An excerpt of Jim’s Easter sermon at UCC Simi Valley yesterday – watch the video:

Rising With Him

Christos anesti!  Alithos anesti!
This ancient chant, in Greek, marked the joyous celebration of Easter from the earliest days of Christianity.  It translates:  Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

And what rose with him?

According to the sacred myth of scripture, after his crucifixion, Jesus’ body returned to the earth from which it came.  Onto the cross and into the tomb, he carried with him all the failings and sufferings of humanity.  Yours and mine.  Something mysterious and wondrous happened in the tomb during those three days between his burial and his resurrection.  The three days correspond to the three trimesters of human gestation.  They also correspond with this parable of Jesus: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened.”  (Matthew 13: 33) 

The pain and terror and horror of crucifixion went in, but hope and promise came out. 
A story of victimhood went in, and a story of victory came out.
Lust for power went in, and willingness to share power came out.
Shallow thinking went in, and meaningful life came out.
Conformity went in, and creativity came out.
Frustration went in, and fulfillment came out.
Anger and fear went in, and forgiveness came out. 
Dogma and doctrine went in, and authentic, experiential spirituality came out.

The old, worn-out, non-sensical theology of an all-mighty, supernatural Guy in the Sky God went into the tomb, and out of the tomb rose the God who is no more and no less than unconditional “agape” love.

As St Paul wrote much later, “It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body…” (1 Corinthians 15:44)  Jesus’ body went into the tomb, and the Christian church came out, three days later.

According to the sacred myth, when Jesus rose from the dead, he wasn’t the same as he was before his crucifixion.  The Easter Jesus was not the same as the Palm Sunday Jesus.  The wounds were still on his hands and his side and his feet.  But the meaning of those wounds had been transformed during those three days in the tomb.  The Romans wanted those wounds to instill fear and obedience.  When Jesus rose again, those wounds represented the very opposite for the early Christians.  The people of the early church awakened to the deeper reality that Jesus’ wounds had become openings through which divine love flowed in and out of the Christ.  Our wounds, our sufferings, are the openings through which we empathize and understand and sympathize and commune and serve with each other.  The wounds of the Christ, your wounds of body and soul, and my wounds of body and soul, are sacred passageways through which we share love and healing with each other. 

Jesus didn’t store his love in a barn.  He refused to store himself in a tomb.  He was disinterested in preserving his life in a long obituary.  He didn’t just live his life.  He gave it.  He gave his attention to outcasts, to foreigners, to children and to women, people who were all too often ignored.  He gave his time and energy to help people heal from diseases and from social isolation.  He gave his commitment to end injustices he saw around him.  He gave his all to living eternally, even while the people around him were living temporally, mostly clueless about the glorious kingdom of heaven that surrounded them all the time.  Jesus even gave his own death to others, letting it be a means for them to transcend the confines of the human condition so they could share a love that could extend even to their enemies.  Jesus gave it all away, trusting that he’d get what he needed moment by moment, day by day, so that there’d always be more to give.  We’re still getting it – still getting a love that won’t stay stuck on a cross, won’t stay still in a grave. A love that won’t get locked in a religion, won’t gather dust in a dogma.  A love that won’t hide in a hole while wars rage and injustices spread, and we can do something about it. 

What stone is holding you down?  What cross is hanging you up?  What resentment has you stuck in the past?  What fear has you paralyzed in facing the future?  What selfishness has trapped you in your ego?  What hurt has mummified your heart?  What has kept you from the heaven that surrounds you this Easter morning?  Are you ready to be unwrapped, unstuck, unwound?  Are you ready to be all the way here?

To be completely “here” in every moment, not anxious about leaving some kind of fancy legacy, not eager to impress anybody about anything, not striving to be Rabbi of the Month, not interested in having some big building named after him someday.  If he could live fully in the moment, if I can be completely here, not distracted by fretting about the past or obsessing about the future – then I can be in heaven now, in eternity now, and no barbed wire fence can hold me in, no stone in front of a hole in the ground can hold me down.  Or hold you down, either, if you can join Jesus in living like the birds of the air and the flowers of the field that live in eternity now, that are completely here when they are here, without a worry that they might be gone tomorrow.

To be all the way here – that’s the transformed life that Easter offers us.  All the way here, in heaven, in eternity, in the bliss of boundless love. 

At Easter, Christians celebrate this spiritual transformation.  We celebrate the decision of Jesus’ followers to be the church – to stick together in a community of compassion.  That’s what it means for the Christ to live within us.  That’s what we mean when we repeat the ancient Greek chant:  “Christos anesti! Alithos anesti!” — “Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!”

Jim Burklo

Pastor, United Church of Christ, Simi Valley CA

Executive Director, Progressive Christians Uniting/ZOE: Progressive Christian Life on Campus

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