“It's a Brand-New Day”
John 20:1-18
April 16, 2017
Mark S. Bollwinkel
My
hunch is that everyone in this room this morning has some kind of list of
things they would like to change about their lives; lose weight, make new
friends, do better at school, find a new job, pay off the credit cards...the
list is long, I would imagine for every one of us. Yet for all of the energy we put to thinking
about needed changes, how many of us can actually follow through?
A pastor friend of mine once shared
this illustration at a clergy meeting:
"Roughly
600,000 people have heart bypasses a year in America. These people are told after their bypasses
that they must change their lifestyle.
The heart bypass is a temporary fix.
They must change their diet. They
must quit smoking and drinking. They
must exercise and reduce stress. In
essence, the doctors say, "Change or die." You would think that a near-death experience
would forever grab the attention of the patients. You would think they would
vote for change. You would think the
argument for change is so compelling that the patients would make the
appropriate lifestyle alterations. Sadly
that is not the case. Ninety percent of
the heart patients do not change. They
remain the same, living the status quo. Study after study indicates that two
years after heart surgery, the patients have not altered their behavior. Instead of making changes for life, they
choose death. "1
Change
is difficult.
Pastors
often hear the concern from parishioners that they are afraid of changes at
church. This is especially true in
worship. Add a new wrinkle to the order
of the liturgy, pastors wearing 'civilian' dress rather than clergy robes or
singing new hymns rather than the old, familiar ones and we'll get all sorts of
expressions of anxiety. The mere talk
of changing something in the sanctuary can keep people up at night!
I'll
never forget the tour Bonnie and I received of the parsonage at a new
assignment years ago by members of their Board of Trustees. The master bathroom was so small Bonnie and
I could not get in it at the same time.
When I went in to look at it, one of the Trustees blocked the door,
looked me in the eye and warned me "Whatever you do don't change the time
of the 10:30am worship service!"
Believe me I got the message...I wasn't going to leave that bathroom
until I calmed the anxiety of my new church member! What an unforgettable first impression!
A
scholar has suggested that at the heart of our fear of change is really our
fear of loss, the anticipated grief that what we have counted on and trusted
won't be there for us in the future.2 Even if our use of tobacco or alcohol or
compulsive overeating is bad for us, along with a physical addiction, it meets
a deep seeded need that would have to be met in some other non-apparent
way. Its absence would be a loss as
well as a huge adjustment.
No
wonder change is so hard.
Easter
season is a time when we ponder the possibilities of change. It’s a time when we embrace the potential of creative
transformation in our lives and in the world.
The Creator God of the Universe so loves us that God will share our life
and death with us. Knowing that love
cannot die, even in the face of brutal reality, we are freed from all that
holds us bound to the past brokenness that so often defines who we are and what
we might become. On Easter it’s a brand
new day!
That
a man rises from the dead to proclaim that love cannot die may be the biggest
"change" in history! There is
a "metamorphosis" (Matthew 17:2, Mark 9:2) in the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus. We think of the
chrysalis to butterfly, the seed to the flower, the birth of new life whether
chicks, lambs or babies as profound Easter metaphors for they illustrate the
possibilities of creative transformation.
That is not what Mary was looking
for when she came to the empty tomb on Easter morning. But that is what she found. Seeing the tomb empty was the last thing she
expected to find. She had come to finish
preparing the body for burial not to find the beginning to eternal life. She
must have been in shock as were the male disciples.
They had lived with Jesus for 3
years. They had seen the miracles, heard
his sermons. He had clearly said that he
would suffer and die in Jerusalem to be raised from the dead. But fear and doubt had taken over when the
soldiers came to arrest their Lord the night of their last supper. All but John and the women abandoned the
Master on the cross, running away to hide.
In our gospel’s version of Easter
morning, it is John, the beloved disciple, who is the first to run to the tomb
after hearing the women’s report. He
sticks his head in the tomb but doesn’t enter.
For him seeing is believing. The
slimmest evidence convinced him that the Master’s teaching of new life was
real. That was all John needed to come
to Easter faith.
For Peter, the empty tomb wasn’t
enough. For Peter, who entered the tomb
and examined the burial clothes, faith wouldn’t come until later. Not until the risen Jesus confronted Peter as
he fished on the Sea of Galilee. It
wasn’t until Jesus challenged Peter to “feed my sheep” (John 21:40-19) that the
fisherman believed. Peter, like so many others, didn’t know the risen Lord
until he went out to serve, until he went out to share his experience of this
Jesus with others. For many of us, we
will only find Easter faith when we make the commitment to “feed the sheep”.
Seeing isn’t always
believing. Mary doesn’t believe because
of the empty tomb, or conversations with angels or even a face-to-face
encounter with the risen Lord. Mary
couldn’t see through her tears. It is
not until she hears her name called that she finally believes. It was Jesus’ word that moved Mary beyond her
despair into Easter faith.
There isn’t only “one” way to
faith. Some of us will believe on the
basis of Jesus’ teaching. Some will find
the risen Lord through service and compassion for others. And for many it will not be until times of
despair and confusion overwhelm us, that we will hear our name called.
