1 Corinthians 15:19-26
“Full to the Brim: An Expansive Life”
Preached Sunday, April 17, 2022
Part of the work I do on a weekly basis is to make the powerpoint slides for worship. I normally save this work for the evening, after my daughter goes to bed, because it’s the kind of work that doesn’t take too much mental acuity and I can put some mindless TV on in the background while I do it. Normally I go for reruns of my favorite shows but this week I had 3 worship slides to make - Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter - so I decided to binge the peak of mindless television: a reality tv dating show. And by the end of the week I had already reached the reunion episode. You know, where all the contestants from the show get together to watch clips, dish out gossip, and reminisce.
And as I sat down to write my sermon, the reunion episode fresh in my head, I was thinking of that act of collective reminiscing. There were memories that took people back to some of their worst moments, things they said that they weren’t proud of, recollections that took them to some of the darkest moments of their lives, not good places. And of course, there were happy sharings as well. How they grew from what they experienced. How their lives were changed. How they built friendships and love.
But we’re not here today to talk about television and reunions shows - we’re here to talk about the Resurrection and the power of remembering - not remembering for nostalgia’s sake, or for entertainment - as is the case with reunion shows - but remembering because the act of remembering is not just about the memories of the past - but about shaping our future.
This morning’s Gospel lesson illustrates the power of recollectance. Every Gospel has a slightly different recollection of the events surrounding that first Easter morning - of the resurrection of Jesus. One thing that strikes me from Luke’s telling is that no one present at the tomb that morning sees the resurrected Jesus. They will later - but not at the tomb that morning.
The women came to the tomb, their hands full of oils and spices to anoint the body and the tomb…was empty! And they were perplexed. Confused. Scratching their heads - maybe borderline distraught. And then, that’s when two men in dazzling clothes stood before them and said:
“‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.”
They said to them “Remember!” “Then they remembered his words…” and they believed in the resurrection. Without ever seeing Jesus - they remembered. They remembered all that Jesus had said to them, all that he had told them, all that he had promised - and that’s all it took. It took remembering and then they returned, sharing the first news of the Resurrection with the rest of Jesus’s disciples.
And at this news, Peter is overcome. He has to see it for himself - which is kind of ironic because the women didn’t actually see Jesus - just an empty tomb and some dazzling men telling them to remember. The text says: “But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.” He too, must have remembered - seeing the linen cloths by themselves, seeing the empty tomb, the women’s words ringing in his ears - and probably not just the women’s words but Jesus’s words too. All he had said. All those things that Peter had not understood at the time - all those times he tried to ignore or misinterpret what Jesus was saying - but in that moment, Peter remembered and it all clicked into place.
This act of remembrance changed the whole course of their lives - the women who were the first proclaimers of the resurrection. Peter who would become a fearless preacher of the Resurrection, building God’s church, faithful to Jesus to the point of martyrdom. Remembering and believing in Jesus’s words - that first Easter - changed the whole course of their lives and the whole course of human history.
Remembering changes everything for us too. We weren’t there that first Easter. We have never seen the physically resurrected Jesus. And yet, we can remember the resurrection. Recall Jesus’s words. Remember that he conquered the grave. That he rose again on the 3rd day. That he broke the chains of death.
We are called to remember both Jesus’s death and resurrection.
Part of the work I do on a weekly basis is to make the powerpoint slides for worship. I normally save this work for the evening, after my daughter goes to bed, because it’s the kind of work that doesn’t take too much mental acuity and I can put some mindless TV on in the background while I do it. Normally I go for reruns of my favorite shows but this week I had 3 worship slides to make - Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter - so I decided to binge the peak of mindless television: a reality tv dating show. And by the end of the week I had already reached the reunion episode. You know, where all the contestants from the show get together to watch clips, dish out gossip, and reminisce.
And as I sat down to write my sermon, the reunion episode fresh in my head, I was thinking of that act of collective reminiscing. There were memories that took people back to some of their worst moments, things they said that they weren’t proud of, recollections that took them to some of the darkest moments of their lives, not good places. And of course, there were happy sharings as well. How they grew from what they experienced. How their lives were changed. How they built friendships and love.
But we’re not here today to talk about television and reunions shows - we’re here to talk about the Resurrection and the power of remembering - not remembering for nostalgia’s sake, or for entertainment - as is the case with reunion shows - but remembering because the act of remembering is not just about the memories of the past - but about shaping our future.
This morning’s Gospel lesson illustrates the power of recollectance. Every Gospel has a slightly different recollection of the events surrounding that first Easter morning - of the resurrection of Jesus. One thing that strikes me from Luke’s telling is that no one present at the tomb that morning sees the resurrected Jesus. They will later - but not at the tomb that morning.
The women came to the tomb, their hands full of oils and spices to anoint the body and the tomb…was empty! And they were perplexed. Confused. Scratching their heads - maybe borderline distraught. And then, that’s when two men in dazzling clothes stood before them and said:
“‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.’ Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.”
They said to them “Remember!” “Then they remembered his words…” and they believed in the resurrection. Without ever seeing Jesus - they remembered. They remembered all that Jesus had said to them, all that he had told them, all that he had promised - and that’s all it took. It took remembering and then they returned, sharing the first news of the Resurrection with the rest of Jesus’s disciples.
