Hello,
Since last week I posted my Good Friday message, I figured that I should post my Easter message this week. After all, can’t leave you hanging on Good Friday…..when Easter has come!
Luke 24:1-12
Easter 2019
I can imagine this happening. I can imagine a bunch of exhausted, out of breath women bursting into a secluded room, and saying, “You won’t believe what we just saw. Notre Dame is burning down.”
And everyone in the room responds with the same words, “O come on. You’re kidding. You know this isn’t something to joke about.”
“No, really. Notre Dame is burning down. We saw it with our own eyes.”
Finally, someone brave enough to be made the fool to believe such a unbelievable story says, “Ok, you guys wait here. I’ll go see what’s going on.” And so he goes outside, hops in a cab, makes his way to the island in the middle of Paris where they had seen Notre Dame standing, and when the cab turned the final corner, he saw the flames shooting from the roof. His heart sank at what he saw, and he told the cabbie in despair, “Take me home.”
Of course, I wasn’t there, and neither were you, but I bet that when Peter went home after witnessing with his own eyes what some exhausted out of breath women had told him...that when they got to Jesus’ tomb, the stone had been rolled away, and that it was empty, when suddenly two glistening men…must have been angels….said to us, “Why are you looking for the living among the dead. Jesus is not here. He is risen. And when he saw himself that empty tomb and the graveclothes lying by themselves….I bet he didn’t say, “Take me home.” (Despairingly) I bet he said, had there been a cabbie to say it to, “Take me home!” (Enthusiastically)
As I watched the news reports of the burning of Notre Dame, over and over again the commentators were saying how tragic this burning was…
· .it was the burning of a place where thousands and thousands of people had come for strength and peace,
· it was the burning of a place that was the emblem of the finest artwork and architecture in history,
· it was a place that had been an anchor through wars, and revolts, and disasters…
· it was the burning of one of the most valuable things humans have ever made..
· .and there it was engulfed in ravenous flames.
I have been to Notre Dame, and I agree with all those commentators. It is an amazing work of human talent and skill. My heart sank as I saw it burning. Sure, they say it will be rebuilt…maybe even rebuilt to its old glory…but even when it is rebuilt it, as we have seen with our own eyes, like all things human made, it will still stand dangerously on a cliff of potential destruction and ruin.
But here’s the thing about what those Easter women and Peter witnessed on that first Easter day, and that is the things that God makes and that God values..his finest handiwork …they do not stand on a cliff of destruction and ruin. God will not let that happen.
What could be finer divine handiwork than Jesus. Compared to the artistry and wonderment of Jesus, the Son of God, Notre Dame doesn’t even compare. And although humans, who had seen their finest handiwork destroyed by flame and fire, thought they could destroy and ruin this one who embodied divine beauty by hanging him on a cross and sealing him in a tomb, they found out otherwise. God isn’t about to let the finest of his handiwork be destroyed and ruined.
Though people hung Jesus on a cross, though people stabbed him with a spear in the side, though people saw him breath his last and hang his head in death, though people laid him in a rock hewn tomb, though people sealed that tomb with a huge bolder, God did not hang his head in despair…no, God rolled away that stone….God opened that tomb….God breathed life into that lifeless and decaying body…and Jesus walked out of that tomb…not just fixed and repaired….but with life so strong and mighty that not even death could take it away.
And this is God’s promise to us on this Easter morning; that which God has done for his Son, Jesus, he will also do for all his sons and daughters, for you and for me upon whom God has staked his claim and name, who God says are the apple of his eye, the pride of his handiwork.
· So, though your life may be wrought with struggles and pain,
· though the world may throw embers of guilt and shame upon you,
· and though death will one day take hold of you with a smothering grip …
God is not about to watch you go up in smoke. When you are brought to your knees, when your lungs fill no more with air, when the cover of the casket slams down with the super seal of death….God will do for you and me what he did for Jesus…he will pry open that tomb as if it were a paper bag, he will gather the dust of your life and breath new life into it, he will stand you up on legs that will never lose their strength again, and he will ignite a beat in your heart that beats with eternity.
That first Easter was God’s megaphonic pronouncement into all time and space: God is not about to let his handiwork go up in smoke. And today that decree echoes again in this place. When it comes to that what God values and treasures the most, his sons and daughter, you and I, God he will use everything in his power, and that is certainly power enough, to preserve it forever. And when that happens, when that day comes, you and I will say to God in a tone quite the opposite from that Paris cab rider watching Notre Dame go up in flames, we will say, “Take me home!” (Exuberantly!!!!!)
Christ is Risen. Alleluia.
He is risen indeed. Alleluia.
AMEN
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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