Mary and the disciples came to
the empty tomb to find out what to believe…to make sense out of the
turmoil in their community and within themselves. Are we really that different from them this
morning? Although we each come to faith
in a different manner, don’t we each confront the same conclusion?
The tomb is empty. Death cannot contain this Son of God. We keep running into him, in a garden, in a
boat, in a locked and darkened room.
This Jesus is alive and the world…our world…will never be the same
again. On Easter it’s a brand new
day. It’s a faith that can transform a life
forever.
Not too long ago, Perla Martinez
Goody was recognized as the “Child Advocate of the Year” for the state of
Oklahoma.3 She was selected to show
appreciation for what she does to “free women and children from abusive
situations, to support and strengthen the family and meet their fundamental
needs” according to the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy. Ann Salazar of the Institute said Ms. Goody
“goes where other people don’t want to go and does with passion what other
people don’t want to do.”
Ms. Goody grew up during the
1950’s in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in a poor and violent neighborhood. Her parents emigrated from Mexico. She was the 17th of 18 children,
eight of whom died before the age of five; “My father let alcohol get the best
of him. When he was drunk, he would beat
me and my mom and my siblings until the blood came. There were many times when I thought I
couldn’t get up off the floor….”
She was one of those kids who
looked forward to going to Sunday school and church each week but her father
didn’t want her to go.
“A van
from the Mennonite church used to come, and if my father was still out drinking
and playing poker, my mom would let them take us to church…but when my dad was
around, all of us hid and didn’t go to the door. One Sunday morning when I was about six, the
pastor knocked on the door while my father was whipping up on us. The pastor asked him, ‘Don’t you know your
children are a gift from God?’ That set
my father off and he beat the pastor up.
The next Sunday the pastor knocked on our door again…bruises were all
over his face. My father went to the
door. The pastor looked him in the eye
and said firmly but calmly, ‘Mr. Martinez, I’m here to teach your children
about Jesus Christ.’ He must have
gotten through to my father because soon after that he stopped drinking and was
sober for the next ten years.”3
As she grew up, left home and
married, she and her husband became members of the First United Methodist
church in Paul’s Valley, Oklahoma. There
she became a certified United Methodist Local Pastor and worked with the church
developing an outreach ministry to Hispanics in their community. Along
with preaching, Ms. Goody has developed an English-as-a-Second language program
at her church along with the Good News Medical Center which provides free health
care for people in need. She conducts
Twelve Step Programs for people addicted to alcohol and drugs and sponsors a
support group for spousal and child abuse victims. “Perla’s roots in God’s compassion and grace
are deeper than the hardships [she has faced in life]…she has love, faith and
hope” says her pastor.
A survivor of childhood abuse and
violence grows up to dedicate her life to serving those just like her. Somewhere along her journey Perla Martinez
Goody embraced change. Somewhere along
her journey she heard Jesus call her name.
Here in Carmel we have a lovely
children’s clothing store called “Heaven”.
In fact it’s just a few doors down from us on Lincoln Street. That’s right, our church is just a few doors
down from Heaven. Last year when the
City was repaving Lincoln Street but the sidewalks remained open, the store
owners placed a makeshift sign on the tree outside that read “Heaven is Still
Open!” Which made me feel great…there
might still be room for me!
The phone number at the store is
831-624-6550. The phone number at Church of the Wayfarer is
831-624-3550. It turns out that when I wrote the
salutation to my office email, along with name, title, mailing address, I mistakenly
recorded our phone number as 831-624-6550…the number of the store. A few weeks ago I learned that a number of
people who had been receiving my emails and had tried calling using that
number. The calls went like this;
“Hello, this is Heaven.” “Is Pastor Mark
there?” “No, he’s at that other place…”
On Easter we think of the theme
of Eternal Life and the promise of life after death. And well we should, it’s an essential part of
the story. But Easter isn’t only about
“getting into Heaven” In fact, the
gospels tells us in significant ways that we are called to live in the spirit
of that future promise right here and right now in this life. The love, peace and justice of the future is
available to us today and can shape and direct our living. That’s what it means to be “an Easter
People”. It’s not just about a
pie-in-the-sky salvation but about way of life that can redeem.
It's not just another day. And it’s not just another Easter. Now it is you and me who stand before the
empty tomb.
Some will believe upon
seeing. Some will find it through compassionate
service. Yet more of us will believe
only after the tears are all gone.
Resurrection begins by embracing
gratitude for each and every day. It
begins when we are embraced by the one who longs to call our name. And that truly is a brand new day.
Amen.
1 Simple Church, Thom S. Rainer & Eric Geiger, 2006, page 229,
footnote, Alan Deutschman, "Change or Die," Fast Company 94 (May
2005), pp. 54-62.
2 Ronald Heifetz, Leadership on the
Line, pp. 26–30
3“Hispanic Minister Practices
Wesleyan Principles”, Boyce Bowdon, Response, Feb. 2008, pp.33-35
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