Fear has Died…Faith has Come
John 20:1-18
April 7, 8, 2007

Again, grace and peace to you all as we gather for this celebration of Easter! I am so grateful to so many people who have made the season of Lent and our Holy Week services so meaningful. Our choirs, musicians, staff, and members and friends of the church have shared their gifts in special and significant ways. Numerous people participated in our prayer chain to help us prepare for our Easter celebrations. Many others presented gifts of Easter lilies to help us beautify the sanctuary and facilities.

Speaking of lilies, you may have heard a story that Dr. Fred Craddock tells; Dr. Craddock is a well-respected professor and author and teacher of preachers-he has been my most influential mentor. Anyway, Dr. Craddock talks about a church in Georgia that had an annual Easter tradition similar to ours. Every year the church was decorated with 500 lilies! They formed the shape of a cross on the chancel. They were placed on the shelves by each window. They were in front of the baptistery. Literally everywhere you looked, you saw Easter lilies! Every year, members and friends of the church were given the opportunity to have one of the lilies placed in the sanctuary in honor or memory of a loved one. For a very reasonable contribution of $5, you could provide for a lily-what a deal! And you didn't even have to take them home after the service-that was worth the $5 right there! In fact, all of the church members had developed the habit of leaving them at the church. They assumed that any leftover lilies would be taken to the hospitals or nursing homes.This practice went on for years-until something unusual happened one Easter Sunday. After the service, a dear, sweet lady went back into the sanctuary after church. She said to the minister, "My aunt's in a nursing home. "So if you don't mind, I'd like to take my lily to her. "I'll just pick one out." Before anyone could stop her, she took one of the lilies from a nearby window ledge. In a voice loud enough to be heard in the parking lot, she shouted with horror and dismay, "Oh my God! It's plastic!"

It was like an alarm went off! People rushed back into the sanctuary as quickly as they rush out at the end of the service when they're trying to beat the Baptists to the cafeteria! They began looking closely at the lilies-only to discover that every one of them-all 500-were plastic! A special board meeting was called for the following night. It felt like Good Friday all over again for the pastor and the board chair. They felt like they were facing a firing squad! And for the pastor-the cliché had a very literal feel to it with regard to his future employment! One church member after another shot questions at them: "Just how long has this been going on?" "Where have you been hiding 500 plastic Easter lilies?" And you can probably guess the most frequently asked question: "What happened to all of those $5 contributions? "You know that's $2500 every Easter-that's a lot of money!" The board chair explained that the money had not been used for dishonest purposes. Every year half of the money from the Easter donations went to the general fund of the church. The other half was sent to support various outreach efforts. Then the minister posed an important question to the people. "Do you know what happened when we used to use real Easter lilies? "After the Easter Sunday service they were left at the church. "A few people took them home, watered them for a few days until the blooms fell off, then threw them away. "We thought this was a terrible waste. "You wouldn't want us to waste Easter, would you?"

THAT'S A GOOD QUESTION FOR US TO CONSIDER AS WE CELEBRATE EASTER 2007. We don't want to waste Easter, do we? Oh, we'll put up with plastic eggs for our Easter egg hunts. Some of us might even be able to tolerate artificial Easter lilies? But I feel fairly sure that you have come to worship today to hear the real thing. I assume that you have gathered on this high, holy day-not to hear some plastic, artificial, meaningless message. Churches all around the world have their highest attendance of the year at Easter. And I assume that this is true, at least in part-because people are hungry, thirsty, yearning-to hear the heart of the Easter story one more time. I suspect that many of you are here today… To listen for words that matter, words that make a difference, words that still have the power to transform you, words that can still breathe new life into the dead, dilapidated, plastic parts of our souls! All of us want to hear the three words that turned the world upside down!

Several weeks ago, I mentioned that I couldn't wait for a new book to come out-I had pre-ordered it on Amazon.com and it finally arrived. The books is called Ten Things Your Ministers want to Tell You, But Can't Because They Need the Job. The author is Rev. Oliver "Buzz" Thomas-a constitutional lawyer and Baptist minister. His book is organized around 10 of life's most intriguing spiritual questions. But one of the important things he mentions in his opening comments is that you can tell a lot about our country by reading the New York Times bestseller list. One morning he was jolted to see that two out of the top three best-selling works of fiction were religious! Even this past week, The Secret, was far and away the number one book on the USA TODAY best-seller list. Thomas says, "Americans yearn to connect with the eternal. Despite MTV, Howard Stern, Paris Hilton, Brittany Spears, American Idol, hip hop videos, and all the rest-"we remain a nation hungry for spiritual direction." He is just concerned that many of these books are simply "Kool-Aid," and that they are not satisfying our God-starved souls. He is convinced that many people in our country want to live lives of purpose and meaning without having to put their brains in their pockets!

