Easter Celebration 2012

After the sorrow of the Good Friday service and the sadness at the Rwandan Remembrance, we were good and ready for a joyous celebration of the Resurrection.  What fun to decorate the church with bright flowers, sing songs that truly put a new song in one's heart, and gather with our church family to rejoice.  An added bonus was the dedication of a little baby girl at the one of the services.  Her dad is Swedish and her mom Nigerian and she was too cute for words.  I had the privilege of preaching and enjoyed bringing a word of hope and promise, that because the tomb is empty our lives are not.  What follows is my sermon text.  May the hope of Christ's victory over death be that which sustains us as we walk life's journey.  

Near the end of the musical rendition of Victor Hugo's epic masterpiece, Les Miserables, one of the young men sings a haunting song that reflects the incredible sense of loss he's feeling in light of the number of friends he's lost to death in the revolution. Here are some of the words: There's a grief that can't be spoken, There's a pain goes on and on, Empty chairs at empty tables, Now my friends are dead and gone. Phantom faces at the window, Phantom shadows on the floor, Empty chairs at empty tables, Where my friends will meet no more. Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me, What your sacrifice was for, Empty chairs at empty tables, Where my friends will sing no more. There's a pain goes on and on, empty chairs and empty tables.

Do you know a pain that goes on and on? Are you aware of the places in your life that feel loaded with empty chairs and empty tables? I think of those with the empty chair around the table that reminds them of the loved one who has passed and is no longer with them. Or the empty bank account that reveals the loss of a job. What about the empty crib that reminds some that they have no children or perhaps it is the empty cupboard that signifies a lack of nourishment or an inability to provide for loved ones. These symbols of emptiness point to the deep and lonely places in our lives where we feel stripped, barren, or devoid of meaning. I'm sure we can all name an empty place in our life, for the pain of loss and longing cuts deep into our lives and awakens that aching sense of emptiness that can haunt each one of us. Maybe even today you are struggling with the reality that your dreams can no longer be pursued, or feeling that the hopes you've carried are now dashed, or that what you thought would bring satisfaction has only driven you to a deeper longing and so at the end of the day, even after all your striving and seeking, you feel empty. The hollow places in our lives lead us to despair, and we wonder, what, if anything could fill our cup to satisfaction.

The irony in these emotions, however, as one author so eloquently expressed, is this, “God made us this way. He made us to yearn—to be hungry for something we can't get, to be missing something we can't find, to be disappointed with what we receive, to have an insatiable emptiness that no thing can fill, and an untamable restlessness that no discovery can still. Yearning itself is healthy—a kind of compass inside us pointing to True North. It's not the wanting that corrupts us. What corrupts us is the wanting that's misplaced, set on the wrong thing.” The seeking of fulfillment in that which will only create more longing rather than lasting satisfaction.

In so many ways everything God has done is embedded with unexpected twists so why should we be surprised that he wants to use our emptiness as a means for us to experience the greatest fulfillment that we could ever know? Think about how “backward” the ways of God seem to be: Scripture tells us that strength is made perfect in weakness, that it is the meek who shall inherit the earth, that the quickest way to being first is to be last, and that in losing your life, you gain it. And when we look at Jesus, we see not a mighty warrior, but instead a servant king. And as we have looked at the last 24 hours of Jesus' life during this Lenten season we see that while we fail, Jesus does not. While we grow weary, Jesus does not. We have discovered that there is nothing we can do or say that will ever cause Jesus to extend himself to us with anything but love, grace and forgiveness. So why should we be surprised that God decided that the best way to save the world would be through the death of his son? And why should we surprised that God decided that it would an empty tomb that would become the symbol of that which fills us up to overflowing, for it is in the empty tomb that we are able to overcome the sorrow of death and discover a future that if filled with infinite hope.

The genius in this plan is simply this: That on those days when we feel hollowed out and broken—half-dead, when our emptiness has reached the deepest place of longing and need we could ever experience, because of the empty tomb, even these moments are full of promise. Perhaps our greatest challenge lies in this profound question: Do you believe that if you leave your empty spaces, empty instead of filling them with the world's goods, that God will truly come and fill you up?

