Breaking Into The Tomb
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
This has been a week of troubling news out of Iraq, and many people in the pews will be feeling the weight of it as deaths over there mount. Thus, it is especially important to hear the Christian message about death and life again. So for this week's installment of The Immediate Word, we have asked team member George Murphy to address the news with the lectionary's gospel text.
In addition to our usual team comments, related illustrations, worship resources and a children's sermon, we've also included a great suggestion from new team member David Leininger about Holy Humor Sunday -- another approach to the Second Sunday after Easter.
Breaking Into the Tomb
By George Murphy
John 20:19-31
The news is about death.
It hardly seems like news, you may say. Death is about the oldest story in the world! That's true, but there always seems to be something that brings that old story to our attention again. In the past week we've had the news of renewed killing in Iraq, with a promise of more to come. We were reminded of the Rwandan genocide of 10 years ago, in which 800,000 died, and of how little the nations of the world did to stop it. There was the occasional obituary of someone we knew and the usual stories about fatal accidents and murders that were of only local interest because they were too run of the mill for the national media to take notice of them. And on Friday we heard again the story of Jesus' death.
People are fearful of death in the most straightforward sense, the eventual stoppage of our biological machinery. But there are other kinds of death experiences, such as the end of important relationships or the realization that something we've hoped for long and hard isn't going to pass. When people we love die, it's more than a cliche to say that something of ourselves dies with them. We speak of a person who's been divorced or been laid off from a job as having to "go through a grief process" similar to one that will be experienced with the death of someone we love.
But finally, it's plain old death that makes those other griefs so sharp. "Where there's life, there's hope," and if you could live forever you might be able to fulfill your dream -- or at least to keep that dream alive. But you won't live forever. Where is the hope when life ends?
So we try to build defenses against our mortality and against other forms of death. Some of those defenses are of course simply prudent. Drive carefully, don't smoke, and avoid high crime areas. Devote time and energy to proper maintenance of relationships and especially of marriage. It's all right to have big dreams, but do an occasional reality check as well.
But defenses against death can become pathological. Don't take any risks because it's a dangerous world out there. Don't open yourself up to other people and allow any deep personal relationships to form because you might get dumped. Always look on the dark side, because if you consistently see the glass as half empty, you're not likely to be disappointed.
And in doing that kind of thing we close ourselves off from the fullness of life, entombing ourselves in our own fortresses. Some people do that quite literally, afraid to go out of their houses or apartments. Others are sealed off behind different kinds of walls because of fear of rejection or disappointment, but they are just as much prisoners as if they never ventured outdoors.
At Easter we quite naturally emphasize the central image of Christ "bursting from the spiced tomb" as "St. Patrick's Breastplate"1 so beautifully puts it. Although none of the canonical gospels describes the actual event of resurrection, it is a natural inference from belief in the empty tomb, which was the gospel for Easter Sunday: "When they went in they did not find the body" (Luke 24:3). But the gospel for the Second Sunday of Easter, John 20:19-31, gives us a picture that in a sense is just the reverse.
On the evening of that first day of the week the disillusioned disciples have locked all the doors "for fear of the Jews." The fact that the Jewish authorities -- or perhaps more reasonably the Roman ones -- are unlikely to be concerned about these people who deserted their leader and are clearly powerless without him doesn't reassure them. They're afraid. Their friend has died and their hopes are dead, and they've sealed themselves away from the world. And Jesus breaks into their tomb and stands in their midst.
It would be easy, but too easy, to say that Jesus gets rid of their fear by showing that he is still alive. That is of course an important part of the story, but simply being told that some person had managed to survive death wouldn't in itself get rid of our own fear of it and all the other fears that limit us. There are three crucial aspects of what Jesus does when he has revealed himself to the disciples.
The first is the announcement of peace. Jesus does not simply express a wish but by his creative word makes peace a reality for the disciples. (See Brown's commentary in the Anchor Bible.) This peace in its fullest sense, shalom, means that broken relationships and shattered dreams are restored.
"After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side." The point is that the risen one is the crucified one. The way the story is told in John is intended to show this identity in a very physical way, but the same point is made in the shorter ending of Mark in which there is no appearance of the risen Christ. ("You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised" -- Mark 16:6.) It is the Jesus they knew, who proclaimed and lived the nearness of God's reign and who was obedient to the point of death, who has been raised.
And finally he gives them a mission, to go out of their closed room and into the world. They are sent "as the Father has sent me" (and thus their mission can be expected also to bear the marks of the cross). This mission is closely related to the fear of death, for the church is given Jesus' power to forgive sins. In Paul's language this means the power to remove "the sting of death" (1 Corinthians 15:56). Sin is separation from God, and the possibility that our lives will end with that separation would mean that they would remain forever unfulfilled.
(The statement that the church is given the power to forgive sins may disturb some Protestants who are wary of exclusive clerical privileges. The text does not say who in the church can exercise this authority or that sins cannot be forgiven by God directly, without the mediation of any ministers of the church. But, "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them" is unambiguous.)
The resurrection of the crucified one addresses first of all our fear of death in the immediate sense. The Letter to the Hebrews (2:14-15) says that the purpose of the Incarnation was that through his death he might "free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death." To put it very simply, the resurrection means that death doesn't have the last word.
Here, though, the preacher needs to recognize that there is -- and long has been -- a quite different response to the common fear of death. It is the response, usually based on some kind of reductive materialism, that goes back at least as far as Epicurus and his Roman popularizer Lucretius: Death doesn't need to be feared because it's simply the end. When I die, my atoms will gradually disperse and that will be the termination of my story. There will be no judgment on my life and no rewards or punishments, so I shouldn't be in fear of hell or anything of that sort. You have a finite amount of time to live so make the most of it.
Christians will reject this view, but often for the wrong reasons. The hope that we are given in the gospel is not some natural immortality that we possess (for only God is immortal -- cf. 1 Timothy 6:16) but God's act of resurrection, something comparable with creation of the universe out of nothing (Romans 4:17). Thus Christians ought, to some extent, appreciate this materialistic view. It is certainly more realistic than things like that wretched verse of James Whitcomb Riley sometimes found in greeting cards that begins, "You cannot say, you must not say That she is dead. She is just away." In that case, why are we having a funeral for her?
The problem with the "When you're dead, you're dead" view is not so much its denial of "survival" in the short term but its ultimate denial of hope. Those who hold it have some similarity with people who refuse to take the chance of entering into a loving relationship with another person because they might be rejected and made to look foolish. This week's gospel is not just a demonstration that there is a life after death but an illustration of the way Christ breaks through those limitations that we impose upon ourselves.
