Luke 24:1-12

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking with them the spices they had prepared. They saw the stone rolled away from the entrance to the tomb, but when they went in, they did not see the body.

While they were perplexed about this, suddenly there appeared before them two men, in dazzling white. The women were terrified and they bowed their faces to the ground. But the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, he has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must suffer at the hands of sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day, rise again.” Then they remembered his words and they left the tomb and told all of this to the eleven and all the rest.

Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James who told this to the disciples. But their words seemed to them and idle tale and they didn’t believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb. Stooping and looking inside, he saw the linen cloths lying there. And he went home, amazed at what had happened.

As usual, I’ve been stewing about an Easter Sunday sermon or a few weeks now, wondering what new, different, noteworthy thing could be said about the Good News of it all, again, this year. I’ve been noodling this version of the story from Luke 24 around for days, wondering what word or turn of phrase would get my attention and be meaningful and have something to say for us. Words like “perplexed,” “dazzling white,” “terrified,” “amazed,” all have emotions and images attached to them that gave me some possibility, for sure. But, I imagine academic, exegetical, theological treatises and sermons and volumes have been written and preached and taught about all of that ad nauseam over the years. So, I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired to add to it.

And then I remembered something. If you were here last week for the 10:45 a.m. Children’s Sermon, with “The Box,” you might have noticed. Kyle Stamper had loaded “The Box” with super-heroes – Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America, and Wolverine, to be specific. And it made a nice children’s sermon, I thought, about how Jesus is the real, surprising super hero in all of this, Lenten/Easter stuff, because he’s weak, not strong; he’s humble, not proud; he’s gentle, not mighty. In other words, Jesus’ superpowers aren’t anything comic books would consider powerful or mighty or worthwhile, in any way, really.

And as I was doing my best to share all of that with the kids during the Children’s Sermon last week, Kyle kept interrupting me and talking over me and adding his own two cents in the cutest, most profound and persistent way. He just kept saying, “but guess what…” “but guess what…” “but guess what…” (It’s much cuter when Kyle says it.)

And I decided, in some ways, there’s nothing more or less than that to Easter’s good news.

“BUT, on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb.”

If you didn’t catch it the first time around, that’s how our Easter Gospel begins for today…that little three-letter word…and that’s how Easter’s Good News is always supposed to sound for us. “BUT, on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb.” And guess what…

See, that little three-letter word matters, because just before what we heard this morning some horrible things had happened, right?

Jesus was betrayed. Jesus was arrested. Jesus was denied by his friends. He was whipped and crowned with thorns and spit upon and pierced and crucified and left for dead on the cross. Jesus was wrapped in linen grave clothes and buried in some stranger’s tomb. The disciples were likely in hiding, afraid for their lives. The women left him in that tomb and went home to rest on the Sabbath, because that’s what good, faithful Jewish women were supposed to do, even in their grief.

“BUT, on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb.” And guess what?

This is the good news of Easter, people: “But, guess what…?” “But, guess what…?” “But, guess what…?”

There’s been another terrorist attack in Belgium. Dozens have died. Hundreds are injured. BUT… on the first day of the week…they went to the tomb. And guess what?

Our country is confused and confounded about who our next President should or should not be. It seems at least half of us are going to be disappointed, no matter which way this all goes. BUT…on the first day of the week…they went to the tomb. And guess what?

He still can’t find a job… her relationship is failing…the cancer won’t go away… … the addiction seems to be winning…they lost the baby. But, guess what…? But, guess what…? But, guess what…?

Now, don’t get me wrong. None of this is that easy. I don’t mean to minimize or simplify or pretend that the struggles of our daily lives and the fears that keep us up at night can or should be dismissed with a simple “but…” because we all know things are never that easy.

But, guess what? It’s always been that way. And that’s been faith’s story and God’s promise and humanity’s hope, since the beginning of time.

