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Easter Enough For All Ah-- the Easter Sermon. How can I compete with mere words with the music, with the spectacle, with the beauty, with the glorious feast for the eyes and ears that is Easter worship. How can I compete with those wonderful words of Scripture: “He is not here, for he is risen as he had said.” How can I compete with angels, and empty tombs, and quaking guards, and Alleluia’s and pipes and choirs? I cannot. Words will finally fail me. To convey to you the sense of wonderment of this day. I have no clever turns of phrase. I offer no humorous illustrations. I will not muster a snappy twist at the end. For you see....Easter isn’t about words. It isn’t something, finally, to be understood here (points to head) Easter is somewhere here (heart) or even here, (gut). Easter is the moment we get caught up to the point that we catch just a glimpse, just a distant echo of the incomprehensible thing we call resurrection. Victory over death. Oh—death! Now, death is something we understand. It surrounds us. In all sorts of ways. People who have meant the world to us that we have lost, or, are losing. Sooner or later we come to grips with our own mortality and the “little” moments of dying we all experience. Thinning hair, sagging skin, aching joints and various pains that remind us that each morning is the opportunity to die some more. Death is something we know. The death of relationships, the death of dreams, the death of roles. The loss of being necessary to someone. The death of being needed. We are part of death and death is part of us. We may not like to think about it, but we know it. We understand it. It is concrete. It is real. It is frightening. We fight it, we rage against it, finally we succumb to it. It is the way the world works. Dealing death. Loss. Pain. And it captures and entombs us. Where we are trapped behind the heavy stone of those things that weigh heavy, so heavy, we cannot ever hope to roll them away. Family problems. Violence. Abuse. Addictions. Broken bodies. Poverty. Job loss. Broken relationships. Aloneness. Abandonment. All and then some, rolled into place, blocking the way out. No way out. Yeah, we understand death. The concrete, everyday experience of death and entrapment, and the dark tomb we find ourselves in. Death is so real, so here, that we need something unimaginable to break free. There once was a pastor in a small New England town. On Easter Sunday, he came to the Church carrying a rusty, bent, old bird cage, and set it by the pulpit. Then he began to speak, telling how he was walking through town yesterday when he saw a young boy coming toward me swinging this bird cage. On the bottom of the cage were three little wild birds, shivering with cold and fright. The pastor stopped the boy and asked him, " What you got there son?" "Just some old birds," came the reply. "What are you gonna do with them?" the pastor asked. "Take 'em home and have fun with 'em," he answered. "I'm gonna tease 'em and pull out their feathers to make 'em fight. I'm gonna have a real good time." "But you'll get tired of those birds sooner or later. What will you do then?" "Oh, I got some cats," said the little boy. "They like birds. I'll take 'em to them." The pastor was silent for a moment. "How much do you want for those birds, son?" "Huh? Why, you don't want them birds, mister. They're just plain old field birds. They don't sing and they ain't even pretty!" "How much?" the pastor asked again. The boy sized up the pastor as if he were crazy and said, "$10." The pastor reached in his pocket and took out a ten-dollar bill. He placed it in the boy's hand, and said, “done.” In a flash, the boy was gone. The pastor then told how he picked up the cage and gently carried it to the end of the alley where there was a tree and a grassy spot. Setting the cage down, he opened the door, and by softly tapping the bars persuaded the birds out, setting them free. Well, that explained the empty birdcage on the pulpit. Then the pastor began another story: "One day Satan and Jesus were having a conversation. Satan had just come from the earth, and he was gloating and boasting. "Yes, sir, I just caught the world full of people down there. Set me a trap, used bait I knew they couldn't resist. Got 'em all!" "What are you going to do with them?" Jesus asked. Satan replied, "Oh, I'm gonna have fun! I'm gonna teach them how to hate and abuse each other, how to steal and hurt themselves with drink and drugs. I'm gonna teach them how to turn everything into a commodity, even sex and relationships. They’ll invent guns and bombs and take up war with each other. I'm really gonna have fun!" "And what will you do when you get done with them?" Jesus asked. "Oh, I'll kill 'em," Satan glared proudly. "How much do you want for them?" Jesus asked. “Why would you want these people?” Satan asked. “They ain't no good. Why, you'll take them and they'll just hate you. They'll spit on you, curse you and kill you!! You don't want these people!!” "How much?" Jesus asked again. Satan sized up Jesus, and sneered, "Alright. I want it all. All your tears, and all your blood." Jesus looked at him, drew his arms wide in surrender, and said, "done.” And with that, Jesus paid the price. Not for one. Not for the good ones. Not for the best ones. Not for the pretty ones. But for all. Jesus death—a sacrifice made that we might escape. And Jesus’ resurrection, that we might believe! That we might truly believe the truth that the lilies and the butterflies and the candles and the anthems and the pipes and the hymns all proclaim--God makes a way out of no way! For Easter, this unfathomable, incomprehensible thing we call Easter, reminds us that with God, there is always a way out! The stone will never be big enough, the rock will never be heavy enough, the guard posted will never be strong enough, that God cannot move it away! Not just today, but tomorrow. And the day after that. For as many and as varied as the deaths we experience, so too are the amazing ways God rolls away the stone to let us walk free. Until, each new day is not just a day to experience the reality of death, but each new day becomes the opportunity to experience the reality of resurrection.” Are there words enough to say all that? I doubt it. But . . . there is Easter enough. There is Easter enough for all! There IS Easter enough.
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