We ought to be careful, however, with the way we apply language like that of the Letter to the Hebrews about being freed from the fear of death. As long as we're on this side of the divide we're sinners, and some of the sting of death remains in us. Christians should be encouraged to believe that those who trust in Christ need not fear condemnation, but our trust will always be imperfect. The pastoral words of C.F.W. Walther are worth remembering here:
Many preachers picture the Christian as a person who does not fear death. This is a serious misrepresentation, because the great majority of Christians are afraid to die. If a Christian does not fear death and declares that he is ready to die at any time, God has bestowed a special grace upon him.2
The whole theme of "the locked room" as an image of the way people close themselves off from God or become imprisoned by sin and evil can be found in many places. Ezekiel 8:7-13 is another biblical example. The most vivid picture of the risen Christ breaking in to free those who are imprisoned comes from the way the Christian tradition developed the puzzling passage 1 Peter 3:18-20 and the phrase "he descended into hell" in the Apostles' Creed (in the older translation) into the "harrowing of Hell" motif in which the risen Christ breaks down the gates of Hell, overcomes the power of Satan, and frees the saints of the Old Testament. The typical Orthodox icon of the resurrection shows this scene.3
C.S. Lewis, in what he described as a "fantasy," The Great Divorce, had a slightly different take on this, emphasizing the smallness of Hell. "Only the Greatest of all can make Himself small enough to enter Hell. For the higher a thing is, the lower it can descend -- a man can sympathize with a horse but a horse cannot sympathize with a rat. Only One has descended into Hell."4 In Charles Williams' Descent into Hell, on the other hand, the descent is not that of the victorious savior but of a man slowly closing himself off from all reality, as in Augustine's characterization of sin as a state of being "curved in upon the self."
The title of Aleksander Solzhenitsyn's The First Circle refers to the top circle of Hell in Dante's Inferno. (It is set primarily in a prison for high-level scientists and engineers imprisoned under Stalin.) One short chapter, "Old Age," pictures the elderly Stalin in his night office in the Kremlin, wearily musing on his greatness and the perfidy of his underlings. It concludes, "Death had made its nest in him, and he refused to believe it."5
We don't have to look in religious texts or novels with religious themes for the closed room motif. It is, of course, a classic theme of detective fiction: The body of the murdered person is found in a room locked from the inside, and the detective has to figure out how the killer was able to escape. The preacher might try to take some liberties with that idea and develop a story sermon on our text. (How did the "criminal" get into the locked room and unmurder the disciples?)
There are a number of ways in which a sermon on the first part of this week's gospel might be developed. The purpose should be to show, in one way or another, how the risen Christ breaks into the fortresses in which we've sealed ourselves, says "Peace be with you," and calls us to be heralds of liberation.
Some may be surprised that I've said nothing about the second part of the gospel selection in which the doubts of Thomas and their resolution are dealt with. I have preached on the Thomas part of the text, but for me, verses 19-23 are the single richest gospel text dealing with the appearances of the risen Christ, and I've concentrated on them here.
Notes
1. Lutheran Book of Worship #188, verse 2.
2. The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel (Concordia, 1929), 313.
3. For an important source for this idea, see the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, Part II, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol.VIII (Eerdmans, 1978), 435-458.
4. Macmillan, 1946, 127.
5. Bantam, 1969, 134.
Team Comments
Carlos Wilton responds: "Famous last words." That expression brings to our minds a sense of impending doom. "Famous last words" are what a person utters before making a very big mistake ...
"Don't worry -- just because the gas gauge reads 'E' doesn't mean it's completely empty." Famous last words.
"C'mon -- show me your test paper. The teacher's not looking!" Famous last words.
"I suppose one itty-bitty little hot-fudge sundae won't hurt my diet." Famous last words.
There are other kinds of famous last words. I have at home a fascinating book, called Dictionary of Last Words. The author is a professor from Columbia University named Edward Le Compte. Professor Le Compte has collected the last words of the famous and infamous. It's remarkable how much "last words" can reveal about a person ...
Take John Adams, for example, the second President of the United States. Before he breathed his last, Adams turned to those around him and lamented, "Thomas Jefferson still survives." A strange remark for a person's last breath; but then, Adams and Jefferson were lifelong political rivals. John Adams couldn't stand the possibility that his archrival would outlive him. Yet, unbeknownst to Adams -- and in one of the great ironies of history -- Thomas Jefferson had in fact already died, that very day, July 4th, 1826.
Then there's Marie Antoinette, last queen of France. "Monsieur, I beg your pardon" were her last words. She spoke them on her way up the steps to the guillotine, as she accidentally stepped on the foot of her executioner. Courtly and polite to the last, was Marie Antoinette.
Sometimes last words are filled with regret, even penitence. Such was the case with Benedict Arnold, the brilliant American Revolutionary War general, who betrayed his country to the British. "Let me die in my old uniform," Arnold begged. "God forgive me for ever putting on any other."
Sometimes last words capture the personality of the one who is dying, as a sort of snapshot of the person. "So little done; so much to do." Such were the last words of Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone. A workaholic to the last.
Equally revealing are the last words of Amelia Earhart. She wrote them in a letter to her husband, just before taking off on her last airplane flight over the Pacific: "Please know that I am quite aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others."
Perhaps most interesting of all, last words sometimes tell of the experience of dying. There is, for some, the rare gift of being able to glimpse the world that lies beyond this one.
Thomas Edison was lying in a coma, unresponsive to those around him. But then for a brief moment, his eyes opened, and he returned to consciousness. "It is very beautiful over there," was all he said. A scientist to the last -- observing what he saw, and returning to give one final report.
Such, too, was the experience of Francis of Assisi. Francis, as you may know, practiced a rare and unusual love for all God's creation. "Brother sun, sister moon; brother fox, sister deer" -- he cherished all the creatures of God. His last words were right in character. "Welcome, sister death," he exclaimed.
Well, what about Jesus? What are his last words? In many churches just a week or so ago, on Good Friday, worship services focused on the "seven last words" of Christ. "Into your hands I commend my spirit" are generally the last-mentioned. Yet in our Savior's case, of course, those words were not the last: for, as our Easter faith proclaims, God brought him back from death, to live again.
Some would perhaps say that Jesus' words to his disciples at his ascension are truly the last: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
Yet even these are not the last words of Jesus in the Bible. For in the book of Revelation we read other words, spoken in a vision to John on the Isle of Patmos: "See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone's work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."
Jesus' last words are not "Into your hands I commend my spirit." There is more. That is the good news of this glorious season of Easter.
