"Easter: the Gift that Keeps on Giving!"
John 20: 1-18
Easter
April 8, 2007
The Rev. Dr. Russell C. Sullivan, Jr.
Pastor

Pine Street Presbyterian Church
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

There was once a prince who had everything he could desire – wealth, good looks, youth, and power. Still the prince was unhappy. One day he met a poor man who exuded happiness and joy, and so he asked him, "What’s the secret of your happiness."

"My secret," said the poor man, "is my two pockets."

"Your two pockets?" asked the confused prince. "I’m not sure I understand."

"Well, you see," said the poor man, reaching into one pocket, "Right here I carry this not. It says, "Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

The prince said, "I don’t see anything happy about that."

"I know," the man replied. "But it helps me keep things in perspective. When some momentary blessing comes my way, or when I find myself wishing I had what someone else has, the note helps me to remember that these things come and go. They cannot bring everlasting happiness, for they do not last."

"However," the poor man continued, "in my other pocket, I carry this note. I take it out when I feel poor, or deprived, or discouraged, or afraid to die." It says, "Christ died; Christ rose; Christ lives for evermore."¹

You know those two messages, don’t you? One is the message of Ash Wednesday, which began our journey through Lent. "Remember you are dust. From dust you have come, and to dust you shall return." The other message is the message of Easter: "Christ died; Christ rose; Christ lives for evermore." The Christian life is contained between those two messages, between the boundaries of Ash Wednesday and Easter.

We know something about dust because we spend our lives in pursuit of it. Although we wouldn’t call it that. We would call it success, wealth, applause, comfort, achievement. And yes, they are great things. They bring blessings of their own. But they bring their own problems, and they don’t last. Our romances die, our investments die, we die. All is dust, and to dust it shall return.

But that doesn’t stop us from getting attached to it in the meantime. We work hard for our beautiful dust and even pray for it, but then one day we find out that dust doesn’t measure up. We find ourselves asking, "Is that all there is to it? Is that it? I have worked hard for it. For it to turn to dust?"

Katherine Newman wrote a book, Declining Fortunes: the Withering of the American Dream. She talks about those of us who grew up in privileged childhoods, but who are now spending every ounce of our adult energies just trying to equal with two careers the style of life our parents enjoyed with only one of them working. She concludes with this statement, "Isn’t it ironic? The deal was going to be that you didn’t have to stay at home. Now it’s like you can’t stay home if you wanted to." We seek all of this stuff, all this dust, and we are left wondering, "What’s it all about? Does it really give my life purpose?"

It sounds almost like the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. The writer of that book knew what dust was all about. He tells the story of how he wandered every pathway seeking happiness, chasing pleasure, knowledge, even religion to bring meaning to his life. At the end of his search, he says it is simply all vanity, just chasing after wind. It’s just dust, and he concludes, "There is nothing new under the sun."

That’s only one part of the truth, however. Because the writer of Ecclesiastes is stuck, like a computer hard-drive, in "Ash Wednesday mode". There is something new under the sun, even brighter than the sun. Mary Magdalene visited the tomb of Jesus that Sunday morning to deal with the death of the most precious person she had ever known. Jesus is dead and gone. One more good person, trampled upon by the powers and principalities of this world. There would be nothing new under the sun, she thought, not here at the grave. Just another person to mourn, another body to anoint for burial, another loved one over whom to say prayers, another person who returns to dust – that’s all she would find here.

But that’s not all she found. That’s not how the story ended. It did not end in dust. Jesus was there – raised from the dead. I know that doesn’t really surprise you, this many thousands of years after the event. You’ve heard the story for eons. But there is a surprise here, and it’s a life changing one. This Jesus isn’t ghost, an apparition, or a dream. He’s not standing on the shore of eternity, calling us to cross the great chasm of death into the Great Beyond, to join him there. Clarence Jordan, a great prophetic Baptist preacher who was always getting into trouble because he lived for God’s justice to be born on earth, wrote, "God raised Jesus, not as an invitation to us to come to heaven when we die, but as a declaration that God has now established permanent, eternal residence on earth. The Resurrection places Jesus on this side of the grave – here and now – in the midst of life."²

Jordan goes to say: "Resurrection is simply God’s way of saying to humanity, ‘You might reject me if you will, but I’m going to have the last word. I’m going to put my son right down here in the midst of you, and he’s going to dwell among you from here on out.’ "

On that first Easter morning God put life in the present tense, not just in the future. Oh surely, that is the promise too. God will resurrect us, will give us new bodies, and will give us life with him forever. But God also on Easter gave us the living presence of the Risen Lord, a power, a living purpose, the very Lord of Life. In the midst of dust, Christ lives and comes to dwell among us.