And at this news, Peter is overcome. He has to see it for himself - which is kind of ironic because the women didn’t actually see Jesus - just an empty tomb and some dazzling men telling them to remember. The text says: “But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.” He too, must have remembered - seeing the linen cloths by themselves, seeing the empty tomb, the women’s words ringing in his ears - and probably not just the women’s words but Jesus’s words too. All he had said. All those things that Peter had not understood at the time - all those times he tried to ignore or misinterpret what Jesus was saying - but in that moment, Peter remembered and it all clicked into place.
This act of remembrance changed the whole course of their lives - the women who were the first proclaimers of the resurrection. Peter who would become a fearless preacher of the Resurrection, building God’s church, faithful to Jesus to the point of martyrdom. Remembering and believing in Jesus’s words - that first Easter - changed the whole course of their lives and the whole course of human history.
Remembering changes everything for us too. We weren’t there that first Easter. We have never seen the physically resurrected Jesus. And yet, we can remember the resurrection. Recall Jesus’s words. Remember that he conquered the grave. That he rose again on the 3rd day. That he broke the chains of death.
We are called to remember both Jesus’s death and resurrection.
As I said before, not all memories are good. And for those who have experienced trauma and have PTSD - remembering can be actively harmful. And I do not want to dismiss that today. And I can’t speak to trauma specifically but I am going to say - it’s not good if we forget the hard or bad memories too. The dark nights of the soul, the struggles we’ve been through, our mistakes. Those experiences have shaped us. They made us who we are. We have grown and learned from them. They’ve also taught us lessons so that we can do better in the future - to not repeat the mistakes of the past.
This is in our own personal lives and relationships and at a larger scale. There seems to be a movement in our world to sugarcoat the past - skip over or re-write unpleasant parts. In our country that would be things like legalized slavery, genocide of indigenous peoples, internment of Japanese-Americans, Jim Crow - and so on and so forth. But if we don’t remember - and remember correctly - we will never learn and the future will not be brighter.
If we truly remember how dark the dark days were - then, hopefully, we can also remember the light that comes after. The steady march of justice throughout history. And the suns that rose on our own darkest nights.
When we remember the dark nights and the sunrises that come after - when we remember both, what we are really doing is saying “Darkness does not win. Evil does not win. Justice and oppression and our mistakes and failures and sins do not win. Death does not win.
That is why we do not remember Christ’s resurrection outside of his crucifixion, either. It’s why many of us sat in this sanctuary on Friday, a bare altar, black curtains covering the windows, no flowers in sight. We sat here and we proclaimed the passion story and we extinguished candles, plunging the sanctuary into darkness.
Because our lives have dark moments, trying times, things that we’d rather forget.
But by remembering them AND remembering what comes after, we can proclaim that all the forces of darkness and death - they do not have power over us, they do not have the final say.
From our reading from 1 Corinthians today:
“Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”
Death does not have the final say because Christ is ALIVE.
We have to remember it all - even the things we don’t want to remember.
Because in remembering, we shape our future.
This is in our own personal lives and relationships and at a larger scale. There seems to be a movement in our world to sugarcoat the past - skip over or re-write unpleasant parts. In our country that would be things like legalized slavery, genocide of indigenous peoples, internment of Japanese-Americans, Jim Crow - and so on and so forth. But if we don’t remember - and remember correctly - we will never learn and the future will not be brighter.
If we truly remember how dark the dark days were - then, hopefully, we can also remember the light that comes after. The steady march of justice throughout history. And the suns that rose on our own darkest nights.
When we remember the dark nights and the sunrises that come after - when we remember both, what we are really doing is saying “Darkness does not win. Evil does not win. Justice and oppression and our mistakes and failures and sins do not win. Death does not win.
That is why we do not remember Christ’s resurrection outside of his crucifixion, either. It’s why many of us sat in this sanctuary on Friday, a bare altar, black curtains covering the windows, no flowers in sight. We sat here and we proclaimed the passion story and we extinguished candles, plunging the sanctuary into darkness.
Because our lives have dark moments, trying times, things that we’d rather forget.
But by remembering them AND remembering what comes after, we can proclaim that all the forces of darkness and death - they do not have power over us, they do not have the final say.
From our reading from 1 Corinthians today:
“Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”
Death does not have the final say because Christ is ALIVE.
We have to remember it all - even the things we don’t want to remember.
Because in remembering, we shape our future.
In remembering, we can choose life.
In remembering, we can choose the better way.
In remembering, we can choose to not live in the past .
In remembering Christ’s death and resurrection we can put our faith and our trust into a future filled to the brim with life, and hope and joy and love.
In remembering Christ’s death and resurrection, we can claim the power of the resurrection for ourselves! That we are not bound by the evil in this world, we are not bound by the chains of death. Their power has been broken.
In remembering Christ’s death and resurrection we can proclaim that life is truly filled with just that - life, abundant, expansive life - because Jesus was raised from the dead. Death was defeated.
We remember it all - and it changes who we are.
We remember the sunrises and the Resurrection.
We remember that we serve a God who is Love and Life.
This morning do you hear the words said to those women at the tomb, those words now said to you: "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember…”
Today we remember. And we proclaim:
Christ is Risen
He is Risen, Indeed!
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment