______________________________________________________

 

EASTER SUNDAY

Easter Sunday! For some, this is the most anticipated, celebrated and joyful day on their Christian day-timers. Like race horses pawing the ground ready to take off after the final organ piece, they wish every Sunday could be like this high pitch day of resurrection. Others are more quiet proclaimers; They may feel stress building by the fourth Sunday in Lent as they contemplate Easter. Sweaty palms and cold sweat form as they think about  resurrection angles, Easter dramas and Philip Souza anthems for Easter Sunday. However you welcome Easter, this Sunday’s passages will provide you excellent resources for this great Christian celebration--celebratory or reflective!

Acts 10:34-43

In this first lesson, Peter is brought to an unusual and awkward place in his discipleship when he finds himself brought face to face with goiims, gentiles. This was not part of the "big plan" as far as Peter was concerned. That is, until the Spirit began to mess with his racism and theology. So the story has Peter proclaiming the resurrected Christ once again to a very different audience and one that he will later be called on the carpet for associating with. The kerygma is fabulous; clear, inclusive, and gracious. You may want to try this passage out for your Easter sermon - it’s less known, powerful, and leads the listener to the message of salvation.

Psalm 118:1-2; 14-24

This psalm will typically combine with choirs, antiphonal calls and response, processions, and great hymns like, All Glory, Laud, and Honor. On this day, Psalm 118 is majestic, festive even as it foreshadows the gospel.

1 Corinthians 15:19-26

Paul is in the middle of a long and somewhat polemical teaching about resurrection. (To follow Paul’s full discourse, please review the DPS lectionary notes for the first three weeks of February 2001). Specifically, Paul holds the resurrected Christ before the Corinthians as an example of a first fruit of resurrection. Jesus was the early crop, the first to reach full maturity. But that means that the rest is going to come to maturity too. Referring to the Genesis 1-3 narrative, Paul argues that if Adam cut humanity’s connection to God through disobedience, then it figures that we’ll need another "Adam" to reconnect humanity back to God. In Christ Jesus, the broken line has been repaired and as Christ was raised from death, so we will also follow Christ into new life.

 

John 20:1-18

How do people arrive at Easter faith? Through what door/s do we enter the Church? John seems to understand that more than one exists. For example, in this Sunday’s lesson we are offered two possible responses to the resurrection of Jesus: unflinching belief in an empty tomb (vs. 1-10) and a more mystical way-

hearing our name called (vs.11-18). In the first story, Peter and the other guy footrace to the tomb and finding it empty, at least one walks away with Easter faith: "he saw and believed" (v. 8). The other story has Mary Magdalene weeping before the empty tomb-even the appearance of angels doesn’t set her faith to singing. That is, until she hears her name called out in the familiar sounds that she identifies as her Lord (v.16). See and believe or hear and believe? Two doors to Easter faith.

 

Luke 24:1-12

We have Luke’s retelling of the story that appears also in Mark and Matthew, that of the women coming to the tomb. There are notable differences, which you may want to check with a synopsis of the Gospels. But we have to be amazed at the women’s audacity, their concern, and compassion to come to the tomb to give their fallen hero a proper burial. Then they have their encounter with two dazzling angeloi and right then and there they turn evangelistic and head to the eleven and others proclaiming and bearing witness to what they have just heard and seen and touched. Though the text is clear to implicate the eleven with unbelief at their words, one responds to their words-Peter-who races to the tomb to corroborate their story. A great story from which to proclaim Easter faith and evangelism.