An Alternative Idea for Easter 2
By David Leininger
For the past few years, many churches have been observing the second Sunday of Easter as HOLY HUMOR SUNDAY. It has been encouraged by a group called the Fellowship of Merry Christians (http://www.joyfulnoiseletter.com), a group committed to focusing on the joy of the faith. They publish a monthly humor publication called The Joyful Noiseletter. The theology behind Holy Humor Sunday is wonderful. It celebrates the fact that the resurrection of Jesus is God's ultimate joke on evil and death. It is a testament to the God who, as the Psalmist says, "sits in the heavens and laughs" (Psalm 2:4) at the foolishness of humanity and any forces that might seek to thwart divine purposes. In our congregation, we encourage people to dress as would be appropriate for coming to a party, we decorate with balloons and streamers; along with the bulletin we pass out prescription bottles labeled "A Cheerful Heart Is Good Medicine" (Proverbs 17:22). In each bottle is a printed joke, and during the worship, folks are invited to share their "prescription" with the congregation.
This is not a unique concept. There is the Bavarian practice that has the faithful gathering back in church on Easter afternoon for a time of storytelling and practical joking. There is the early orthodox tradition of priests gathering on Easter Monday for stories, jokes, and anecdotes. To this day in Slavic regions, Christians gather the day after Easter for folk dancing and feasting in the churchyard. It is variously known as Bright Monday, White Monday, Dyngus Day, or Emmaus Day. Latin speakers call it Risus Paschalis -- God's Joke, the Easter Laugh. We call it Holy Humor Sunday.
"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven ... [This is the] time to laugh. Let God's party continue."
Related Illustrations
"Most of us believe in order to feel secure, in order to make our individual lives seem valuable and meaningful. Belief has thus become an attempt to hang on to life, to grasp and keep it for one's own. But you cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it. Indeed, you cannot grasp it, just as you cannot walk off with a river in a bucket ... To have running water you must let go of it and run. The same is true of life and of God."
-- Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being
***
"Each of us comes into life with fists closed, set for aggressiveness and acquisition. But when we abandon life our hands are open; there is nothing on earth that we need, nothing the soul can take with it."
-- Fulton J. Sheen
***
In our post-Christian era, death has recovered its old terrors, becoming unmentionable, as sex has become ever more mentionable. Private parts are public, but death is our dirty little secret. What is more, the fantasy is sustained that as science has facilitated fornication without procreation, in due course it will facilitate life without death, and enable the process of extending our life span to go on and on forever, so that it never does come to an end.
-- Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus: The Man Who Lives
***
When rock musician Warren Zevon, who was dying of cancer, was asked by David Letterman what his illness had taught him about living, he said, "How much you're supposed to enjoy every sandwich."
***
"I imagine the dead waking, dazed, into a shadowless light in which they know themselves altogether for the first time. It is a light that is merciless until they can accept its mercy; by it they are at once condemned and redeemed. It is Hell until it is Heaven. Seeing themselves in that light, if they are willing, they see how far they have failed the only justice of loving one another; it punishes them by their own judgment. And yet, in suffering that light's awful clarity, in seeing themselves within it, they see its forgiveness and its beauty, and are consoled. In it they are loved completely, even as they have been, and so are changed into what they could not have been but what, if they could have imagined it, they would have wished to be. That light can come into this world only as love, and love can enter only by suffering. Not enough light has ever reached us here among the shadows, and yet I think it has never been entirely absent....
Now I have been here a fair amount of time, and slowly I have learned that my true home is not just this place but is also that company of immortals (communio sanctoram?) with whom I have lived here day by day. I live in their love, and I know something of the cost. Sometimes in the darkness of my own shadow I know that I could not see at all were it not for this old injury of love and grief, this little flickering lamp that I have watched beside for all these years."
-- Wendell Berry, A World Lost
***
"Day by day remind yourself that you are going to die."
-- The Rule of St. Benedict
***
"A couple of years ago I found out what 'you can't take it with you' means. I found out while I was lying in the ditch at the side of a country road, covered with mud and blood and with the tibia of my right leg poking out the side of my jeans like the branch of a tree taken down in a thunderstorm. I had a MasterCard in my wallet, but when you're lying in the ditch with broken glass in your hair, no one accepts MasterCard."
-- author Stephen King, commencement address at Vassar College, May 2001.
Worship Resources
Call to Worship 1
Leader: Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life."
People: "Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,
and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die."
Leader: Christ our Lord loves us, and by his sacrificial death he has freed us from our sins.
People: To Jesus Christ be the glory and power forever. Amen.
Invocation 2
O God, we are the people of a long and joyful heritage. From those who first saw the risen Lord to communities of believers today, we share the resurrection song of new life, new life made possible by holy love. Though today we do not see the resurrected Christ as did those first disciples, we nonetheless by faith know that he lives. There are signs all around us that point to this: lives transformed, lives that now risk themselves in love for Jesus. This is the message -- good news of life abundant and eternal for all -- broadcast far and wide, to heal lives and to give them a holy meaning and purpose. So, let us be part of that joyous entourage and carry with us wherever we go the label: Easter people. This, to herald your Son's name. Amen.
Collect 1
Almighty and Ever-loving God, through the resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ, you have freed us from the power of darkness and brought us to live life in the Light of your kingdom of love. In this hour of worship, may we sense anew the abiding presence of your Spirit, that our faith may be renewed in order for us to enter into the fullness of life that awaits your children; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Call to Confession 2
Why would anyone not want to walk wholeheartedly in the way of the risen Christ? It is the way of life, the way of joy and hope and fulfillment. Why be at all hesitant, or withhold a part of self? Each of us will answer in his or her own way, as we examine the response we give to the call of Christ. From each of us will come forth words of confession, as we sadly but truthfully acknowledge that we have yet to reach that complete and full commitment to our God.
Prayer of Confession 2
Gracious and eternal God, you set before us the way of life. It is the way that leads through death to resurrection, a way that fulfills the meaning and purpose of life as you intend it to be. Help us, we pray, that we be willing to allow certain incomplete and unwholesome parts of ourselves to die, that the Spirit of the living Christ might gift us with new beginnings and set us on paths that spell freedom, growth, and service in your name. Moreover, at the same time, may doubt, fear, and uncertainty die, as we more and more become convinced of the power of holy love, a love meant for each of us, a love that can transform that which is selfish and worn into a brilliance of being that is all-giving and ever-lasting. May we gladly reach out to receive, even as you, God, are so eager to give -- that Easter take root and blossom in this place. In Christ's name. Amen.
Words of Assurance 2
God is light; in God there is no darkness at all. If we choose to walk in this light, that which is incomplete, imperfect, and impure will be removed from our lives, this by virtue of Christ's great gift of life to us. So will we find ourselves able to follow in the steps of our Lord. Christ has prepared the way to life abundant and eternal. It is now for us to accept the gift -- with gladness of heart and humbleness of spirit.
