Sermon for Easter Day

March 23, 2008

Jeremiah 31:1–6
Psalm 118:1–2, 14–24
Acts 10:34–43
Matthew 28:1–10
Year A
I.N.I. (In the name of Jesus)

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia!


On Easter Day in the 1960’s, my mother and my sister, and other women like them looked like peacocks. On Easter Day Mom and Debbie wore bright pastel dresses, newly bought and pressed, many times matching patterns, matching colors, the same bright yellow dresses. In addition to the dresses, Mom and Debbie were adorned with flowers, corsages that my father had bought and which they had pinned to their chests. And on their heads, crowning their plumage, they plunked hats, Easter bonnets, wide-brimmed declarations that on this day like no other they were wholly different women. They were among the redeemed, and their joy in their dressing was a vision. Did I say they looked like peacocks? No, they were in the royal court, queens and princesses, duchesses, countesses, and baronesses!

On Easter Day in the late fourth century, seventeen hundred years ago, the extraordinary preacher, liturgist, and sage of the Eastern Church John Chrysostom describes the sight of the newly baptized emerging from the font in an early church father bubbly kind of fashion:
As soon as they come forth from those sacred waters, all who are present embrace them, greet them, kiss them, rejoice with them, and congratulate them, because those who were heretofore slaves and captives have suddenly become free people and children and have been invited to the royal table. For straightway after they come up from the waters, they are led to the awesome table heavy laden with countless favors, where they taste of the Master’s body and blood, and become a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. Since they have put on Christ himself, wherever they go they are like angels on earth, rivaling the brilliance of the rays of the sun. p. 101, Easter Sourcebook.


This day, Easter Day is called the Feast of Feasts, the Queen of Seasons, the Springtime of our Souls.

With my mother and sister, and those nameless folks John Chrysostom waxed on about, we are among the baptized who emerge wholly clean and freed to live in Christ. Looking at one another, whether adorned with flowers, pastel colors, bonnets, or not, coming from the waters recently or in a distant past, today, this day, in the face of Christ’s resurrection we are wholly different women and men.

Think of it, Sunday, the day after the Sabbath, described in Matthew’s Gospel. New life in Christ was not yet recognized, only the pain and emptiness of death. Two women trudge to a tomb. Two women, loving women, devoted to the teachings of the rabbi Jesus, he himself who described and lived in a new way that brought the messianic age into sharp imagery, who carved out a community focused on reconciliation and righteous living, in the face of persecution and hypocrisy, two women bereft of their teacher and leader, come to his final resting place to pay their respects.

On this day, two ensuing experiences rocked their worlds, reframed how they looked at life and death, changed them inside and out. One was the encounter with an angel at an empty tomb. The other was with the risen Jesus himself.

The angel encounter was typically overwrought, overdone, Mr. Angel blasting his way into view. This was like a Lucasfilm production with special effects. Earthquake (boom! boom!) Rolling back the stone with panache, and then plunking down on top of it (whoosh). And the way he looked, too bright (shield eyes)!

What happens, of course, is that like angels all over the Bible, he scares the pants off everyone. The guards faint. And like angels all over the Bible he has to say to the woman, the loving and devoted women, now frightened and panicky women, “Do not be afraid.” With these words of comfort, then maybe the message can get through, the Easter truth, that Jesus did indeed die, it was not a mirage, and Jesus was indeed raised from the dead, which means that the new age has begun, the promises of God with us ripple out, and there is good news is for those women and others like them.

Now, next things move fast. The feet formerly trudging are now pell-melling (vroom, vroom). We think they may have to go the great distance all the way to Galilee, but here in the place of death, still in Jerusalem, while they were just getting started to try to make sense of it all and share it with the disciples, Jesus himself caught up with them. Unlike the angel’s commotion earlier that Easter morning, there was no theatrical appearance here, no megaphone, woofers or tweeters, special effects, or even an earthquake. Just a common, Middle Eastern hello. Kairete! “Greetings!” “Hi” (Can you see Jesus waving, or bowing or extending a hand?)

Here these women, these loving women, these devoted women, on this day, returned the greeting, and reacted to Jesus’ hello in a way that broke open Easters and Sundays and every morning from here to eternity: they extended their hands to hold on to Jesus. They grabbed him, touched his newly risen body, and worshiped him. They recognized him on Easter as one worth worshiping. And then Jesus speaks these words to awestruck worshipers, devoted women and men of all times and places: “Do not be afraid.”

There is this idea given to those who confess Christ as Savior of the world, that in their own encounters with the risen Jesus, through the washing of baptism, in the meal of new life in bread and wine, in hearing the good news of Jesus as for the first time, seeing Christ in others, there is this idea that we who embody Christ in ourselves have put on Christ. We wear Christ.

And like the women who met him, we grab a hold with our own hands whatever it is that presents itself to us as the risen Christ, and worship.

This life, this human life, this life in Christ is a very fleshy proposition. Our bodies, such as they are, can be used for the work of production and reproduction, or for demolition, for creation and recreation, or for desecration, for love and kindness, or for violence and hatred.

On this day, the day of new life in Christ, I want to affirm and admonish that our bodies are primarily and wonderfully responsible for praise and worship, with hands extended toward the other not in fear but in welcome.

Won’t you use your hands for prayer? Won’t you lift your voices in song? Won’t you take hold of the crucified and risen Christ and with his words “Do not be afraid” ringing in your ears, and walk and run, taste and savor, sing and shout this new life, so that the world, still clinging so closely to fear and division, might also be greeted by this newly risen Christ who is in us?

Then it might be told of us:

In March of 2008, there was this church where everyone looked so good on Easter morning and Sunday mornings. There was nothing spectacular about their dress, really, or their outward appearances, though the women were beautiful and the men were handsome enough. But there was something more about them that caught the eye. They acted as if they were something beyond just being neighbors and friends in church on a Sunday morning. The way they loved each other and newcomers alike, the way they worshiped with their whole heart and soul, the way they strove to care for the ills of the world, the way they approached a meal of wine and bread, why it was like everyone there was royalty. This Jesus,” whom they worshiped, they said lived in them, I want him to live in me, too, forever.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

I.N.I.

The Rev. Timothy J. Keyl, Pastor
Christ the King Lutheran Church
| CtK Home | Back to Pastor's Page |

Christ the King Lutheran Church, 3 Lutheran Drive, Nashua, NH 03063 (603) 882-6142
If you have problems with this web page contact: webmaster@ctknashua.org