Because in the end it isn't really emptiness, per se, that is the problem because when seen from a totally different perspective, emptiness can actually become quite attractive. Think about how an empty page holds the promise of fresh ideas pouring forth from a pen, an empty in-box signifies a job well done, an empty suitcase cries out to be filled and an empty room bursts forth with decorating possibilities. Even an empty chair can signal that there is room for you at the table. The joy of emptiness is that it does hold the promise being filled with something fresh and unexpected, perhaps even something wonderful, if we can begin to see the ways in which God wants to fill us up instead of looking to the world to do the same. I think it is absolutely spot on to say that God made us this way. He made us to yearn—to always be hungry for something we can't get on our own for it is in this way that we learn to turn to God, with open, empty hands and ask him to fill us up with his love and grace. But, we must humbly come to a place where we allow our empty lives to be opened to the possibility of being filled with the fruit that come forth from the empty tomb.

One woman proclaimed that Life is full of empty promises but Easter offers emptiness that is full of promise. Why is that? Author Walter Wangerin explains it like this: “We have a faith that does not shrink from death. The fundamental concern of our faith is both to reveal with fearsome accuracy the nature of death, and to draw the sting from it by the victory of the resurrected Christ.”

The fruit that comes forth from the empty tomb points to the promise that that which we experience here on earth does not have the final word. Christ's death on the cross took our sin away and his victory over that death reveals that no earthly thing can ultimately defeat us. And we need that encouragement because many earthly things will try to bring us down. The challenge of what Christ offers us through his death and resurrection is again rooted in the reality that it is so counterintuitive to what the world has on offer. The promise of victory over death doesn't remove the sting of death from our lives. The promise of forgiveness of sin does not remove the sorrow of sin from our lives. The hope of a brand new day where weeping will be no more does not remove the horrible things in our world that bring us to tears. And yet, we do not believe in vain for Jesus Christ is indeed alive and well, working in and through all situations to ultimately turn the whole of creation towards him. Is it not through being filled with the holy spirit, Christ's enduring gift to us after he left this world in physical form, that allows us to go with God no matter where the world is heading?

As I think about life, I have considered the Easter weekend. Good Friday is a day to contemplate Christ's death but we do so with the backdrop that we know that Easter Sunday is coming and we often can't wait to get there. But what about Saturday, the day in between, the empty day, the day of no service, the day of the sealed tomb, the day of waiting.  We sit with the reality of Christ's death and wait with longing for the resurrection to renew and restore our sanctuary, our lives and our world.

And yet I can't help but think that maybe it is Saturday of Easter weekend that reveals the most important truths to us. Philip Yancey observes that “in a real sense we live on Saturday, the day with no name. Human history grinds on, between the time of promise and fulfillment. Can we trust that God can make something holy and beautiful and good out of a world that includes genocide and war and inner-city ghettos and jammed prisons? Yes, it can be said that it is Saturday on planet earth. And in so many ways we do live out our days on Saturday, the empty, in-between day with no name. And yet, we are assured that we don't have to wonder if Sunday will ever come. Christ's resurrection offers us the promise of a new life not only beyond the grave but beyond the grave circumstances that often dot our live. Christ's resurrection does not offer us a free ticket away from life's disasters, however, it does provide the knowledge that Christ can and will transform all of our darkness into a shining light that will eventually be filled with a joy that no one or no thing can ever diminish.

I realize that for many of you, you want to believe that our Christ really can change our lives in that way but you wonder how to make it personal. You long for Jesus to touch the empty places of your life and fill it with his love and grace. Your deepest need is be transformed by a living savior and you wonder how to bring it home. Perhaps you wonder if your circumstances are beyond transformation. But consider those closet to Jesus, they had to live through a Saturday of wondering as well. Think about Mary Magdalene, who was devastated by Christ's death. The emptiness that Mary carried with her to the tomb is hard to imagine. And initially the emptiness of the tomb exacerbated her grief even further. But then, when Jesus called her by name she realized that the the empty tomb meant that she will never experience the empty places in her life in quite the same way. Because in the early light of Sunday morning, the resurrected Christ appeared to her first, assured her that he knew her and then commissioned her to go and tell. Imagine the change in her life...from being woman of the street, to becoming a first hand witness of the resurrected Christ, to being called to be an evangelist of all she has seen and heard. And we cannot overlook Peter. Saturday had to be the emptiest day of Peter's life. In the previous days, he had been zealous around the table, professing his faithfulness to the death, yet sleeping in the garden, then angrily choosing violence toward a soldier, and ultimately displaying his cowardice late at night when he could not admit to knowing Jesus. Finally, he was scared and absent when Jesus was crucified. But upon hearing of the empty tomb, he ran to it, perhaps understanding that its empty state, might mean that things are turning out better than he had ever thought they could. Days later, he has breakfast by the sea with the Lord he so deeply loved yet so bitterly disappointed, and yet, Jesud pours redeeming love into those empty places that has so overwhelmed Peter. On top of everything else, he is then commissioned to build Christ's church. Peter and Mary experienced first hand how Jesus transformed their emptiness into fullness beyond comprehension through the power of the empty tomb. And so can you.