All: Praise be to God who loves us so, who through Christ would have us live.
Pastoral Prayer 3
O God, you have given us the hours of our days, the days of our weeks, and the weeks of our years. We thank you for these gifts of time. Enable us to use them wisely, that we might glorify your name.
God, you have placed us over all your creation, the rolling fields, the high reaching mountains, the flowing rivers, and the sprawling lakes. For these gifts of place we give you thanks. Enable us to use your world so that your creation is protected and your children cared for.
Forgive us for misusing time and place. When we shorten our days by a wanton spending of health, when we use time for the advancement of our selfish goals, when we exhaust the harvest of the environment, when we disregard the gentle balance of nature, forgive us. We need to kneel before you with broken and contrite hearts.
Grant us a vision that will respect and care for the time and the place you have given us. When we look about the world we see how graciously you have provided for us. How rich is our environment and how plenteous is our time. Grant us wisdom to avoid pride and to seek how best we can serve you and your children about the globe. May we find our pleasure in serving you. We pray in the name of your Son. Amen.
Unison Prayer 4
God, I like Christianity,
the morals it teaches,
the caring about others,
and even the stories.
I like being part of the Church,
and I want my family to be part of the Church.
We are better people because of it.
But I just cannot believe everything the Church teaches.
Some of the miracle stories stretch anyone's credulity,
but even worse is the promise of life after death.
Where is the evidence that Jesus actually came back to life?
And what evidence supports the hope that my loved ones and I
can enjoy life after death?
And the hardest part of all
is believing that this life after death is a gift,
that I do not have to do anything to earn it.
All I have to do is believe,
and all these things will be given to me.
God, I want to believe.
Help my unbelief.
Bless me like you did Thomas,
and my life will be putty in your hands,
to do with as you choose, eternally. Amen.
Offertory Prayer 1
O God, you have blessed us far beyond anything we deserve. May we always remember that we are stewards of all that you have given us, and may we use it all in keeping with your will. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Prayer of Dedication 2
There are many who have not heard. There are many who have heard but have yet to believe. There are many who believe yet need to be supported in their infant faith, that they might grow to a greater depth of maturity. In each case, we have a responsibility and a mission. Thus do we pray: Holy God, by your Spirit's leading, may these tithes and offerings be directed to those arenas of service where they can make a profound difference in the lives of individuals, in the life of community, and in the fulfilling of your reconciling purpose for the whole of creation. This, that the name of Christ be praised. Amen.
Benediction 4
Jesus said, "As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
Go into all the world, and announce that Christ is alive.
Help people in their doubts, and lead them into faith.
And as you go, may the peace of Christ be with you, now and always. Amen.
Hymns and Songs 1, 4, 5
All Glory Be to God on High
Awake, Arise, Lift Up Your Voice
Because He Lives
Breathe on Me, Breath of God
Celebrate Jesus
Christ Is Arisen
Forgive Our Sins as We Forgive
He Is Lord
He Is Lovely
He Lives
His Eye Is on the Sparrow
Holy Spirit, Ever Living
I Sing the Mighty Power of God
Let It Breathe on Me
Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending
Look, Now He Stands!
Look There! The Christ, Our Brother, Comes
O Breath of Life
O Sons and Daughters, Let Us Sing
O Sons and Daughters of the King
That Easter Day with Joy Was Bright
These Things Did Thomas Count
We Walk By Faith, and Not By Sight
Resources drawn from the following CSS titles:
1. Lectionary Worship Aids (Series VI, Cycle C), H. Burnham Kirkland (ISBN 0-7880-1961-9)
2. The Work Of The People, John H. Will (ISBN 0-7880-2301-2)
3. Pastoral Prayers For All Seasons, Rolland R. Reece (ISBN 0-7880-1567-2)
4. Worship Workbook For The Gospels (Cycle C), Robert D. Ingram (ISBN 0-7880-1023-9)
5. Lectionary Worship Aids (Series V, Cycle C), Dallas A. Brauninger (ISBN 0-7880-1598-2)
A Children's Sermon
by Wesley Runk
Verse: Text -- "After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord." (v. 20)
John 20:19-31
Object: party hats, kazoos, pan lids for cymbals, etc.
Good morning, boys and girls. Today is the Sunday after Easter and it is also called Holy Humor Sunday. It is a time to laugh and sing and celebrate with a great party. How many of you like a party? (let them answer) Wonderful! I love a good party. I like to hear people laugh. How many of you know how to laugh? (let them answer) Let me listen to you laugh. (encourage as many as possible to laugh by laughing with them) Isn't it fun to laugh? (let them answer) But we have to have something to laugh at, don't we? (let them answer)
I brought along some party hats, instruments, and my own good laugh. Let's put on the hats and test our instruments. (assist them with the hats and play your own kazoo) Oh, this is wonderful. Does this give us reason to laugh? (let them answer) Do hats make you laugh? Do instruments make you laugh? Not really? Then what does make you laugh?
Do you like good jokes? Do jokes make you laugh? (let them answer) Do funny songs make you laugh? (let them answer) Do cartoons make you laugh? (let them answer) Do some boys and girls make you laugh? (let them answer) Is there someone here who is really funny? (perhaps they will identify a child; if so, see if he or she can make the other children laugh)
Do you know why this is a Sunday to laugh and celebrate? (let them answer) The Bible says that the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Why did they rejoice? (let them answer) That's right, they rejoiced because they believed that Jesus lived even after he was crucified, died, and was buried in a tomb. They celebrated because they knew something very special. They laughed at the devil and death. It was no longer a threat to their lives.
The disciples were like almost everyone else. They were afraid of the devil and all of his evil spirits. They were afraid of death and the end that it brought to life. But not any more! They looked right at the devil and they rejoiced. They celebrated and they laughed and laughed and laughed.
Today, one week after our Easter we can look at the devil right in his eyes and we can really laugh. We are not afraid of the devil anymore. He has lost his power over us because we live in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus brings us Good News. The devil is defeated, and he has no power over us. We are the people of God, the brothers and sisters of Jesus. We are baptized and we believe that Jesus has won the biggest battle of all. He has risen from the dead.
Will you shout with me a great saying? (let them answer) I want you to say, "Christ is risen indeed!" I want you to shout these words out loud and if you want to laugh at the devil after you have said them it will be all right. I will say, "Christ is risen!" Then you will say, "CHRIST IS RISEN INDEED!" (after practicing it a few times have the children respond with the words and finish it off with a big laugh)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, April 18, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503
In addition to our usual team comments, related illustrations, worship resources and a children's sermon, we've also included a great suggestion from new team member David Leininger about Holy Humor Sunday -- another approach to the Second Sunday after Easter.