SO WE COME TODAY, TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF THIS MYSTERIOUS, MIRACULOUS STORY OF EASTER! Perhaps we envy those who actually saw the resurrected Jesus? As we listened to the story from the Gospel of John, we imagine that it was much easier for them to believe. But I wonder? In some ways, it may be easier for us to believe because we have some distance and separation from the story. None of us helped pull Jesus' lifeless body off the cross on Friday evening. None of us carried his heavy, limp, bloody body to the tomb. None of us have had to deal with the first-hand reality that the living, laughing, loving Jesus, was stone-cold dead. Believing that he could be truly alive again-and not just some spiritual apparition-had to have been an enormous act of faith for the first disciples. But our "distance" from the event may also lead us to "over-analyze" Easter. Sometimes we try to make it fit into our expectations and limitations, our own nooks and crannies. Perhaps it is simply time to let the mystery shine?

Instead of looking for human explanations for the open tomb, let's look with awe at this mighty and mysterious act of God! Some of you have been keeping up with the readings in this year's devotional book by Tom Bandy; his comments for this text and for Easter are insightful! He writes: "I am one who has not seen, and yet believes. "And I wonder-which is more astonishing? "That Jesus emerged from the tomb…and was not angry? "Or that he should be raised from the dead long ago…and that I should believe that unhesitatingly without proof? "God relented, despite what we did (and keep doing)! "My newfound faith goes deeper than that. "I sense Jesus' presence! "I do not see him or touch him, yet he sees and touches me. "I feel it in my bones; I know it in my heart. "When I first heard the news that Christ had risen-and that apparently he bore me no ill will for crucifying him-I literally ran to the empty tomb! "I ran! I flew! I leapt at the chance!"

Then Bandy prays: "Lord Jesus, I was dead and am alive again! "I was lost, lonely, broken and anxious… "And now I am found, befriended, whole, and hopeful. "What a gift! Thank you!" And that's really what we want to hear again today-the three words that can take the lost, lonely, broken, anxious, artificial, plastic, dead parts of our lives-and bring them to life! During the season of Lent we have been considering areas of our lives that we want to hand over to God for transformation-the old has died, the new has come.We have thought about temptation and pride-and we want to say to God, "Here it is…resurrect this!" We have thought about darkness and despair, rejection and fear-and we want to say to God, "Here it is-resurrect this!" We look at situations in the world-war and hunger, poverty and illness-and we want to say to God-resurrect this!"

And occasionally we see encouraging signs in the news… The release of British soldiers from Iran… Dialogue between political leaders from America and Syria… Peace talks in Northern Ireland… And we dare to believe-reconciliation, resurrection is possible.

Think about your own life. Whatever problems or pain you're experiencing, whatever challenges or struggles you are having… I invite you to place it in your hands… Lift it up to God…and say to God…"Resurrect this!"

Richard Lischer, professor at Duke University, has written a book called Open Secrets: A Journey through a Country Church. He shares an experience when he was the newly ordained pastor of a small congregation in southern Illinois. In the town, there was a man named Buster, who was a mechanic at a local garage. His wife, Beulah, drank too much and was high on drugs most of the time. They argued loudly and profanely and bitterly and often. One day they were in the middle of a huge shouting match when Buster just dropped dead. "Dead before he hit the floor." Beulah said it at least 100 times to anybody who would listen. And the rookie pastor tried his best to help Beulah through the funeral plans. The day for the service arrived-complete with an open casket in front of the church. The service was a disaster from the start. Beulah wailed at the top of her lungs the entire time. No one could hear a word the minister said. He wrapped up his comments quickly and just reminded everybody that Buster served the country well and had been a good father. The friends and family made their way over to the little cemetery on the hill behind the church. The pastor said the final words. The casket was lowered into the grave. Veterans from the local VFW offered their honors for Buster. There was even a bugler for the service-a 12-year-old girl named Moriah-she stood across the ravine on the other side of the hill. Everybody expected her to play "Taps." But that's not what she played. Pure, passionate notes echoed across the ravine toward the mourners around the grave. Moriah played "I Know that My Redeemer Liveth." Dr. Lischer remembers: "It was as if her music were a time-delayed message coming to us from a saner and more beautiful world." "I was standing in the midst of a broken family and the lumpy mud of the cemetery. "But I could see Easter."

Even for people like Beulah and Buster, for people like you and me… Despair gives way to hope. Fear gives way to faith. Blindness gives way to sight. Death gives way to life.

Today we have come together to hear three words… Three words that still have the power to transform our lives and change the world…

He is risen.