Easter transformed Mary and those disciples who had been shivering in fear. They became witnesses and activists. They were certain that death had not defeated Jesus and that he was alive and present and active and on the move in the world. They had nothing now to fear, not even the grave. They could give their lives to building a new and more just world, to his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Sure, Jesus went into the grave, but it could not hold him. He is risen.

Christ lives, which means we can have eternal life now. Elsewhere in the gospel of John, we hear these words, "Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life … has passed from death to life." Did you notice the tense? Not future, but present. The believer passes from death to life now … here and now!

Easter is not about death. It is about life, and not just life after death, which is really the easy part for God because God has promised that. The real challenge is for us to live that future promise in the here and now, and the promise of the gospel is that you don’t have to die in order to live. You can have eternal life now, life that is rich with joy, love, and peace, life that is incredibly deep and full!

What would that look like?

First, having eternal life would mean that you wouldn’t have to spin wheels accumulating dust. In Christ there is new purpose for living. Jesus said: "But strive first for the kingdom of God, and all these things will be given to you. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today." Don’t worry about dust, Jesus is saying. Seek the kingdom. And that’s not a place. It’s a pattern of living in which God rules. We need people who desire a "kingdom-on-earth-as-it-is-in-heaven" kind of mentality. God desires people who want to work for the new day which is coming. God desires people who will feed the hungry and welcome the lonely and the lost.

If we can receive that hope that is in Christ, then we have plenty to live for and to strive for. There is new life before there is death. Let me tell you a beautiful Easter story. It seems that a visiting schoolteacher who worked in a hospital was asked by the classroom teacher of a little boy to go and visit him in the hospital and help him with his homework. The classroom teacher said to the visiting teacher, "We’re studying nouns and adverbs in this young man’s class, and I hope you will help him."

When the visiting teacher arrived at the hospital, she was saddened to discover that the boy was in the hospital’s burn unit, in intensive care, and in terrible pain. She was embarrassed when she walked into his room and saw the state of misery he was in. She felt ashamed that she was going to put him through such a useless exercise, but she pressed on. The next morning, the nurse asked her, "What did you do to that boy yesterday?" Before the teacher could apologize, the nurse said, "We had given up on him, but ever since you visited him, he seems to be fighting back, responding to treatment."

The boy himself later explained that he had given up hope of living, but it all changed when he had come to the simple realization that they wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they? Sharing hope. You can be a hope-giver, a kingdom-seeker, and discover eternal life, which is more than dust.

Secondly, having eternal life gives you permission to start over again and to leave the past behind. Jesus came to Mary and spoke her name, and in doing so, he gave her back herself. As he speaks her name, she is welcomed, affirmed and cherished. That means you are not fully defined by your struggles or your difficulties. You are not your sins. You are not only your suffering or pain or depression. You are not defined only by dust. You are the cherished and beloved children of God. You and this world are not defined by the bad news we hear daily or by our problems. You can start again, risk again, seek again, because the presence of the Christ is firmly planted in this world. That’s good news indeed.

Finally, having eternal life now means that the future is not something to fear. As someone said, I do not know what tomorrow holds, but I know who holds tomorrow. The prophet Isaiah said, "For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice in what I [the Lord] am creating." (Isaiah 65.17-18a) God is not finished with us or the world. And whatever tomorrow brings, God will be there to bring something good out of it.

Remember today the pockets. Carry those two notes with you. Hold on to realism. "You are dust, and to dust you shall return." But remember also the glad and bright news of Easter: "Christ died. Christ rose. Christ lives forevermore." Christ came that you might have life and have it abundantly, now and through eternity. Live that life now. Claim it. For Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia! Amen!