Breaking Into the Tomb
By George Murphy
John 20:19-31
The news is about death.
It hardly seems like news, you may say. Death is about the oldest story in the world! That's true, but there always seems to be something that brings that old story to our attention again. In the past week we've had the news of renewed killing in Iraq, with a promise of more to come. We were reminded of the Rwandan genocide of 10 years ago, in which 800,000 died, and of how little the nations of the world did to stop it. There was the occasional obituary of someone we knew and the usual stories about fatal accidents and murders that were of only local interest because they were too run of the mill for the national media to take notice of them. And on Friday we heard again the story of Jesus' death.
People are fearful of death in the most straightforward sense, the eventual stoppage of our biological machinery. But there are other kinds of death experiences, such as the end of important relationships or the realization that something we've hoped for long and hard isn't going to pass. When people we love die, it's more than a cliche to say that something of ourselves dies with them. We speak of a person who's been divorced or been laid off from a job as having to "go through a grief process" similar to one that will be experienced with the death of someone we love.
But finally, it's plain old death that makes those other griefs so sharp. "Where there's life, there's hope," and if you could live forever you might be able to fulfill your dream -- or at least to keep that dream alive. But you won't live forever. Where is the hope when life ends?
So we try to build defenses against our mortality and against other forms of death. Some of those defenses are of course simply prudent. Drive carefully, don't smoke, and avoid high crime areas. Devote time and energy to proper maintenance of relationships and especially of marriage. It's all right to have big dreams, but do an occasional reality check as well.
But defenses against death can become pathological. Don't take any risks because it's a dangerous world out there. Don't open yourself up to other people and allow any deep personal relationships to form because you might get dumped. Always look on the dark side, because if you consistently see the glass as half empty, you're not likely to be disappointed.
And in doing that kind of thing we close ourselves off from the fullness of life, entombing ourselves in our own fortresses. Some people do that quite literally, afraid to go out of their houses or apartments. Others are sealed off behind different kinds of walls because of fear of rejection or disappointment, but they are just as much prisoners as if they never ventured outdoors.
At Easter we quite naturally emphasize the central image of Christ "bursting from the spiced tomb" as "St. Patrick's Breastplate"1 so beautifully puts it. Although none of the canonical gospels describes the actual event of resurrection, it is a natural inference from belief in the empty tomb, which was the gospel for Easter Sunday: "When they went in they did not find the body" (Luke 24:3). But the gospel for the Second Sunday of Easter, John 20:19-31, gives us a picture that in a sense is just the reverse.
On the evening of that first day of the week the disillusioned disciples have locked all the doors "for fear of the Jews." The fact that the Jewish authorities -- or perhaps more reasonably the Roman ones -- are unlikely to be concerned about these people who deserted their leader and are clearly powerless without him doesn't reassure them. They're afraid. Their friend has died and their hopes are dead, and they've sealed themselves away from the world. And Jesus breaks into their tomb and stands in their midst.
It would be easy, but too easy, to say that Jesus gets rid of their fear by showing that he is still alive. That is of course an important part of the story, but simply being told that some person had managed to survive death wouldn't in itself get rid of our own fear of it and all the other fears that limit us. There are three crucial aspects of what Jesus does when he has revealed himself to the disciples.
The first is the announcement of peace. Jesus does not simply express a wish but by his creative word makes peace a reality for the disciples. (See Brown's commentary in the Anchor Bible.) This peace in its fullest sense, shalom, means that broken relationships and shattered dreams are restored.
"After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side." The point is that the risen one is the crucified one. The way the story is told in John is intended to show this identity in a very physical way, but the same point is made in the shorter ending of Mark in which there is no appearance of the risen Christ. ("You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised" -- Mark 16:6.) It is the Jesus they knew, who proclaimed and lived the nearness of God's reign and who was obedient to the point of death, who has been raised.
And finally he gives them a mission, to go out of their closed room and into the world. They are sent "as the Father has sent me" (and thus their mission can be expected also to bear the marks of the cross). This mission is closely related to the fear of death, for the church is given Jesus' power to forgive sins. In Paul's language this means the power to remove "the sting of death" (1 Corinthians 15:56). Sin is separation from God, and the possibility that our lives will end with that separation would mean that they would remain forever unfulfilled.
(The statement that the church is given the power to forgive sins may disturb some Protestants who are wary of exclusive clerical privileges. The text does not say who in the church can exercise this authority or that sins cannot be forgiven by God directly, without the mediation of any ministers of the church. But, "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them" is unambiguous.)
The resurrection of the crucified one addresses first of all our fear of death in the immediate sense. The Letter to the Hebrews (2:14-15) says that the purpose of the Incarnation was that through his death he might "free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death." To put it very simply, the resurrection means that death doesn't have the last word.
Here, though, the preacher needs to recognize that there is -- and long has been -- a quite different response to the common fear of death. It is the response, usually based on some kind of reductive materialism, that goes back at least as far as Epicurus and his Roman popularizer Lucretius: Death doesn't need to be feared because it's simply the end. When I die, my atoms will gradually disperse and that will be the termination of my story. There will be no judgment on my life and no rewards or punishments, so I shouldn't be in fear of hell or anything of that sort. You have a finite amount of time to live so make the most of it.
Christians will reject this view, but often for the wrong reasons. The hope that we are given in the gospel is not some natural immortality that we possess (for only God is immortal -- cf. 1 Timothy 6:16) but God's act of resurrection, something comparable with creation of the universe out of nothing (Romans 4:17). Thus Christians ought, to some extent, appreciate this materialistic view. It is certainly more realistic than things like that wretched verse of James Whitcomb Riley sometimes found in greeting cards that begins, "You cannot say, you must not say That she is dead. She is just away." In that case, why are we having a funeral for her?
The problem with the "When you're dead, you're dead" view is not so much its denial of "survival" in the short term but its ultimate denial of hope. Those who hold it have some similarity with people who refuse to take the chance of entering into a loving relationship with another person because they might be rejected and made to look foolish. This week's gospel is not just a demonstration that there is a life after death but an illustration of the way Christ breaks through those limitations that we impose upon ourselves.
