The Reverend Kirk T. Berlenbach

Easter, Year A

March 23, 2008

It is great to see that so many of you have come out to celebrate Easter. Let me begin by welcoming everyone who is visiting or who hasn’t been here in a while; we are delighted that you are here. There are so many things I would like you to know about our parish. Of course this sermon doesn’t give me nearly enough time to do justice to them all. But there is one little tidbit that I want you to know about. When you come up for communion, which I certainly hope you all will do, I want you to look up at the ceiling. You will notice six cherubs painted up there. Those cherubs have an interesting history, which some of you will already know. For years they were lost and hardly anyone knew they existed at all. Now you might be wondering how that could be… they’re on the ceiling so it’s not like they could have been misplaced or stolen. The truth is, they were buried. You see, they are directly above the altar and over the years the smoke from the candles and incense gradually obscured them and they were lost to view, buried beneath layers of soot. Since they were no longer visible, the only folks who knew they were there were the people who had been coming to church long enough to remember what they used to look like. This meant that their beauty was lost to everyone but a handful of long time insiders. Years later, when the woodwork was cleaned and restored, the cherubs were rediscovered. Freed from the layers of soot and ash, they are once again visible for everyone to see and enjoy.

Unfortunately this story is not a unique. In fact, this kind of thing happens in the Church all the time and not just with physical objects. Sometimes our beliefs get obscured or even buried by liturgy and doctrine. For example, we all are here today to join in the celebration of Easter, but do we really know what this day is all about? Do you know why Easter is important? If you know, do you actually believe it?

If you are one of the many who have questions or reservations, you should know that your concerns are quite understandable. Even those of us who have spent a whole lot of time in church and Sunday school, sometimes still have questions about what this day is all about. Because the sad fact is that the meaning and power of Easter have been obscured by centuries of theology and church tradition.

Fortunately, we have a solution. We’re going to dig beneath all the ritual and ceremony… we’re going strip away the layers of theology and tradition and uncover the original meaning and power of Easter. That way all of us, long timers and visitors, believers and skeptics, all of us, can come to see the real beauty of this day.

Here are the basics; for Christians, Easter is the single most important day in our faith. It is the day on which Jesus, the son of G-D, rose from the dead, after having been crucified three days before. Now on the surface, it seems like that explanation should be sufficient. It is specific in terms of who, what, where and when. But here’s the rub… even these most basic elements of the Easter story are themselves layered in centuries of complexity. That means we cannot just take them at face value. In fact, if we actually try and take them literally all they do is raise more questions. For example, today is about Jesus, well, who was Jesus? What made him the son of G-D? Why did he have to die? And perhaps most importantly, how can we believe in something as fantastic as resurrection, without a shred of objective evidence to support our belief? Now we could go through these very important questions one by one. But even if we answered all of them, it wouldn’t really solve our problem, because each answer in turn only raises more questions. What we need is a way to bypass all the complications and get straight to the heart of the matter.

Because the power of Easter isn’t lost. Like the paintings of the cherubs, it is still there. We just have to rediscover it. Here’s how it breaks down… at the core of the Christian faith is Easter and at the core of Easter is the resurrection. So all that we really need to figure out is what the resurrection actually means. What does it mean to say that Jesus came back to life after being dead for three days? It’s not as complicated as it might seem. When we strip away all the intricacies like atonement and messiah-ship we find that the answer is remarkably straightforward and very profound… to believe in the resurrection means that we believe that love is stronger than death.

Now that might sound distinctly un-theological, but isn’t that the point? It is not muddled by historical details like time or place or person… it is not weighed down by concepts like sin or salvation. It is pure and simple. It is eternal. And at its heart, Easter is a testament to love’s victory over death.

That sounds nice… but how can it possibly be true? The powers of death are constantly at work in our world through violence, war, disease and starvation. Compared to that, what is love? Most of us think of love as nothing more than a feeling, as something fickle that we fall in and out of. Death, on the other hand, is a constant. From the moment we are born we struggle against it. At the core of our human nature is the urge to survive… as a result we live in constant fear of the time when our loves will end. That fear can dominate our lives to such a degree that if we are faced with the prospect of death we will sacrifice everything that is dear to us, including our principles, in order to avoid death. No amount of money or reason or determination can overthrow the dominion that death holds over our lives. But there is one thing that can overcome it and that is love.

So what kind of love are we talking about? Well it is not love in a Hallmark, warm and fuzzy sort of way. To have the power to overcome death, love must have conviction and real substance. Jesus described it best when he said, “There is no greater love than this, that a person should lay down their life for their friends.” (John 15:13) Love like that is not just a feeling; love like that it is a force that has the power to transform our lives.

When we love someone with that kind of intensity, their life becomes as, or even more, important than our own. This changes the whole equation. By leading us to value something more than our own lives love undercuts the power death holds over us. Self-preservation ceases to be our highest priority and when that happens, death’s control over us is broken. Once we are freed from the drive to save ourselves at all costs, we are then capable of amazing feats of generosity, even to the point of sacrificing ourselves for the sake of the others.

This capacity for selflessness is where love gains its real power. And that is why death cannot kill it, for the impact and presence of sacrificial love goes on beyond death. To be sure there are times when death seems to win. But while a person may die, their love does not. Every time we give of ourselves for the sake of someone else, we inspire others to do the same. Even if we succumb to death in the process, the power of our sacrificial love keeps going and helps others realize that it is indeed possible to break free of the fear of death.

That is why love is stronger. Jesus gave us the supreme example of such love when he laid down his life, not just for his friends, but for us all. He sacrificed himself to free us from death’s dominion, so that we might find the freedom and fulfillment that comes when we live, not just for ourselves, but for the sake of others. That is why the tomb could not hold him. That is the meaning of the resurrection. That is what Easter is all about. And that is why his love is still a vital force in our world two thousand years later. The whole of the Christian faith is built upon that one simple proposition. Just like the paintings of the cherubs, we don’t have to know the history in order to see its beauty and significance.

Now that we have cleared away some of those extra layers, I hope that you find Easter to be something that you not only appreciate, but actually embrace. And if you find yourself struggle with church, if you are ever questioning or doubting, you can return to this vital core because it is what underlies all of our traditions. And if you’re already comfortable with our worship and theology, it is still good to get back to basics and remind ourselves what our faith is really all about… for when we do that, church takes on new life and meaning. Whatever the case, the power of Easter is always there for you to come back to. For on this day love overcame death and in that there is life and hope for us all.