and to be members of this church in particular.  Today, they “graduate,” in a sense, completing the class and becoming members of the church.
    

     It’s easy to think of these things as “endings” - the season of Lent is over; our fasting is over; our class is over.  In some ways, these are endings - but as Lent comes to an end, as our season of preparation and study comes to a close, we also do well to take the time and reflect on what these seasons all bring us toward.
    

     Jesus’ followers had thought that Good Friday was the end - they’d seen Jesus breathe his last.  Joseph of Arimathea had given his own tomb for Jesus to be laid to rest, and they’d watched as the stone was rolled in front of it, their teacher’s lifeless body sealed inside.  And so that Sunday morning, as Mary Magdalene came to the tomb, still mourning, still reeling in shock at Jesus’ death, possibly come to ask that the stone be rolled away so that she could put more ointments and perfumes upon Jesus’ body to ward off the smell of the grave.  It was over - he’d come into the world like a shooting star, snuffed out by his own people for the things he’d said, those beautiful wonderful things he’d said.  She’d came to say goodbye, to pray for him, to spend some time on her own simply grieving the loss of her teacher, her Rabbi.  The disciples had thought it was over, too - they’d scattered in fear, fleeing from the Romans and the Jewish authorities who had put Jesus on trial for fear that they would be the next to hang upon Golgotha’s gory heights.  Peter, James, and John had gone back to their nets; they didn’t know what else to do now that their teacher and leader was gone and they were left to hide.
    

     It seemed as if it was all over - there would be no more miracles, no more healings, no more teachings and encouragement spoken with the wisdom of prophets and angels.  They were each and every one of them lost - and so Mary went to the tomb.  But as she reached the tomb and saw it was empty, as she looks with horror and confusion at the place where Jesus is supposed to be lying dead, even as she runs back to get Peter and John and they race to the tomb to see it sitting empty with the burial cloth neatly folded and laid aside…
    

     They didn’t realize that it wasn’t over - they thought that this was yet one more travesty, one more horrible thing being done to Jesus.  But then John realized.  And he believed.  And then Mary saw Jesus, he opened her eyes, and she stood amazed that he was risen from the dead.  It wasn’t the end - no, it was just another beginning.  Jesus’ death and resurrection are the hinge upon which the entire Christian faith sits, swinging between the already and the not yet.  And from this miraculous, unbelievable beginning, the mission of the church takes off as the women and the disciples gather before their risen Lord, hear his new instructions, and proclaim the glorious news across the world: “He is Risen.”
    

     And this is the same news that we proclaim today - the same new beginning that we celebrate every Easter and every Sunday throughout the year.  As we are baptized, we feel like we have come to an ending of sorts - and we have.  We have died to ourselves, to everything that we were before, to all our sin, all our shame, all the things that separate us from God and from God’s love.  And as we are washed by the waters of baptism, rising up out of those waters and taking our first new breath, we are raised with Christ into a new beginning, a new life in which we are marked as children of God and entrusted with the same mission and calling that the first disciples were given.
    

     And so we go, filled with fear, with wonder, with amazement and with joy, as we proclaim so that all the world may hear: He is Risen.  To God be the Glory.  Alleluia!  Amen.