It has been a pretty wild and wonderful three or four weeks around here. We did puppets. Then we had senior recognition. We’ve done stewardship and budget building. We’ve blessed babies. Then we had an open house in the Youth Center. We’re going to break ground today. It’s just too bad there’s nothing going on around this place.

 

Then I read this story this week that I think puts it all into perspective. It certainly did for me. I want to share it with you. It goes like this.

 

“It happened during my first year in college,” she said. “I played soccer. I was out on the practice field, running as hard as I could, when my heart started to race. They pulled me off while I was running and checked my blood pressure. They found it was off the charts. They rushed me to the hospital, and within minutes, I was told by the medical team, ‘Do not run anymore. Don’t even walk more than a few steps. Don’t take any stairs. We are scheduling you for open-chest surgery as soon as we can to repair what we think is a congenital heart condition. It should have killed you before you even reached your teens. We can’t believe no one found it prior to this. How in the world you have been an athlete all these years is beyond us.’

 

“Can you imagine?” she said. “I was just a college freshman. As I look back now,” she said, “I see that moment was a turning point in my life. Something changed that became permanent. Indeed, something came into my life that will never ever let me go. I’m still trying to understand it. I don’t understand it all, but I am trying to live it, and I want to do it well. I want to live well based on what I now know.”

 

Her friends said, “Well, what is it that you now know?”

 

She said, “I now know that it’s all over. It’s all finished. It’s really, really over. It’s sort of perfect in a way,” she said. “You see… I died that day. There’s no going back. Everyday now is new for me. It’s like someone took my life, and then in a miracle, gave it back. I just can’t believe that people around me don’t get it. I mean… They’re so foolish. Here we are invited to this incredible banquet, this massive feast, and they have somehow purposely decided to go hungry instead. I guess,” she said, “they just haven’t died yet.  They don’t know that all that running, and chasing, and fretting, and getting all upset about stuff is foolishness. Now every once in a while I do meet somebody who does get it. It’s like running into an old friend. It is sort of like finding Jesus all over again. You live in the holy, and the holy gives everything you need back to you. Everyday,” she said, “everyday for me, a college freshman, is Easter Day.”

 

Wow! Folks, today is the Sixth Sunday of Easter. We sort of forgot about that, although we didn’t really forget. We just had a lot of other things going on. Easter is not just a day. It is not just a weekend. It is not just a holiday. In the Church, we celebrate the reality of Easter throughout the season. This is the Sixth Sunday of Easter. I have a question for you today. One question: Have you died yet?

 

In the Gospel of John, just before death, Jesus said, “It is finished.” The word “finished” also translates as the words “perfect,” or “complete.” “It is perfect.” “It is complete.”

 

Many of us, we Christians, believe that Jesus’ death is not his own. We believe that Jesus’ death belongs to all creation, and to all time, and that all that is dies with him. 

 

So, we don’t need to fight the wrong battles and the wrong fights anymore. Those years that some of us in this room and people we know and love have struggled to keep that small business and company afloat on a sea of debt… Those years that some of us have been battling in declining health that has taken all of the joy and meaning out of life, and yet we hang on… Those years of being without a church home and not growing an inch spiritually, because we somehow got crosswise with somebody back when, and we can’t even remember what it was, but we just haven’t done anything about it for years… Those years we’ve spent worrying about the well being of our children, what they’re doing with their lives, what they’re not doing with their lives, what we think they are missing in their lives… Those years we have done battle with our bodies, their cravings, their failures, their imperfections… Those years we have wrestled with our souls, our souls’ homelessness, emptiness, silence, angers, hungers… 

 

The fact is, folks, for us, where we come from, where we stand, it’s over. It’s finished. It’s done. You and I, biblically and theologically, have already died. Did you know that? We’ve already died. And all creation, and all time have died with us. The Bible puts it this way: “Now if we have died with Christ,” said Paul, “we believe that we also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery over him. And the life he now lives, he lives to God,” (Romans 6:8).

 

Folks, it’s Easter time. It’s always Easter time. We are a resurrection people. So I’m asking for you today… My request is that we become aware of that again and to live it as best we know how. We are an Easter people. Do whatever it is that you want to do, folks. Do whatever it is you want to do that God wants you to do in this playground, this new playground called resurrection. 

 

Knowing what you know now, you and I are free. We are free to live in peace. We’re free to live in harmony. We can live justly and joyfully. We’re free to live the way God intends us to live, because we don’t have to worry about some things anymore. We don’t have to worry about the fact that we have to be concerned, like so many other people do, about what other people think. We don’t have to be worrying about whether we are going to offend this group or that group or somebody here or there. We don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen tomorrow. We have been freed from that. I think the way we are freed from that is exactly the way it happened for that young college girl. 

 

Life that we thought we had is over. Our faith in Christ has been pivotal, foundational for us. There is something in the depth of our souls that says, “Something, some One has hold of us, is holding us, and will never ever let us go. 

 

Again the Bible put it this way: “We’re convinced,” said Paul, “that because of Christ’s love, he dies for all, and therefore, all have died. He did this so that those who live no longer live for themselves but might live for him who died for them and was raised again,” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).

 

I have another story for you today. Some of you may have heard it. It thought it was fascinating. It’s about a woman who’s name is Mama Hawkins. Have you ever heard of Mama Hawkins?