The story of Adam and Eve tells us they were banished from the garden, but guess what? God wouldn’t lock them out forever. The flood happened in the days of Noah, and all hell broke loose, but guess what? God promised never to let that happen again. The chosen ones wandered in the wilderness for a really long time, but guess what? God fed them and led them and showed them a way home. And then there was Jesus – again crucified and left for dead – but guess what? He wasn’t/he isn’t in the tomb any longer, and we don’t have to be either.

God’s good news for us at Easter is as persistent and as earnest as a child’s best intentions: “But, guess what?”

It’s not trite. It is the Truth.

In response to our darkest days, our greatest fears, our deepest misgivings, our loneliest moments, our ugliest sins, our most profound failures – and we all have them – we are invited to show up at the empty tomb and hear God say, “But, guess what…?”

Guess what…none of that is here – not the darkness any longer, not the fear, not the sins, not the failure. Guess what? It’s been obliterated, forgiven, undone, raised – as far as God’s concerned – and it doesn’t need to hold sway over your life anymore.

So let’s consider Good Friday’s cross in the light of this new day. Let’s remember or see there all the ugliness that was heaped upon God’s very own self, in Jesus. Let’s acknowledge the sadness and shame of whatever that means for each of us – and let’s acknowledge the death – literal and figurative – that it leads to for all of us. And let’s be as surprised and as amazed and as filled with joy as those women, and as Peter, and as the first disciples, too, once they finally received the news: because guess what… God always wins. Love always wins. Light and life and forgiveness and mercy and second chances always win, in Jesus Christ our Lord, crucified and risen for the sake of the world.

Amen. Alleluia. Happy Easter.

John 17:6-19

[Jesus prayed,] "I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.

"Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth."

I wonder if any of you saw the recent article about the state of Christianity and the Church in the United States that’s been making its way around the internet this week? I shared it on Twitter and Facebook yesterday, hoping maybe it might prime the pump of your preparation for worship today.

First of all, the title of the thing is, “Millenials Leaving Church in Droves, Study Says” and the article goes on to site statistic after statistic about the sad, struggling, dire, dying state of the Church in our self-proclaimed “Christian” nation. Statistics like:

+ The percentage of people who identify themselves as Christian has dropped 8% since just 2007.

+ More than 1/3 of Milliennials, those born between 1990 – 1996, according to the study, are unaffiliated with any faith, up 10% since 2007.

+ Which means there are more adults unaffiliated with a faith community (about 23% of the population) than there are Catholics and also more than there are who call themselves Protestants, like you and me.

+ And also, while 85% of people born between 1928 – 1945 call/called themselves Christians, only 56% of that millennial demographic does the same.

(You can read the whole CNN article HERE.)

And this is all hard to read, for several reasons. First of all, it’s not all that new. If you live like many of you and I live from one day to the next – connected to The Church, such as it is – and if you’ve been paying attention you can see, without the surveys and statistics – that things have changed in terms of the power and presence of a connection to the Church in the lives of young people. (I don’t have a survey to back it up, but 99% of my closest friends throughout high school and college were never connected to a faith community – Christian, Jewish, Muslim or otherwise.)

Another reason news like this is hard to hear is that – just by virtue of good journalism and pure scientific research – these reports are necessarily offered up by objective, third party sources. In other words, I always feel like someone outside of the fold is pointing fingers and casting judgment – even if they are just reporting the news. You know how you can say all you want about your mom or your dad or your siblings – or your crazy Aunt Sally – but as soon as someone else adds their two cents of criticism or judgment, you’ll defend the honor of your loved ones to the point of death? I think that’s our inclination sometimes when we get the impression that outsiders are criticizing the Church.

And another reason this news about the decline of the Church was hard to hear, again this week – especially as it relates to young people – is because I knew we were set to affirm the baptisms of four of our young people today as part of worship. And I genuinely wonder and worry if they know full-well what they’re committing to today. (…any more than I did way back in 1980-something, when I made my own confirmation, before effectively checking out of my connection to the Church in any real, meaningful way for too many years.) If you believe the statistics, the odds of Mitchell or Annelise or Dane or Macey honoring the commitment they’ll make today – to continue their lives as part of the Church – aren’t great, or even likely. And that’s discouraging.

