Preaching the resurrection can be a challenging endeavor -- and in this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Chris Keating looks at some of the possible directions we might take in an attempt to freshen the old, old story. Do we try to appeal to the modern rational mind by trying to explain the essentially unexplainable? (Some would suggest that’s a fool’s errand, since there is nothing whatsoever sensible about Easter -- or about Christianity in general.) Or do we give in to the desires of many people in the pews (some of whom will be making their semi-annual appearance) who are looking for an upbeat message? However we choose to revisit the annual ritual of the Easter sermon, Chris notes that the essence of the resurrection defies human understanding. As a result, rather than explanation it demands a faithful response that simply witnesses to the remarkable events of Easter... and accepts the ultimate truth of God’s power over death.
Team member Mary Austin shares some additional thoughts on the power of the Easter message of resurrection and rebirth amidst the culture of death and destruction that surround us. When we hear news of vicious attacks like those at the Jewish community centers in Kansas City, it’s hard to conjure up an optimistic view -- but as Mary points out, rebirth even in the wake of the most horrific events is the essence of the Easter message. Perhaps, Mary reminds us, there are no better examples of this phenomenon than some of the stories that are emerging about how survivors are picking up their lives as we approach the first anniversary of the Boston marathon bombing. Their heartwarming experiences have not come without extreme amounts of pain -- but as Mary notes, like resurrection they have organically emerged out of the experience of death and destruction... and transformed it.
Revisiting the Resurrection
by Chris Keating
Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-18 or Matthew 28:1-10
On the Saturday before Easter the choir will run through the cantata one last time, making sure the rough places are plainly smoothed out. Worship committee members will be arranging lilies and all manner of spring plants, while the deacons give the communionware a once-over. Back home, it’s time to set out the egg-hunting gear and press Easter finery.
Meanwhile, hunkered down the hall in the pastor’s study, the preacher will be sweating out yet another Easter sermon.
To paraphrase Tony Campolo, it’s Saturday -- but Sunday’s coming.
It’s a drama of biblical proportions, and like the first Easter it starts early. Crowds will flow through the church doors, and the church will put on its Easter best. Sweet lily aroma will waft through the air, mingling with the smell of jelly beans and chocolate eggs. Exclamations of “Alleluia! He is risen!” will raise the rafters. Just as stomachs begin to growl in anticipation of brunch, the preacher will stand up, wondering if the Spirit will move once more. Sunday is coming, and it is time to revisit the resurrection.
Easter poses a dilemma for a preacher. On the one hand, once a year visitors will be looking for an upbeat (but not too long) message of faith -- sort of a booster shot to the soul. Regular attenders will seek confirmation of deeply held beliefs. What sort of message is called for: a sentimental favorite, a skeptic’s historical analysis, or a step-by-step apologetic?
Sunday’s coming -- but what will we preach?
There’s no end of current sources of material either. On the media front, this year has offered a bumper crop of faith-inspired movies, including the blockbuster Noah, the explicitly faith-based film God’s Not Dead, and the upcoming Heaven Is For Real. Those looking for more intellectual homiletical fodder might explore Bart Ehrman’s historical theories on Jesus’ divinity in How Jesus Became God or Reza Aslan’s Zealot.
Easter Sunday sermons can be as predictable as family egg hunts or as bejeweled as a Faberge egg. One thing is certain: Sunday is coming -- and now it is time to revisit the resurrection.
In the Culture
The challenge of crafting an Easter sermon might be eased by an afternoon at the movies. The good news is that resurrection -- or at least an afterlife apologia -- is coming to a theater near you.
Heaven Is For Real opens April 16, the latest in a series of recent faith-based films. The adaptation of the best-selling book by the same title explores the story of a four-year-old boy who believes he visits heaven during emergency surgery. The account of Colton Burpo’s near-death experience was detailed by his father.
In the movie, the boy reveals a detailed glimpse of heaven that includes meeting his long-deceased great-grandfather, as well as a sister whom was miscarried before he was born. The youngster describes meeting God and Jesus, and even offers a preview of a coming apocalyptic battle. Certainly the producers hope to capitalize on the movie’s Easter release date.
That’s right: more “schlock and awe” movies are on their way.
A recent story in Variety noted that audiences seem to be waiting for these types of faith-oriented movies: “Although there’s long been a robust DVD market and numerous indie releases, more major studios have been taking a leap of faith and embarking on extensive marketing missions this year.”