I proclaim this with confidence because Jesus himself embodied transformative change. He predicted the betrayal of his closest friends, was failed by those he loved the most, and then took on the deepest sorrow one could ever know by emptying himself on a cross in order to be filled with sins of the world. And yet, what we celebrate today is that after experiencing the deep pain and anguish of being alone on that cross, he burst forth with the greatest transformation history has ever known...breaking free from the sin that brought him to his death and rising again proving that death and sorrow and sin will absolutely never have the last word. And that empty tomb promises that you can know the power of his transforming love today.

And so my friends, on this Easter Sunday, do you understand that what's happening today, what lies at the very center of our faith, is that God is ensuring that no amount of emptiness is too deep to be filled with his love? Do you believe that your life can indeed be transformed through the power of the resurrection because God's love for us through his Son Jesus Christ has conquered death? One of the great outcomes of the resurrection is that it took what seemed irreversible, that is death, and made it reversible. That gives us the assurance that nothing in our lives is irreversible. What feels interminable in your life will indeed end. What feels utterly hopeless will indeed one day become hopeful. What screams of hollow emptiness will indeed be filled and filled to overflowing. Jesus' impossible reversal of death on the cross makes it possible for him to reverse all things in our lives as well. What is empty will be filled if we have the faith to believe that God really can fill our lives with that which will retain lasting satisfaction...forgiveness from sin, freedom in Christ, the joy of being a child of God.

Friends, the final 24 hours of Christ's life should change us forever. We no longer need fear punishment, for we have found that no matter how deep or grave or heinous our behavior, Christ's love only grows stronger. We have seen that God responds to humanity's sin and torturous behavior by emptying his son's life in order to fill it with our sin. And we know that God emptied the tomb by raising Jesus from the dead in order to fill our world with the hope of eternal life. So on this blessed Easter Sunday, be filled with the love of God, who loves us even when we are unloveable. Be filled with the grace of God which pours forth forgiveness and healing into the deep holes in our lives. Be filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit who ensures us that we need never know the emptiness of isolation or loneliness for Christ is alive today and here in our midst. The tomb is empty and therefore our lives are not. Know beyond a shadow of doubt that Christ's unfailing love is the most wonderful thing you can experience.

Be filled with Christ's love and celebrate the beauty that is our through our resurrected Lord. Amen.

Easter Dinner and Fun with Friends

We ended our Easter day celebration by hosting a few friends for a bbq.  The weather cooperated perfectly and we were able to sit outside and enjoy some pre-dinner drinks and appetizers.  The food was delicious.  Sadly, I have no photos of it.  But the taste of shrimp cocktail, and feta cream cheese balls, and grilled Halloumi cheese linger on on my palate.  It only got better from there as we feasted on entrecote steaks, lamb kebabs, and spicy, delicious sausages.  Salad, potatoes, bread, asparagus, and sauteed mushrooms and onions filled our plates and our bellies to overflowing.  To ease the fullness, I made everyone participate in an old fashioned egg toss!  We always did this at Easter on my uncle's farm and I thought it would be fun to engage in a friendly competition!  We drew names for partners and headed out to our back courtyard.  A few of our Swedish neighbors saw us and just shook their heads once again at their weird American neighbors! I thought Doug and our friend Robert would be tough, but turns out Sean (the youngest one there) and yours truly were the toughest team!  We emerged victors of the egg toss! 
We came inside and indulged in vanilla ice cream, fresh strawberries and mint chocolate molten cakes.  I wasn't sure I would recover!  We had a grapes and cheese platter to boot but that never got served.  We were all too full to try for another course!
It was a wonderful way to close a beautiful Easter weekend.  Good friends and good food.  It's a combination that is hard to beat.