 

Mama Hawkins lives and works in the inner city of Chicago. About a decade ago she did something that was visionary. She did something that was really outside the box. She reportedly went to the principal of her neglected elementary school where she was teaching. She said, “Why is it that we have gifted children in this school that are failing? Why is that? If you don’t have an answer, I will give you the answer, because I teach in it every day. The reason is this school in the inner city is dead. It’s dead! Here’s my deal. You let me have these children. Let me do with them what I need to do, and I will show you something new.”

 

Guess what? The principal did. What started as a one-room deal soon became 40 kids under her care and making it. Year-round classes, high demands. Children who didn’t have parents, and there were literally some who didn’t, went home with Mama Hawkins. Parents who bought into the program she offered, were given assistance and special help that was needed. If they didn’t, they were not invited. 

 

Reportedly, a sign hung outside the entrance of her classroom: “Jesus is spoken here.” The day begins with prayer. The Bible is taught in the classroom. Both students and teachers are called to live their lives as children of God – upfront, clear, stated. No problem. In a public school? How can this be? That can’t happen. They will shut you down. Right?

 

“When they assure me,” she said, “that they have taken the evil one out of school, I will take Jesus out of school. Until that day, I am not going to spend 16-hour days in hell without my Jesus. And besides,” she said (and here is the key word), “this neighborhood has already died. Nobody in power cares. Nobody knows. We can do whatever we choose to do. So, why don’t we start something new? And I will keep doing what I’m suggesting to you until God tells me to stop.”

 

Folks, that is Easter talk. That’s powerful stuff. This is a woman who knows about the power of the resurrection. This is a woman who knows God in a world that says that God cannot be known.

 

Let me put it another way to you. In Christian faith, the separation between here and there, between what is spiritual and what is material, between life now and life eternal dies. That separation doesn’t exist for us. There’s a transformed kind of life that somehow takes over. It is a life that cannot go back. It is a life where today is new and powerful, where everyday is a gift, where life every morning comes to us as a miracle, and everyday for us is an Easter day. That’s called resurrection living. We believe that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, and our job, according to the text today, is to be witnesses to its power. That power is where the practical realities of everyday life intersect with the possibilities of new life where there was no life, where things have died. That’s what we’re about. That’s what makes a difference.

 

Does it make any real difference in your life? I’ll tell you whom it did make a difference to. It made a difference to that young college girl. You see… those kind of insights don’t come to folks just in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. That’s an insight that came to a college freshman. OK? Does it make any difference? It made a difference to her. Does it make any difference to those children in Mama Hawkins' classroom? Evidently it did. And I think it’s going to make a difference to those children, and those young folks, and those adults who are going to be in classrooms that you and I are going to break ground for in just a couple of minutes. Does it make any difference to anybody else in this world? I think it makes a difference to those people who want to attend the feast. It’s an invitation to a banquet. It’s ours to accept or to reject. That’s been the witness of the Church for centuries. 

 

Sure, we get sidetracked, and we get distracted, and we get watered down, and we get half-baked, just like everybody else does. But when we are at our best, we know who we are, and we know whose we are, and we know where we’re going in a world that doesn’t.

 

One final story.

 

Several years ago Billy Graham was honored at a luncheon. Billy is now 86 years of age, struggling with Parkinson’s disease. The folks in North Carolina wanted him to come to this gathering just to honor him. They didn’t need a sermon or a speech. They said, “Will you just come and let us honor you?” He’s reached that stage in his life, and how wonderful it is.

 

When he stood to speak a few words at that luncheon he said, “I’m reminded today about the great physicist Albert Einstein. Einstein was teaching at Princeton, and he was traveling from Princeton to another place on the train. There’s a wonderful little connecting train that runs back and forth from that community down to the main line that connects the eastern seaboard. The little train is called the Dinghy. 

 

“The conductor, as he always does, comes down the aisle and punches the tickets of every passenger. When he came to Einstein, Albert reached into his pocket. No ticket. He got out his briefcase.  No ticket. He looked in the seat next to him. No ticket. The conductor said, ‘Dr. Einstein, don’t worry. I know who you are. We all know who you are. I’m sure you bought a ticket, and don’t worry about it.’ He went on down the aisle. When he got to the end of the aisle and turned back, the conductor saw Albert Einstein on his knees crawling around on the floor of the Dinghy trying to find his ticket. The conductor went back and said, ‘Dr. Einstein, don’t worry. I know who you are. You don’t need a ticket. I’m sure you bought one.’ To which Dr. Einstein reportedly replied, ‘Young man, I, too, know who I am, but what I don’t know is where I’m going!’

 

“I know that has not happened to anybody else here.”

 

(The luncheon crowd laughed just like we did.) Then Billy said, “You see this suit I’m wearing? I went out and bought it last week for this luncheon and for one other occasion. This is the suit I’m going to be buried in. When you hear that I’ve died, I don’t what you to think about this suit.  Here is what I do want you to remember. I not only know who I am; I know where I’m going.”

 

For us, folks, Easter is every single day. Our witness, our reason for being is to witness to the power of the resurrection to bring new life where there is no new life. That fact makes absolutely all the difference.

 

And we all say together… “Amen.”

 

 

We are a resurrection people and death is not the end. While we have this new day, we will do as God intends. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done ON EARTH, that’s where we come in, as it is in heaven.” Amen.