Indeed, Heaven Is For Real joins a growing collection of faith-based movies, including the big-budget Noah (starring Russell Crowe) and the Mark Burnett-produced Son of God. A few more are planned for release later this year, including Mary (featuring Ben Kingsley as King Herod) and an epic production of Exodus by Ridley Scott.
These Biblical epics are aimed at replacing older movies, which Burnett’s wife Roma Downey says can feel “creaky and quaint.” Downey, who co-produced Son of God with her husband, describes the old school cadre of Bible pics as “donkey-and-sandals movies.” She hopes Son of God might replace films such as The Greatest Story Ever Told as reliable holiday movies for family watching.
Burnett, who is a Christian, told NPR that he views this year’s crop of Bible movies as a providential sign. “It just has to be that God is moving,” said Burnett. “There’s no other explanation for it.”
Another feature film still showing is the preachy apologetic God’s Not Dead. Targeted to young adult audiences, the movie tells the story of a Christian student’s struggles with a professor’s anti-Christian bias. Critics have panned the movie, though many audiences have endorsed the film’s predictable story-line. (It even includes a cameo by the bearded stars of television’s Duck Dynasty, which only seems to add to the movie’s campy allure.)
But what preacher has the time to catch a movie this week? As Easter approaches, the preacher may instead pull a book off the shelf for help probing the resurrection.
Resurrection is just too hard for us to explain -- so why not thumb through another scholar’s analysis? Make a rational case for faith that squares with our modern understanding. If reason is our fever, then a dose of historical scholar Bart Ehrman might be the cure.
Ehrman, who teaches religious studies at the University of North Carolina, is a prolific author of many works on the history of early Christianity. His most recent book, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee, argues that being the son of God was not part of Jesus’ plan, nor did he rise from a tomb. “The disciples probably didn’t discover an empty tomb,” Ehrman argues. “There probably wasn’t a tomb.”
Ehrman doesn’t suggest Jesus’ followers simply made up the stories of Jesus’ post-death appearances. Instead, he claims that such stories had their origins in vivid hallucinations that seemed real. “Once the disciples claimed Jesus was alive again but was... no longer here with them, they came to think that he had been taken up to heaven...”
His arguments aren’t necessarily new, of course. But his conversational writing style, combined with his own experience of moving from evangelical Christianity to agnosticism, allows Ehrman’s theories to gain a broad popular audience. People read his books -- just as people will line up to see Heaven Is For Real.
The temptation for a preacher who wants to remain au courant might be to probe such historical analyses in search of tidbits for the Easter sermon -- if not Ehrman, then possibly Reza Aslan’s acclaimed Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, which also raises critical questions about Christian accounts of the resurrection.
It’s tempting.
Matt Fitzgerald understands this temptation. With the Easter crowd coming, it’s time to make the crooked lines of resurrection appear straight, understandable, and clear. In a recent Christian Century essay, Fitzgerald observes:
The assumption is that my job will be to make sense of scripture, to reduce the mystery, and to make God understandable. No one has ever put it to me that plainly, but for those who want a modern-minded faith the assumption is implicit. You bring your questions to an expert. I have fallen prey to this reasoning; I’ve preached dozens of sermons that aim to explain, clarify, and demystify.
He continues: “[And yet] if people came to church to hear reason, Easter would not be the most popular Sunday of the year because there is nothing sensible about the resurrection.”
In the Scriptures
Easter sermons don’t originate in movies or rational explanations. Christian preaching on the resurrection is a proclamation of a truth received in faith -- and a truth rooted in the experiences narrated by the disciples. In both the John 20:1-18 and Matthew 28:1-10 texts for Easter Sunday, it is the experiences of the disciples which is most compelling. Revisiting the resurrection might first mean reacquainting ourselves with the breathless accounts of that early morning.
What emerges from these scriptures is not a rational, logical account of how someone might come back to life. The accounts are as overwhelming as a crowded narthex on Sunday morning: they compel us by their witness that God is up to something which cannot be easily understood.
John’s account is filled with drama, beginning with a typical Johannine exploration of light and darkness. In the darkness of early morning, before the sun’s arrival, as Mary’s eyes are still adjusting to the morning, she sees that the tomb has been disturbed. Breaking into a sprint, she races back to share the news with Peter. Yet this isn’t resurrection news, not yet. Instead, she reports what she has seen. The sun continues to rise. The disciples race to the tomb, encountering its emptiness for themselves.
Still no answer, “for as yet they did not understand.” Resurrection, it seems, breaks across our lives like the rising sun.
