Easter

Job 19.23-27

I Corinthians 15.20-26

Present Perfect

Easter Day 2016

Christ is risen – Christ is risen indeed.

About once a week, my eighty-eight year old father will get into his car – even though his legs are a bit wobbly, he is an excellent driver – to make the drive from Old Lyme, Connecticut to Meriden, the city where I was born – to have a conversation with my mother.  He’ll talk to her about how his week’s been, some of the things he’s done around the house, maybe describe his daily constitutional through the park at the mouth of the Connecticut River, and he’ll tell her how much he misses her.  The trip from Old Lyme to Meriden’s Walnut Grove cemetery and back is between seventy and eighty miles, depending on the route he chooses to take – Dad is fond of the back roads, they’re the same back roads he used to bicycle as a young teen seventy-five years ago – and he’ll spend about thirty or forty minutes with her before he gets back in his car for the ride home.  For me, the ride to Walnut Grove is about a hundred fifty miles each way, and it’s a trip I’m going to make not long after we leave church today.   In the spirit of Easter, I can’t think of a better day to spend some time with my mom and remember that death does not and cannot keep us apart, but rather in many senses it brings us closer together.

Christ is risen – Christ is risen indeed.

However - if you’ve ever stood with me at a graveside service I’ve conducted, you’ve heard me talk about visiting loved ones after burial – the phrase we usually use is “paying our respects.”  We can do this in a lot of different places: we can pay our respects right out there, at Walnut Grove, or wherever the final resting place might be, but we don’t need to visit a cemetery to pay our respects.  You may find yourself looking out the kitchen window at the birds building their nests in spring; you might hear a familiar song on the radio; you may be reminded of a certain phrase, or a story; or you may find yourself saying or doing something exactly the way your mom or your dad or your spouse or your good friend did while they were still alive.  And if you’ve stood with me at graveside you’ve heard me say that these too are the appropriate times and the places to pay our respects; and in those moments we stop and offer a small prayer of thanksgiving to God for the life we knew and loved.

Christ is risen – Christ is risen indeed.

I hope you read the final entry from our Lenten devotional this morning.  Technically speaking of course, Lent was over yesterday, but I’m glad that the UCC’s Stillspeaking Writer’s Group decided to extend it to Easter Day, because Matt Fitzgerald’s essay is outstanding.  It begins, “Mary Magdalene stumbled through the dawn until “Christ is risen” destroyed her faith in the grave.  Mary heard it first, early in the morning.  Death had been defeated.  Not just Christ’s but, because of his, hers as well.”  She stumbled through the dawn until “Christ is risen” destroyed her faith in the grave.  What would it be like if our faith in the grave were destroyed?  What would we be like if we decided that death is not something to be afraid of, but rather just another fact of life?   “Death had been defeated;” Matt wrote, “[and] not just Christ’s but hers as well.”  And not just hers, but yours as well.  And not just yours, but mine as well.

Christ is risen – Christ is risen indeed.

Let me add quickly that I don’t mean to diminish death by any means.  The recent bombings in Brussels, in Ankara, in Mogadishu, in Istanbul, in Jakarta, in Paris and other cities around the world are horrific, and we pray this morning not only for those who were closest to the victims, but we are also bold to say and to pray enough!  As Jim Antal, Minister and President of the UCC’s Massachusetts Conference wrote in his blog this week, 

“We know that this week of tension will be resolved when the power of universal love is fully revealed.  But first there will be misunderstanding, stumbling, sacrifice, sorrow and grief…  And in a mystery beyond our understanding, as Holy Week unfolds, let us join our hearts with the victims… with the suffering refugees… with peace-loving people from every faith tradition, and with the least of these among us.”

As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

Christ is risen – Christ is risen indeed.

This is a curious use of grammar, isn’t it:  Christ is risen; rather archaic, actually.  Today we would be more likely to say, “Christ has risen,” or “Christ rose,” or as the creeds put it, “Christ was raised.”  But no, Christ is risen, the present perfect tense, a present verb with a past participle.  I still remember my seventh grade English teacher Mrs. Nadile, a true grammarian if ever there were one, telling us about the present perfect tense:  it indicates something that happened once in the past whose effects are still ongoing in the present.  Usually it takes the helping verb “to have” instead of “to be,” but in this instance it makes perfect sense:  Christ is risen:  something that happened once, 2000 years in the past, whose effects are still being felt today; and not just being felt, but shaping the way that our world is ordered as well as the way that you and I live today, how we make our choices, how we prioritize our time, how we apply our talent, and yes, how we invest our treasure.  Both grammatically and theologically, Christ is risen states an eternal truth that not only did he rise once all those years ago, but he remains risen to this day, and that risenness inflects and impacts you and me and everyone and everything in creation.

Christ is risen – Christ is risen indeed.

We know the effect the risen Jesus had on Mary Magdalene.  She received the news with a combination of fear and joy, which is why the first words out of the angel’s mouth were, “Don’t be afraid.”  Jesus said the same thing when Mary first saw him:  “Don’t be afraid.”  And her fear slowly melted into gladness as she brought the good news to the disciples.  We know the effect the risen Jesus had on Mary; what effect does he have on us?  If the good news of Easter, He is risen, is based on something that happened in the distant past whose ripples are still being felt today, those ripples don’t just occur over the course of history in general, but like Mary Magdalene and the disciples they have a direct impact on you and me in particular centuries after the fact.  What does the risen Christ change in you?  Has it eased your fears, like Mary?  Has it emboldened you to do good things, big good things?  Has it opened up your sense of generosity?  Has it awakened you to the abundance of life, the blessing of life?  Has it destroyed your faith in the grave?  Has it slowed you down, as you take a fresh opportunity to appreciate your surroundings, your family, your neighbors, your friends, and not just the people around you, but the trees, the skies, the sea?  And I make a point of using the word “you” instead of “we” because I can’t answer that question for you; you can only answer it for yourself.  For myself, I can say the risen Christ has reminded me there is no reason to be anxious about death.  The end of this life is not the end of eternity, it’s only a step along the way.  Because he is risen, death does not have the last word anymore; “the last enemy to be destroyed is death.”  And this is why I’m going to have a conversation with my mom later on today.  Because the resurrection of Jesus Christ has rendered the past determinative, the future guaranteed, and the present perfect.

Christ is risen – Christ is risen indeed.

Alleluia and Amen.  

Let us pray.