We ought to be careful, however, with the way we apply language like that of the Letter to the Hebrews about being freed from the fear of death. As long as we're on this side of the divide we're sinners, and some of the sting of death remains in us. Christians should be encouraged to believe that those who trust in Christ need not fear condemnation, but our trust will always be imperfect. The pastoral words of C.F.W. Walther are worth remembering here:
Many preachers picture the Christian as a person who does not fear death. This is a serious misrepresentation, because the great majority of Christians are afraid to die. If a Christian does not fear death and declares that he is ready to die at any time, God has bestowed a special grace upon him.2
The whole theme of "the locked room" as an image of the way people close themselves off from God or become imprisoned by sin and evil can be found in many places. Ezekiel 8:7-13 is another biblical example. The most vivid picture of the risen Christ breaking in to free those who are imprisoned comes from the way the Christian tradition developed the puzzling passage 1 Peter 3:18-20 and the phrase "he descended into hell" in the Apostles' Creed (in the older translation) into the "harrowing of Hell" motif in which the risen Christ breaks down the gates of Hell, overcomes the power of Satan, and frees the saints of the Old Testament. The typical Orthodox icon of the resurrection shows this scene.3
C.S. Lewis, in what he described as a "fantasy," The Great Divorce, had a slightly different take on this, emphasizing the smallness of Hell. "Only the Greatest of all can make Himself small enough to enter Hell. For the higher a thing is, the lower it can descend -- a man can sympathize with a horse but a horse cannot sympathize with a rat. Only One has descended into Hell."4 In Charles Williams' Descent into Hell, on the other hand, the descent is not that of the victorious savior but of a man slowly closing himself off from all reality, as in Augustine's characterization of sin as a state of being "curved in upon the self."
The title of Aleksander Solzhenitsyn's The First Circle refers to the top circle of Hell in Dante's Inferno. (It is set primarily in a prison for high-level scientists and engineers imprisoned under Stalin.) One short chapter, "Old Age," pictures the elderly Stalin in his night office in the Kremlin, wearily musing on his greatness and the perfidy of his underlings. It concludes, "Death had made its nest in him, and he refused to believe it."5
We don't have to look in religious texts or novels with religious themes for the closed room motif. It is, of course, a classic theme of detective fiction: The body of the murdered person is found in a room locked from the inside, and the detective has to figure out how the killer was able to escape. The preacher might try to take some liberties with that idea and develop a story sermon on our text. (How did the "criminal" get into the locked room and unmurder the disciples?)
There are a number of ways in which a sermon on the first part of this week's gospel might be developed. The purpose should be to show, in one way or another, how the risen Christ breaks into the fortresses in which we've sealed ourselves, says "Peace be with you," and calls us to be heralds of liberation.
Some may be surprised that I've said nothing about the second part of the gospel selection in which the doubts of Thomas and their resolution are dealt with. I have preached on the Thomas part of the text, but for me, verses 19-23 are the single richest gospel text dealing with the appearances of the risen Christ, and I've concentrated on them here.
Notes
1. Lutheran Book of Worship #188, verse 2.
2. The Proper Distinction between Law and Gospel (Concordia, 1929), 313.
3. For an important source for this idea, see the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, Part II, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol.VIII (Eerdmans, 1978), 435-458.
4. Macmillan, 1946, 127.
5. Bantam, 1969, 134.
Team Comments
Carlos Wilton responds: "Famous last words." That expression brings to our minds a sense of impending doom. "Famous last words" are what a person utters before making a very big mistake ...
"Don't worry -- just because the gas gauge reads 'E' doesn't mean it's completely empty." Famous last words.
"C'mon -- show me your test paper. The teacher's not looking!" Famous last words.
"I suppose one itty-bitty little hot-fudge sundae won't hurt my diet." Famous last words.
There are other kinds of famous last words. I have at home a fascinating book, called Dictionary of Last Words. The author is a professor from Columbia University named Edward Le Compte. Professor Le Compte has collected the last words of the famous and infamous. It's remarkable how much "last words" can reveal about a person ...
Take John Adams, for example, the second President of the United States. Before he breathed his last, Adams turned to those around him and lamented, "Thomas Jefferson still survives." A strange remark for a person's last breath; but then, Adams and Jefferson were lifelong political rivals. John Adams couldn't stand the possibility that his archrival would outlive him. Yet, unbeknownst to Adams -- and in one of the great ironies of history -- Thomas Jefferson had in fact already died, that very day, July 4th, 1826.
Then there's Marie Antoinette, last queen of France. "Monsieur, I beg your pardon" were her last words. She spoke them on her way up the steps to the guillotine, as she accidentally stepped on the foot of her executioner. Courtly and polite to the last, was Marie Antoinette.
Sometimes last words are filled with regret, even penitence. Such was the case with Benedict Arnold, the brilliant American Revolutionary War general, who betrayed his country to the British. "Let me die in my old uniform," Arnold begged. "God forgive me for ever putting on any other."
Sometimes last words capture the personality of the one who is dying, as a sort of snapshot of the person. "So little done; so much to do." Such were the last words of Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone. A workaholic to the last.
Equally revealing are the last words of Amelia Earhart. She wrote them in a letter to her husband, just before taking off on her last airplane flight over the Pacific: "Please know that I am quite aware of the hazards. I want to do it because I want to do it. Women must try to do things as men have tried. When they fail, their failure must be but a challenge to others."
Perhaps most interesting of all, last words sometimes tell of the experience of dying. There is, for some, the rare gift of being able to glimpse the world that lies beyond this one.
Thomas Edison was lying in a coma, unresponsive to those around him. But then for a brief moment, his eyes opened, and he returned to consciousness. "It is very beautiful over there," was all he said. A scientist to the last -- observing what he saw, and returning to give one final report.
Such, too, was the experience of Francis of Assisi. Francis, as you may know, practiced a rare and unusual love for all God's creation. "Brother sun, sister moon; brother fox, sister deer" -- he cherished all the creatures of God. His last words were right in character. "Welcome, sister death," he exclaimed.
Well, what about Jesus? What are his last words? In many churches just a week or so ago, on Good Friday, worship services focused on the "seven last words" of Christ. "Into your hands I commend my spirit" are generally the last-mentioned. Yet in our Savior's case, of course, those words were not the last: for, as our Easter faith proclaims, God brought him back from death, to live again.
Some would perhaps say that Jesus' words to his disciples at his ascension are truly the last: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
Yet even these are not the last words of Jesus in the Bible. For in the book of Revelation we read other words, spoken in a vision to John on the Isle of Patmos: "See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone's work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."
Jesus' last words are not "Into your hands I commend my spirit." There is more. That is the good news of this glorious season of Easter.
