Sermon -- Easter Sunday, April 13, 2020
/Easter Sunday 2020
Luke 24:1-12
By: Rev. Gene Dyszlewski
Easter is a day of wonder and celebration. We are fortunate to be Christians in the 21st Century because we can sit back and see the resurrection as a statement of victory or vindication of the life and teaching of Jesus. But clearly to the disciples that first Easter, it was confusing. Luke’s version of Easter morning has the disciples, Jesus’ followers and friends, mystified. They had not quite gotten past the shock of the crucifixion and then this unexpected surprise event. It took some time for them to come to grips with it.
In the middle of all this they remained connected to each other and they did not give up hope. They had a unique sense of hope, a hope that is not a prediction of anything specific but an orientation of the spirit. They had a hope that something will make sense, regardless of how it turns out. They had a kind of hope that gave them the strength to accept new things.
Clearly they learned this from their three years of discipleship, three years of following Jesus…being exposed to his teachings…seeing his example. Jesus taught by practice; he demonstrated, how to appreciate the mystery of life. Many things in life cannot be taught by the lecture method…things like love, generosity and compassion. These are undefinable. These are things you have to experience. These are the things in life that can only be seen through the heart.
Jesus was a wisdom teacher and as a wisdom teacher, his job was to help them see the mystery of life….not the facts…the mystery. He tried to help his disciples become aware of the world differently. Jesus’ message conflicts with many of the conclusions we may come to from what we sometimes call our common sense. This is simply just what we learn from our everyday experiences. So, Jesus taught that in spite of what you see in the world God sees things differently. And if you become a member of God’s kingdom, the divine milieu, you begin to see the word with a different lens.
For example, you come to understand that love, not greed, love is the greatest power in the universe. Forgiveness is not weakness, it is a healing process. Gentleness is far superior to cruelty and domination.
In spite of what people might tell you, compassionate service transforms the world into the way God wants it.
I believe that the disciples got used to seeing the world upside down. More importantly, they became convinced of his message because of how he was present in their lives. He was unique, non-ordinary. I’m not talking about a nice guy, I am talking about someone whose singular presence is characterized by self-less spontaneous generosity for the sake of all beings. When he did something his ego was not noticeable. Instead there is a sense of the Holy. Jesus, clearly, was someone who is operating out of a spiritual perspective.
He didn’t want people to know about God. He wanted people to experience God in their lives. He chose finding a sense of the sacred in life over dogma every time. He didn’t want people to think about God; he wanted people to have a relationship with God.
When Jesus called his disciples, he invited them to awaken, to experience at the world differently. He wasn’t asking them to simply think about things differently; he challenged his disciples to imagine the world differently, to expand their moral imagination.
Jesus offered a better vision of the world in place of the working model that was in their heads. Jesus helped the disciples discover that what they thought about the world was interesting but limiting. One can see clearly only with the heart.
If you think that the world is objectively how it is in your head, you are lost in some ego centered delusion. Jesus invited them to imagine the world from a different viewpoint. He taught by what he did more than what he said.
We are all familiar with his parables. His parables weren’t simply teachings, they invited us to expand our imagination, to perceive things differently. I think his greatest parable was the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. It is a parable in which we participate. During his ministry, he invited everyone to the table, including people who were social outcasts and looked upon by others with contempt. Instead he looked past their physical appearance. He looked past their social status. He looked inside and saw each person as precious to God.
This is what he meant when he said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” He wants us to come to the table and look at each person holding bread. To look past the obvious and to see the spark of divinity in each person who is holding bead, is to look with the heart. If I can do this, I have discovered how to see mystery.
If I can see with the heart, I am not frightened by mystery. If I can see with the heart, I can have the hope that gives me strength to live in conditions that don’t seem to make sense. If I can see with he heart, I can live with uncertainty and unpredictability. If I can see with the heart, then I could appreciate Resurrection and say with a profoundly sense of joy:
