Easter Sunday, April 9, 2023
The Resurrection of the Lord
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Jesus changes everything
After the baptism that John preached, God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree. This man God raised on the third day. To him all the prophets bear witness.
The prophets, that Gang of Sixteen*, the club that meets once a month on the shores of the Jordan … I imagine those prophets still meeting up in heaven, discussing the prospects of their friend the Son of God, living who lived like they did on earth, with not much place to lay his head, giving away his second cloak and then his first one too, eating what was left of the loaves and fishes, reminding everyone including himself that if their Source loves the birds and flowers of the field, so he also loves his children. Do not be afraid. Don’t worry. Joy is everywhere!
The stories of Jesus get beyond his physical needs very quickly. Materialism is in the warp and woof of my mental life, I’m sorry to say. That was not the case in Jesus’ life. There’s a man I want to follow.
But today it’s time to celebrate the divinity of the Man. Jesus and his Angels secret service made a mad break from the tomb last night. No one was awake to stop them moving out of the dead zone into the unmapped world between heaven and earth. There are stories coming up in the next few weeks of Jesus’ eating bread and fish with his friends, but today he’s just getting used to how it feels to be divine. Ya think?
When I watch golfers work their way through the Masters, or any other tournament, I think of them as bodies of coiled energy barely under control. But Fred Couples strikes me differently. At 63 ½ Mr. Couples is the oldest player to make the Masters’ cut. Being older than Fred and having watched golf for years, I remember his posture and way of walking off the green after a putt.
There he goes again, standing straight, striding away step-by-under-control step. Perhaps he is tense, but I don’t think so. He looks like the most relaxed man I’ve ever seen. Jim Nance said “his swing is as graceful and free-flowing as it’s ever been.”
A long time ago, Mr. Couples learned how to breathe. He no longer has to think about it. Jesus, oh yes, he learned how to breathe. His lungs left the building for three days, but now, more than ever in his heavenly body, he is breathing again.
God poured Jesus out as a gift offering. He is more than ready to show us how to follow him into that expansive space, leaving nothing behind. What did Henri Nouwen say?
The resurrection is God’s way of revealing to us that nothing that belongs to God will ever go to waste. What belongs to God will never get lost.
Henri is ready to be poured out. And Paul is ready …
The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
I want to be ready too. Our church in Austin has a second name for Easter. Happy Resurrection Day!
*Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, and John. And I’m sure there are many others.
(Acts 10, Psalm 118, Colossians 3, 1 Corinthians 5, 1 Corinthians 5, John 20)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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