An Alternative Idea for Easter 2
By David Leininger
For the past few years, many churches have been observing the second Sunday of Easter as HOLY HUMOR SUNDAY. It has been encouraged by a group called the Fellowship of Merry Christians (http://www.joyfulnoiseletter.com), a group committed to focusing on the joy of the faith. They publish a monthly humor publication called The Joyful Noiseletter. The theology behind Holy Humor Sunday is wonderful. It celebrates the fact that the resurrection of Jesus is God's ultimate joke on evil and death. It is a testament to the God who, as the Psalmist says, "sits in the heavens and laughs" (Psalm 2:4) at the foolishness of humanity and any forces that might seek to thwart divine purposes. In our congregation, we encourage people to dress as would be appropriate for coming to a party, we decorate with balloons and streamers; along with the bulletin we pass out prescription bottles labeled "A Cheerful Heart Is Good Medicine" (Proverbs 17:22). In each bottle is a printed joke, and during the worship, folks are invited to share their "prescription" with the congregation.
This is not a unique concept. There is the Bavarian practice that has the faithful gathering back in church on Easter afternoon for a time of storytelling and practical joking. There is the early orthodox tradition of priests gathering on Easter Monday for stories, jokes, and anecdotes. To this day in Slavic regions, Christians gather the day after Easter for folk dancing and feasting in the churchyard. It is variously known as Bright Monday, White Monday, Dyngus Day, or Emmaus Day. Latin speakers call it Risus Paschalis -- God's Joke, the Easter Laugh. We call it Holy Humor Sunday.
"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven ... [This is the] time to laugh. Let God's party continue."
Related Illustrations
"Most of us believe in order to feel secure, in order to make our individual lives seem valuable and meaningful. Belief has thus become an attempt to hang on to life, to grasp and keep it for one's own. But you cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it. Indeed, you cannot grasp it, just as you cannot walk off with a river in a bucket ... To have running water you must let go of it and run. The same is true of life and of God."
-- Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being
***
"Each of us comes into life with fists closed, set for aggressiveness and acquisition. But when we abandon life our hands are open; there is nothing on earth that we need, nothing the soul can take with it."
-- Fulton J. Sheen
***
In our post-Christian era, death has recovered its old terrors, becoming unmentionable, as sex has become ever more mentionable. Private parts are public, but death is our dirty little secret. What is more, the fantasy is sustained that as science has facilitated fornication without procreation, in due course it will facilitate life without death, and enable the process of extending our life span to go on and on forever, so that it never does come to an end.
-- Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus: The Man Who Lives
***
When rock musician Warren Zevon, who was dying of cancer, was asked by David Letterman what his illness had taught him about living, he said, "How much you're supposed to enjoy every sandwich."
***
"I imagine the dead waking, dazed, into a shadowless light in which they know themselves altogether for the first time. It is a light that is merciless until they can accept its mercy; by it they are at once condemned and redeemed. It is Hell until it is Heaven. Seeing themselves in that light, if they are willing, they see how far they have failed the only justice of loving one another; it punishes them by their own judgment. And yet, in suffering that light's awful clarity, in seeing themselves within it, they see its forgiveness and its beauty, and are consoled. In it they are loved completely, even as they have been, and so are changed into what they could not have been but what, if they could have imagined it, they would have wished to be. That light can come into this world only as love, and love can enter only by suffering. Not enough light has ever reached us here among the shadows, and yet I think it has never been entirely absent....
Now I have been here a fair amount of time, and slowly I have learned that my true home is not just this place but is also that company of immortals (communio sanctoram?) with whom I have lived here day by day. I live in their love, and I know something of the cost. Sometimes in the darkness of my own shadow I know that I could not see at all were it not for this old injury of love and grief, this little flickering lamp that I have watched beside for all these years."
-- Wendell Berry, A World Lost
***
"Day by day remind yourself that you are going to die."
-- The Rule of St. Benedict
***
"A couple of years ago I found out what 'you can't take it with you' means. I found out while I was lying in the ditch at the side of a country road, covered with mud and blood and with the tibia of my right leg poking out the side of my jeans like the branch of a tree taken down in a thunderstorm. I had a MasterCard in my wallet, but when you're lying in the ditch with broken glass in your hair, no one accepts MasterCard."
-- author Stephen King, commencement address at Vassar College, May 2001.
Worship Resources
Call to Worship 1
Leader: Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life."
People: "Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,
and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die."
Leader: Christ our Lord loves us, and by his sacrificial death he has freed us from our sins.
People: To Jesus Christ be the glory and power forever. Amen.
Invocation 2
O God, we are the people of a long and joyful heritage. From those who first saw the risen Lord to communities of believers today, we share the resurrection song of new life, new life made possible by holy love. Though today we do not see the resurrected Christ as did those first disciples, we nonetheless by faith know that he lives. There are signs all around us that point to this: lives transformed, lives that now risk themselves in love for Jesus. This is the message -- good news of life abundant and eternal for all -- broadcast far and wide, to heal lives and to give them a holy meaning and purpose. So, let us be part of that joyous entourage and carry with us wherever we go the label: Easter people. This, to herald your Son's name. Amen.
Collect 1
Almighty and Ever-loving God, through the resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ, you have freed us from the power of darkness and brought us to live life in the Light of your kingdom of love. In this hour of worship, may we sense anew the abiding presence of your Spirit, that our faith may be renewed in order for us to enter into the fullness of life that awaits your children; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Call to Confession 2
Why would anyone not want to walk wholeheartedly in the way of the risen Christ? It is the way of life, the way of joy and hope and fulfillment. Why be at all hesitant, or withhold a part of self? Each of us will answer in his or her own way, as we examine the response we give to the call of Christ. From each of us will come forth words of confession, as we sadly but truthfully acknowledge that we have yet to reach that complete and full commitment to our God.
Prayer of Confession 2
Gracious and eternal God, you set before us the way of life. It is the way that leads through death to resurrection, a way that fulfills the meaning and purpose of life as you intend it to be. Help us, we pray, that we be willing to allow certain incomplete and unwholesome parts of ourselves to die, that the Spirit of the living Christ might gift us with new beginnings and set us on paths that spell freedom, growth, and service in your name. Moreover, at the same time, may doubt, fear, and uncertainty die, as we more and more become convinced of the power of holy love, a love meant for each of us, a love that can transform that which is selfish and worn into a brilliance of being that is all-giving and ever-lasting. May we gladly reach out to receive, even as you, God, are so eager to give -- that Easter take root and blossom in this place. In Christ's name. Amen.
Words of Assurance 2
God is light; in God there is no darkness at all. If we choose to walk in this light, that which is incomplete, imperfect, and impure will be removed from our lives, this by virtue of Christ's great gift of life to us. So will we find ourselves able to follow in the steps of our Lord. Christ has prepared the way to life abundant and eternal. It is now for us to accept the gift -- with gladness of heart and humbleness of spirit.
