Sermon for Easter Sunday

"Jesus said to her, 'Do not hold on to me…but go to my brothers and tell them…'"(John 20:17).

There have been several news stories this week touting "The Real Story" behind Easter. It seems that "Easter" comes the mythological German goddess of spring, Ostara. Like other Northern European gods, she went into hibernation in the winter, then returned in the spring, and brought with her the rebirth of life, fertile rabbits who laid eggs, or something like that.

When the Christian church evangelized Northern Europe, they grafted their feast of Resurrection onto the seasonal cycle of life and death. And so "Easter" and the Feast of the Resurrection coexist and mingle together. But they are not the same thing.

Does the cycle end with birth, or death? Is it always a new day, or just the same thing all over again? The Feast of the Resurrection is not the cyclical rebirth of physical life. It is not the same thing all over again. The cycle of birth and death has been overturned. The physical and the spiritual have become one. This is not spring. It is Resurrection. Of course we, like Mary, want to hold on to the risen Jesus.

But John wants us to be clear that in fact there was something for Mary to hold on to. Many of us in this scientific age need to hear that eyewitness assurance that Jesus was "transphysical," incorruptible, not less physical but more physical. The first disciples, many of whom faced the choice of denying their Lord or death did not give their lives because they had some inner, emotional “experience” of Jesus alive in their hearts. They saw something that changed their basic view of reality, of life and death. And that was the Risen Jesus.

And now, the charge to each and every one of us. Go and tell each other that the Son of God is our brother, and in Him we are brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers to each other. And then go and tell the world, that co-dependency, enabling, dysfunction – all the euphemisms we employ to avoid the word, “sin – they do not have the last word in our relationships. If in Christ Jesus, God has removed all the things that alienate us from God, then there is no longer any cause for alienation between us.

There is no “personal relationship” with God that does not renew our relationships with each other, and with the entire human family. The gift of the Resurrection is to be shared with everybody.

Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice! This day, and for all time, Jesus Christ conquers death, in our hearts, in our families, our Church, our community, in our world. Fear nothing!