But then I read, again and again, Jesus’ prayer from John’s Gospel, and it reminded me of what this Christian walk is really supposed to be about for believers. I think the movement of God’s love and grace and mercy in the world, has always been most inspiring and most compelling when it is revealed in small, humble, intimate, ways. Whether it was a baby in a manger, the healing of a leper, the forgiveness of a woman, the turning over of the tables in the temple, or that crucifixion at Calvary, the movement of God’s love and grace and mercy has always been a movement by and for the outsider and the minority. It has always been unpopular and out of the ordinary and counter-cultural and against the grain and downright rebellious in the face of the world around it. And when it’s not those things, I wonder if maybe we aren’t suppose to question its motives and mission in hard and holy ways.

So…I read another great article this week, one written in response to the statistics, that pointed out that while some Christians pine for the heyday of the church – like the window of time from the 1940’s to the 1960’s, for instance, when anywhere from 91% to a whopping 93% of Americans identified themselves as Christian – they might just be fooling themselves or delusional about what that really meant for the state of things in the Church or our country or out there in the world, for that matter.

After all, those were the same days, remember, when, among other things, black people couldn’t vote or sit in the front of the bus; gay and lesbian people couldn’t be gay or lesbian people, let alone feel like faithful Christians, in any official, open, faithful way in the eyes of the Church; and of course, women couldn’t lead in most realms of the professional world, let alone serve as Pastors in the Church.

(You can read this article, from SOJO.net HERE.)

So, I guess the news is grim for the Church, if you look at the statistics from just one perspective – and if the success of Christianity is measured like an adolescent popularity contest. But believing in and following Jesus isn’t supposed to be about the numbers. It’s supposed to be about Good News in the face of bad; new life in the face of death; second chances; resurrection; radical grace; faithful risk; abundant mercy; amazing love. It’s supposed to be about the last being first; faith the size of a mustard seed moving mountains; losing your life in order to save it.

And not everyone is attracted to that. Not everyone’s up to the challenge of that. Not everyone sees the power in that. So this Good News, which God means to be for everyone, isn’t always going to be shared or received by the masses.

That’s why Jesus was praying like he prayed today, for his disciples. Jesus was “… not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of” the small number who’d followed him – which had dwindled to eleven or so at the time. He asked for their protection and that they might be bound together – unified as one – for their life and work, presumably because their lives and their work would be hard, and because they were going to need all the help they could get. Jesus knew that not being “of the world,” that being over and against the world, even – all of this loving the enemy and welcoming the stranger; forgiving without limits and caring for the least; of being and standing up for the underdog, was hard, holy work and not for the faint of heart.

The cool thing about the Christian life as I see it, isn’t that we have the most members in our congregations; or the most butts in the seats on Sunday morning; or the most popular stance on this or that issue. The cool, compelling, fun and faithful, challenging thing about the Christian life is that we are called to be rebels for the sake of God’s grace in the world – sharing it radically in ways that are hard for some people to swallow or to play along with, even.

So Jesus’ prayer for that first handful of disciples we just heard, is something like my prayer for our handful of confirmands – and for all of us doing our best to walk this walk of faith in a world that thinks we might just be a little bit crazy, or out of touch, or out of date, or outnumbered, or whatever.

The prayer is that we be united and emboldened in our effort to receive and to share God’s love without reservation; that that love be poured out in ways and for others that will surprise them – whether they’re part of what we’re up to or not – and that we’ll rest assured, not in success as the world measures it. But but that we’ll rest assured in God’s kind of victory that loves sinners and welcomes outcasts, with radical grace; God’s kind of victory that lifts up the lowly and comforts the untouchable with amazing love; God’s kind of victory that is more generous than seems rational or wise, sometimes; and God’s kind of victory that creates something out of nothing, that shines light in the darkness, that finds what is lost, and that rises from the dead.

Amen

"But, Guess What?" - Luke 24:1-12

"The Stats and the State the Church" – John 17:6-19