From Good Friday to Easter Sunday

Good Friday is the one service all year that we have no fellowship time afterwards.  The sanctuary is dark, the music in a minor key, the candles black, the flowers sparse.  It is time to go deep into your soul, see your sin and be glad that Jesus died for it.  Then we wait.  We wait all day Saturday for Easter morning to break and we enter the same place of worship where we were on Friday and yet the color is back, signs of life abound in freshly cut flowers, even the daffodils sing their song of praise to the Risen Lord. 

Doug preached and I was responsible for the kids time and the prayer for the day.  The kids time was great fun.  I took an egg, with the insides blown out (almost needed medical assistance by the time I finished!) and then proceeded to explain to the children that I didn't understand why eggs were such a big part of Easter.  After all, they had nothing to do with the surprise his friends encountered when they found the tomb that Jesus had been laid in was empty.  I said that I was so mad about eggs getting so much attention that I just want to smash it to pieces...and then I cracked it on Doug's head!  The gasp was loud!  Then the delighted laughter when they discovered that it was empty!  I excitedly shared that this egg really did have something to do with Easter...it's empty, just like the tomb!  It was great fun and they were all delighted and surprised.  I was surprised!

Here is my prayer for the day:

Lord Jesus,

     You are the resurrection and the life, all who believe in you will never die.  Today is a day of victory and celebration because you have conquered the power of death.  As the people of God we have come together to celebrate your victory over death, which ensures that our future will be filled with hope and joy.  Our earthly lives know all too well the sting of death, but today dear Jesus, you have diminished that sting by overcoming death itself and we are here today as thankful and joy-filled people. 

     Lord, today we rejoice in the reality that the empty places in our lives are now filled because of the emptiness of the tomb.  Your living, your dying, and your rising again hold the promise for us of a life worth living, not because of anything that we’ve done, but totally and utterly because you have lived and died and risen again.

     And so we ask that you fill us with your love, that we might love others with a love that transcends reason.  Fill us with your grace that we might offer grace to another who is desperately in need of forgiveness and renewal.  Fill us with your joy that others might be drawn to you and find that even when life is challenging, you are there for them, waiting to embrace them and journey beside them through life’s most difficult valleys.

     Lord, we know that for many today those difficult valleys include the sting of loss from the death of a loved one.  We remember today those who have lost loved ones in the past year and ask that you provide relief and comfort to them as they grieve and adjust to life without their dear ones here with them on earth.  May the hope that is ours through Christ overcome their sorrow and ease the sting that death brings to our lives. 

     Lord, we pray for those for whom today is anything but hopeful.  Whether it be an unclear future, or waiting on news that they have permission to stay here in Sweden, be it the longing for family from whom they are separated, the financial strain that crushes them, or the concern that their children are struggling, or other significant relationships are breaking…Lord, whatever it is that is pulling hope out of people’s lives and filling it with despair, minister to them this day.  Surround them with the same loving presence that you assured Mary with at the graveside, that her sorrow will be turned to joy, that her anguish will end.      

     Loving God, it is such a joy and privilege to come and celebrate your resurrection, yet Lord, too, our deepest desire is that we live as Easter people every day of our lives.  May we know the power of your presence.  May we embody the grace that you so generously offer to us.  May we live as a hopeful people knowing that you have overcome all things and are actively making all things new. 

     Today we say hallelujah, for Christ is no longer dead.  The tomb is empty.  Help us Lord to share this good news with others that they too may experience the victory and joy that we do.  We pray these things in the name of our Risen Lord and Savior, the one who has conquered the grave, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

It's my prayer for today too, to live as an Easter person all the time.

We had a wonderful Easter, truly.  The second service was standing room only with people grabbing chairs from the cafe and sitting in the hallway! After the services were over, the choir was invited to take some flowers.  They loved mugging for the camera! 

It's been a good Lenten season for me.  I'm happy to be in Eastertide however.  It feels lighter...thanks to Jesus who shares my burden and makes my yoke easier.