All: Praise be to God who loves us so, who through Christ would have us live.
Pastoral Prayer 3
O God, you have given us the hours of our days, the days of our weeks, and the weeks of our years. We thank you for these gifts of time. Enable us to use them wisely, that we might glorify your name.
God, you have placed us over all your creation, the rolling fields, the high reaching mountains, the flowing rivers, and the sprawling lakes. For these gifts of place we give you thanks. Enable us to use your world so that your creation is protected and your children cared for.
Forgive us for misusing time and place. When we shorten our days by a wanton spending of health, when we use time for the advancement of our selfish goals, when we exhaust the harvest of the environment, when we disregard the gentle balance of nature, forgive us. We need to kneel before you with broken and contrite hearts.
Grant us a vision that will respect and care for the time and the place you have given us. When we look about the world we see how graciously you have provided for us. How rich is our environment and how plenteous is our time. Grant us wisdom to avoid pride and to seek how best we can serve you and your children about the globe. May we find our pleasure in serving you. We pray in the name of your Son. Amen.
Unison Prayer 4
God, I like Christianity,
the morals it teaches,
the caring about others,
and even the stories.
I like being part of the Church,
and I want my family to be part of the Church.
We are better people because of it.
But I just cannot believe everything the Church teaches.
Some of the miracle stories stretch anyone's credulity,
but even worse is the promise of life after death.
Where is the evidence that Jesus actually came back to life?
And what evidence supports the hope that my loved ones and I
can enjoy life after death?
And the hardest part of all
is believing that this life after death is a gift,
that I do not have to do anything to earn it.
All I have to do is believe,
and all these things will be given to me.
God, I want to believe.
Help my unbelief.
Bless me like you did Thomas,
and my life will be putty in your hands,
to do with as you choose, eternally. Amen.
Offertory Prayer 1
O God, you have blessed us far beyond anything we deserve. May we always remember that we are stewards of all that you have given us, and may we use it all in keeping with your will. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Prayer of Dedication 2
There are many who have not heard. There are many who have heard but have yet to believe. There are many who believe yet need to be supported in their infant faith, that they might grow to a greater depth of maturity. In each case, we have a responsibility and a mission. Thus do we pray: Holy God, by your Spirit's leading, may these tithes and offerings be directed to those arenas of service where they can make a profound difference in the lives of individuals, in the life of community, and in the fulfilling of your reconciling purpose for the whole of creation. This, that the name of Christ be praised. Amen.
Benediction 4
Jesus said, "As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
Go into all the world, and announce that Christ is alive.
Help people in their doubts, and lead them into faith.
And as you go, may the peace of Christ be with you, now and always. Amen.
Hymns and Songs 1, 4, 5
All Glory Be to God on High
Awake, Arise, Lift Up Your Voice
Because He Lives
Breathe on Me, Breath of God
Celebrate Jesus
Christ Is Arisen
Forgive Our Sins as We Forgive
He Is Lord
He Is Lovely
He Lives
His Eye Is on the Sparrow
Holy Spirit, Ever Living
I Sing the Mighty Power of God
Let It Breathe on Me
Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending
Look, Now He Stands!
Look There! The Christ, Our Brother, Comes
O Breath of Life
O Sons and Daughters, Let Us Sing
O Sons and Daughters of the King
That Easter Day with Joy Was Bright
These Things Did Thomas Count
We Walk By Faith, and Not By Sight
Resources drawn from the following CSS titles:
1. Lectionary Worship Aids (Series VI, Cycle C), H. Burnham Kirkland (ISBN 0-7880-1961-9)
2. The Work Of The People, John H. Will (ISBN 0-7880-2301-2)
3. Pastoral Prayers For All Seasons, Rolland R. Reece (ISBN 0-7880-1567-2)
4. Worship Workbook For The Gospels (Cycle C), Robert D. Ingram (ISBN 0-7880-1023-9)
5. Lectionary Worship Aids (Series V, Cycle C), Dallas A. Brauninger (ISBN 0-7880-1598-2)
A Children's Sermon
by Wesley Runk
Verse: Text -- "After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord." (v. 20)
John 20:19-31
Object: party hats, kazoos, pan lids for cymbals, etc.
Good morning, boys and girls. Today is the Sunday after Easter and it is also called Holy Humor Sunday. It is a time to laugh and sing and celebrate with a great party. How many of you like a party? (let them answer) Wonderful! I love a good party. I like to hear people laugh. How many of you know how to laugh? (let them answer) Let me listen to you laugh. (encourage as many as possible to laugh by laughing with them) Isn't it fun to laugh? (let them answer) But we have to have something to laugh at, don't we? (let them answer)
I brought along some party hats, instruments, and my own good laugh. Let's put on the hats and test our instruments. (assist them with the hats and play your own kazoo) Oh, this is wonderful. Does this give us reason to laugh? (let them answer) Do hats make you laugh? Do instruments make you laugh? Not really? Then what does make you laugh?
Do you like good jokes? Do jokes make you laugh? (let them answer) Do funny songs make you laugh? (let them answer) Do cartoons make you laugh? (let them answer) Do some boys and girls make you laugh? (let them answer) Is there someone here who is really funny? (perhaps they will identify a child; if so, see if he or she can make the other children laugh)
Do you know why this is a Sunday to laugh and celebrate? (let them answer) The Bible says that the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Why did they rejoice? (let them answer) That's right, they rejoiced because they believed that Jesus lived even after he was crucified, died, and was buried in a tomb. They celebrated because they knew something very special. They laughed at the devil and death. It was no longer a threat to their lives.
The disciples were like almost everyone else. They were afraid of the devil and all of his evil spirits. They were afraid of death and the end that it brought to life. But not any more! They looked right at the devil and they rejoiced. They celebrated and they laughed and laughed and laughed.
Today, one week after our Easter we can look at the devil right in his eyes and we can really laugh. We are not afraid of the devil anymore. He has lost his power over us because we live in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus brings us Good News. The devil is defeated, and he has no power over us. We are the people of God, the brothers and sisters of Jesus. We are baptized and we believe that Jesus has won the biggest battle of all. He has risen from the dead.
Will you shout with me a great saying? (let them answer) I want you to say, "Christ is risen indeed!" I want you to shout these words out loud and if you want to laugh at the devil after you have said them it will be all right. I will say, "Christ is risen!" Then you will say, "CHRIST IS RISEN INDEED!" (after practicing it a few times have the children respond with the words and finish it off with a big laugh)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, April 18, 2004, issue.
Copyright 2004 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., P.O. Box 4503, Lima, Ohio 45802-4503
