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Easter sermon – well, the last bit
Thursday 5th April 2018 @ 10:55 am
Below is the last part of my sermon on Easter Sunday morning this year … which for me is the most enjoyable day of the Christian year to preach. I always start with the words …
“This is it, this is the reason we do what we do.
This,
today,
this is the reason we do what we do.
This is it.”
Rather than write out the whole sermon, which in quite a Presbyterian fashion has 3 points that all start with the same letter (!)
Life from death
Light from darkness
Love from hate
… here is simply the end of the sermon … and as a brief disclaimer, this is what was written in front of me, but I get excited … so I can’t imagine for one second this is what came out word for word, but you get the idea.
Let’s put ourselves back into the narrative for a minute, lets imagine we were present in those early hours when news of something monumental began to spread …
And let’s take note, that when the dust was settling,
and the early disciples were getting their heads & hearts around what had happened,
they did not sit & say,
hooray we’re going to heaven now !!!
They cried, in their heads and hearts,
Yes, it is true!
‘This life you called us to,
this life of loving God and loving neighbor,
this really is it.’
A life of adventure and mystery
of dignity and justice
of standing against oppression
of standing in solidarity with
the marginalised and forgotten
the hurting and the beaten.
A life of sacrificial love,
even to death.
This is the life Jesus had lived,
This is the life Jesus had died for.
This is the life he called his disciples to
This is the life he calls his disciples to.
Love would not die.
Love would not go away.
No violence would destroy love.
As it was
So it is
This is what we are called to.
This resurrected life of Christ shows us who God is and what God requires. God in Christ, lived an upside down, unpredictable, wildly loving, unusually gracious, over–flowing with mercy and forgiveness, humbly sacrificial life – sacrificing even to death …
… and this life, now renewed, now reborn, now raised from death,
this life is where we pin our hope.
As the first disciples said,
My Lord, My God
all he said,
all he did,
it is true
and this is what he calls us to …
He really is King of Kings. And Lord of Lords.
Life comes from death.
Light shatters darkness
Love wins.
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