Easter weekend

I am a little sad that I never got anything posted over Easter. The truth of the matter is that all my energy went towards planning worship for our congregation which is likely the right use of time and energy but turns out it's hard to figure out how to post blogs! when work is bearing down on you!
We did have a fabulous celebration however, from Good Friday straight on through to Easter Sunday. The whole weekend just meant so much to me. Having missed most of Lent with our congregation, it was a bit odd just to jump right in and practically leap to the main event! But in the end, it was so awesome to be with our congregation. I planned Good Friday and felt very good about how it all turned out. The right tone was hit though the visuals, the music, and the readings. I tried something new with my preaching, breaking it up into 4 different talks after a portion of the scripture was read, and in the end, I liked it quite a lot. I divided the service into 5 significant sections: Betrayed, Sentenced, Crucified, Dead, Buried. And we left it hanging it there...hoping to give people a bit of anticipation for Sunday. We were tired afterward so spent a quiet afternoon and evening together which was also kept us in the right zone theologically.
Saturday was a day to get some things done and finish our preparations for Sunday. The weather was delightful, we took Tanner for a nice wander though the city, and enjoyed a nice dinner together at home. We went to bed early as we were eager with anticipation for celebrating the resurrection of Christ with our congregation.
We did wake up quite early on Sunday, 6.00 a.m. I posted on Facebook that Christ has risen and heard back from many American friends that it was still Saturday night in America and they were still waiting. It was pretty cool. The service Sunday was wonderful, complete with our choir singing, great music and a beautiful communion service. I was happy to be here with my church family but missing our biological families. Always the pull for me. I felt the power of Christ's resurrection through our worship and felt genuinely hopeful after our worship services.Our choir director and his 3 children came over for Easter dinner. His wife was away. One of his kids works in England and was our summer intern for a couple of summers, one is in college in England, and the other is in high school here and active in our youth group and in service to our church. They are a great family and we loved being together. Great food, amazing conversation and just a wonderful day of fellowship and fun.
It was a beautiful Easter weekend for us. I hope the same was true for you and yours.

The In-between Saturday

Yesterday was Good Friday. We enjoyed a powerful service that walked us through the Passion of Christ. Through the music of our choir, the stringed instruments (violin, viola, cello, guitar, base), percussion, saxophone and piano set alongside the scripture readings that revealed the last days of Jesus' life, we were led to the cross with emotion and power. Doug preached on Sabachthani, meaning forsaken, and reminded us that because Christ was forsaken in his death, we will never ever be forsaken by God. That's why Good Friday is good. It's good for us, who though imperfect are made whole through the death of Christ. The words of Isaiah 53 set the tone for the entire day: "But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed." 6 black candles placed on the front altar were extinguished one by one throughout the course of the service and 4 long stem red roses sitting in front of the altar cross created a stark visual reminder of Christ's suffering and death. Afterwards we departed in silence and were left wanting. For this one day, we allowed the heaviness of confronting our sin while seeking to understand both our need for forgiveness as well as the price that has been paid for our forgiveness to linger and sink in a bit. We leave with feelings of longing, anxious for the glory and praise of Easter morning to break through.
But first we have to live through Saturday. As I consider how painful this in-between day must've been for Jesus' followers, I am made aware of the places we ourselves live in the "in-between". I am acutely aware this Easter of our friend whose husband died in November. Their first Easter without husband and father. All this talk of the glory of the resurrection when their beloved is no longer with them. I think of those for whom life is tough. A friend's 15 year old nephew had brain surgery last week to remove a tumor. Although it was benign, it's been a rough road for the family. I am aware of the professional baseball player from my favorite team in Southern California whose life was cut short on Thursday by a drunk driver. 24 years old. How searing is that pain for his family, his team, his community? I know the pain of chronic and fatal illness. I understand the brokenness of relationships and the longings of loneliness. Doug is headed out to a service of commemoration with our Rwandan community as it has been 15 years since that horrific massacre unfolded in their homeland. For many, perhaps life feels perpetually like the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Christ is dead. Our hopes have been dashed. What is there is to look forward to anyway?
Yes...sometimes life feels like the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. And yet...we know that Easter Sunday comes, faithfully, assuredly, gloriously, not to remove the pain and suffering, but to redeem it. Easter Sunday will dawn anew and the power of sin and sorrow and sadness will be overcome. The darkness shall once again be pierced with the Light of Christ and nothing shall over take it. But that's getting ahead of ourselves for today. Today, we live with the pain that life brings, but we live with it knowing that Christ too lived with pain. He suffered unthinkable pain on our behalf and so today, on this Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, let that be your comfort...that Christ has entered into your pain and suffering. God doesn't end our suffering, but He definitely enters into it with us. So, if your pain is searing on this Saturday, may the knowledge that Christ knows your pain bring you comfort. And may the anticipation of his conquering death be your peace.
It's hard to live on Saturday. And yet, so many do. But we must remember that Sunday is coming. Saturday does not have the final word. And it is in this truth that we can rejoice, even while the darkness hovers for awhile.