How Does It Feel?

Text:  Luke 24:1-12

Theme: "How Does It Feel?"

THE RESURRECTION OF THE LORD

March 31, 2013

First Presbyterian Church

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

Somewhere out there, there has got to be a milk chocolate Easter bunny with my name on it.  Everyone, at least at one point in their life, should have a milk chocolate Easter bunny with their name on it.  I didn't find any when I shopped at Wal-Mart this past week.  Perhaps I didn't look hard enough.  They had Reese's Peanut Butter bunnies and little, yellow marshmallow ones.  But I couldn't find the milk chocolate bunny. 

 

Then there are the Easter eggs.  In my childhood, we searched for them before going to church.  Some were plastic and had candy inside.  Others my mom had hard-boiled the day before, and then we painted them with the Paas Easter Egg coloring kit.  Somehow at night, the Easter bunny got hold of them and then we had to search for them first thing in the morning.  Later in the afternoon on the happy Easter day, mother would take the hard-boiled eggs and mix them into a cream sauce.  Then she would add, as it turns out, a smidge or two of mild curry powder to the concoction.  She would then make lots of buttered toast, and then curried eggs were ladled on top.  It tasted like heaven. 

 

Not all of my childhood memories are good, but, for the most part, the Easter ones are.  But now mother is gone.  The architect of my childhood Easter feast is no longer with us.  I'm 52 years old, and she isn't the only one who has left the life we now lead. 

 

There is a certain innocence to childhood.  I see it in my grandson.  There's an innocence and it is joined to a richness of experience, and you, as a child, feel that life is limitless in its possibilities.  But then you grow up -- and things start to get taken away from you.  You find yourself going to places you never wanted to go to.  It dawns on you -- at some point, some time -- that life has its limits, that some good things come to an end.  You collect some regrets.  Every now and then, I hear someone say "I have no regrets."  And I'm thinking to myself:  "Really?  Really?" 

 

We grow up and we hopefully mature, but in the very process we encounter some painful things that a band-aid can't help heal.  A love is lost.  A hope is dashed.   A bright future, in the twinkling of an eye, becomes clouded over with uncertainty, and those clouds look stormy.  Have you felt that?  Have you not felt that in your bones?

 

The women on the first Easter Sunday did. The man, Jesus, who had actually cared for them as human beings; the man who had taught them and actually showed them (and many others) what the kingdom of God actually looked like in action; the man who had given them reason after reason after reason to  have some honest-to-goodness hope and joy, had come to a violent end and died a brutal death upon a Roman cross.  There you go again:  life's limits!  I can't even begin to imagine what a massive blow that must have been for them.

 

I know that there are people here today who have had massive blows come their way.  Life's limits has landed a right hook square in the jaw and you're down on the mat for the count again.  You know, you ask people how they are doing, and they say:  "Oh, I'm doin' fine!"  People ask you the same question and you say: "Hey, I'm fine."  As we all know, that's just so much polite chit-chat. But what I'm curious about the percentage of the people who say they are "fine" are, in actual fact, crumbling down -- mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically --  on the inside.  They say they're fine, but they're falling apart.

 

I've got to hand it to the women of the first Easter day.  They didn't sit around and let their feelings spiral down into deeper darkness.  No, they got up and went -- straight to the tomb of Jesus.  Some of the best advice I've ever received came from a recovering alcoholic. That advice is as follows:  do the next best thing that is right in front of you to do.

 

The Easter women did just that.  They took their spices in the hopes of anointing the body of Jesus.  That was the next best right thing to do!  At least they could perform a last labor of love.  They could do the Jewish burial rights.  And we can forgive them for forgetting.  Sometimes when your soul is traumatized, you overlooks the obvious.  The obvious, for these women, was that massive stone that blocked the entrance to the tomb.

 

When they arrived at the scene, they were hit with another blow.  How much more could a person take?  The stone was rolled away and they didn't find the body.  In classic understatement, St. Luke reports that they "wondered" about this.  "They wondered about this."  It's almost funny.  But before they knew which end was up, two men appeared in bright raiment.  The women, fearing for their lives, hit the deck.

 

The angels said:  "Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.'"

 

Then, says our text, they, the women, remembered those words. Bingo! Bam!  It hit them.

 

I love me some milk chocolate bunnies and curried cream eggs, but all of that is only so much window dressing.  For now we are at the heart of things.  We have come to the truth -- the truth -- that has changed the world!  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  The Bible declares, in no uncertain terms, that "If Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain."  Without the resurrection, we're left sorting out good memories from bad and hoping, all the while, to avoid the next blow.  Take away the resurrection of the Son of God, and all Christianity is is another religion among the many, the too many, that we already have. 

 

You can preach to me from ten million bibles, but if you take out the sacrificial death and glorious resurrection of the only-begotten Son of God, all you'd basically have is suggestions to be better people.  Two thousand some odd years since the death and resurrection of Christ, you'd think we'd have more and more better people.  You say, "Well, maybe things would be far worse if we didn't have that preaching."  And I'll grant you that -- but only up to a point.

 

Maybe there's something more -- much more -- to this than just being better people.  Perhaps -- please, God! -- it's about being born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave!  Then you're no longer forcing yourself to be a better person and then feeling guilty when you don't measure up to the perfectionistic bar you've set!  Maybe there's a new control center!  Perhaps it is gratitude and the sheer joy of believing in God's love that went through death and the grave for you.  You find that this is what gets you up and going!

 

Finally, because Christ is risen indeed, perhaps, today,  we can take one more look at all the blows we've experienced.  We can picture the hurts we've felt and the pains we've endured -- even the hurts and pains we've inflicted.   We can recall the limits of life that we've faced.   We can remember the griefs, the sorrow, and, yes, the regrets.  Because Jesus Christ is risen, we can look at all of that squarely in the eye and ask it a question.  Because Jesus is alive, you can ask it to death itself:  how does it feel?

 

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hangin' out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging for your next meal.

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

 

Death is homeless.  And you and I are going home -- to the place that the good Lord died, rose, and ascended on high to prepare for us, but maybe not before some milk chocolate and cream eggs!

 

How does it feel?  Pretty good.  Really good.  God bless you.  Happy Easter. 

 

Amen.