You know, in a few moments I am going to ask you some questions. They
are on the bulletin. Do you believe.... Do you believe.... Do you
believe? I am going to ask three other questions before that. These
questions are “Can you believe?” Can you believe that Easter is
already here? My goodness! It seems like just yesterday over here
(gesturing toward the altar) instead of the sun rising, we had a
Christmas tree and we were singing Christmas carols. It just seems
like yesterday. Not surprising because the last time Easter arrived
this early in the year was 1913. So, only if you are ninety-five or
older have you seen this in your lifetime! And the next time it will
be this early will be two hundred twenty years from now. So, stay
healthy. Stay healthy. Can you believe it’s already here?

Can you believe that Easter is the biggest event that Christians
have, that it is no comparison with Christmas? Easter is our biggie!
Easter is the major feast. Christmas is a minor feast. Can you
believe that? It’s hard to believe it because Christmas gets packaged
so well. It has such good marketing. You have all the malls
celebrating and decorating for it and it’s really nice. You have a
cute baby and you have angels that stay up in the sky where they
belong. They don’t come down and bother us and confuse us. So it’s
much easier to think of Christmas as the major feast, but that’s not
true! It’s Easter that’s our major feast.

And finally, can you believe that it is Easter and the Resurrection
of Jesus that makes us a Christian people, that is most important for
us and for our entire lives. There is a Lutheran theologian,
historian. Jaroslav Pelikan was his name. He died just two years ago.
He finally became an Orthodox Catholic before his death. Wonderful
man, but on his death bed (He was dying of lung cancer.) he said, “If
Jesus Christ is risen, then nothing else matters.” He paused for a
moment, and then he said, “And if Jesus Christ is not risen, then
nothing else matters.” It’s just so central to who we are, what we
are. And we believe and celebrate, especially this day, that Jesus is
risen and Jesus is alive. Now, when I say “Jesus is risen” and “Jesus
is alive” I’m not talking about CPR and a resuscitated body. I mean
that is kind of what happened to Lazarus. Remember Lazarus was dead
and Jesus rose him? Well, he’s dead again. It didn’t work. I mean, he
lived a few weeks or a few years. All I know is Lazarus ain’t around!
And Jesus Christ is! But Jesus Christ is more than a resuscitated
body, and different from a resuscitated body. Jesus Christ already,
when he walked this earth, was more than and different from anything
that we would expect. I think of it as a breakthrough in evolution,
that for the first time, there was a breakthrough in Jesus Christ,
that the God of the Universe, that power from the first flaring forth
of the Universe, was present in Jesus Christ, fully, and pointed
through, in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ pointed to God and became the
sacrament and presence of God on our earth.

But then, with his resurrection, something even greater than that
changed. Jesus lives. Jesus is risen, and the risen spirit of Christ
unites us together and brings us together. And what that does is it
doesn’t mean Jesus is making personal appearances. You’re not going
to see him on Oprah. You’re not going to see him on Jay Leno or on
Letterman. Where you’re going to see him is through the body of
believers, through the body of Christ, all of us gathered together.
That’s why we think our baptism is so important, because it makes us
part of that Jesus Movement, that makes the risen Jesus present. The
way Jesus contacts us and connects with us and transforms our world
and changes our world is through us. Through us.

How do we do that? First of all, by positive relationships. Our
friendships, our family, our work, our care for people who are
hurting and struggling with their health, being there for one another
we make Jesus Christ present to one another. Secondly, by having
grateful and cheerful hearts. It is interesting, in Germany, one
section of Germany, the way they celebrate Easter today is they
gather together and tell jokes and laugh as hard as they can. It’s
Laughter Sunday because Christ has conquered death and we are called
to be a people of cheerful spirits and grateful hearts. And finally,
to be a people committed to justice, whether it is the economy or
immigration or the war, that we take the values of Jesus and apply
them to our policies, our politics and our decisions. That’s what we
are called to be. That’s how we make the risen presence of Jesus
present.


There’s a Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, very famous in the last
century, wrote a lot of books. And he said that the difference
between a working day and a holiday is that on a working day, we
“make things happen.” And on a holiday we “let things happen.” Well,
I beg to disagree because Easter means we are to be an Easter people
who let God happen in our lives. Let the risen Christ and the spirit
of the risen Christ , let God be in our lives. We let things happen
but we also become a people who make things happen, who make a
difference in our world.

Easter! We do both! Let us rejoice. Christ is risen. Christ is risen
indeed. And nothing else really matters.... Amen.