While Matthew trades footraces for earthquakes, there is still plenty of drama present. The two Marys are greeted by an angel, which scares the life out of the Roman guards. Here everyone is shaking and quaking -- the ground, the stone, the soldiers. The messenger echoes the promise of Jesus: “Do not be afraid.” After assuring the women that Jesus has been raised, the angel commissions these disciples to be the first witnesses to resurrection. They are sent, just as God’s people are sent, equipped with the soul-stirring message: “Do not be afraid.”
It is, as Matt Fitzgerald observes, a reminder that we “only get anywhere near the truth when all the sensible things to say about God are overwhelmed by the fact that Jesus just stepped up out of the grave.”
In the Sermon
More than 70 years ago, Reinhold Niebuhr said that he didn’t care much for Easter and Christmas sermons: “The sermons which interpret these stories usually make a rational defense of their historic validity or they qualify them rationally to make them acceptable to the intellect.” He added that he truly felt sorry for parishioners who had endured his own holiday preaching (“A Christmas Service in Retrospect,” in Essays in Applied Christianity).
Something is always lost when poetry is expressed in rational terms, Niebuhr concluded.
The poet-preacher who gives witness to the great hope of Easter does not come to provide an academic argument for Jesus’ resurrection. Nor does the preacher need to reduce the Easter message to oversentimentalized apologetics. The power of the Easter gospel lessons is that these accounts defy easy explanation. They call preachers first and foremost to be witnesses, to stand like Mary, breathless before the empty tomb. Commissioned to carry a message, we stand before the congregation and proclaim “Do not be afraid.”
Matthew’s account provides hope for a church that has been battered by the world. Disciples who have become apprehensive about faith will resonate with mixing of great joy with fear. As Tom Long notes, “They are the church in miniature -- overcome with joy over the good news they have heard but also apprehensive as they move with this news toward a skeptical and dangerous world” (Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion [Westminster/John Knox Press, 1997], p. 323).
John’s account likewise calls the church to be witnesses. Like those gathered by the empty tomb, we may not yet understand. Soon their questions become sources of joy and hope. Faith comes as we sort out the questions, and learn what it means to be witnesses to the truth.
As witnesses, we are called to revisit resurrection once more. Sunday is coming -- and with it, the good news of God’s great triumph over death.
SECOND THOUGHTS
by Mary Austin
John 20:1-18 or Matthew 28:1-10
Each week seems to bring more bad news. Even as Easter comes, we are surrounded by violence and death: horrible car accidents, a school knife attack, another shooting at Fort Hood, a shooting at a Jewish community center -- we live with a parade of violence. Personal experiences with violence all carry horror for the people involved in them. They bring home, in an instant, the reality of evil and human frailty, and our need for God’s resurrection power to remake our lives after tragedy.
The 2013 Boston Marathon, with the bombings at the finish line, and the resulting manhunt and city on lockdown, brought the same truth home to thousands of people. The 2014 Boston Marathon will be run on the day after Easter, and many people are returning to Boston seeking a personal kind of redemption. They are making the trip anticipating a day far different than last year’s marathon, when the bombs at the finish line killed three people and injured over 200. People traveling to Boston this month include runners who didn’t finish the race, survivors of the bombings, and people running in honor of last year’s victims. All of them are seeking a way to pull grace out of last year’s evil.
At last year’s marathon,
Robert and Kelli Watling, both runners, planned to be married at the finish line. Their ceremony was punctuated by the sounds of sirens and the knowledge of the tragedy around them. As NBC News reports, “The ceremony came at a nerve-wracking, uncertain time as the casualties were still being tallied and suspects still at large, but they say they kept their wedding plans to inspire others on a day filled with sadness and to avoid living in fear. With a year to reflect, both are thankful they went ahead with their nuptials. And they soon learned that many others were as well, as words of congratulations and encouragement poured in from friends and strangers alike.” The wedding came to feel like a gesture of hope on a day filled with anguish.
At the time, they had planned to return to Boston for some future anniversary, perhaps to mark five or ten years of marriage. Shortly afterward, they realized they had a deep urge to return for this year’s marathon. The two call themselves “Team Watling,” and as they return to Boston to celebrate their first anniversary, they are expecting an addition to Team Watling -- their first child, due this fall.
Perhaps the most visible victim of the bombing was Jeff Bauman, severely injured at the finish line and rushed to the hospital in a wheelchair by peace activist Carlos Arredondo, famous for his cowboy hat. As the New York Daily News reports, “Despite his injuries, Bauman later gave a description of one of the bombers to the FBI while still in intensive care. Authorities killed bomber mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev early Friday morning, and captured his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar that evening.”
Bauman was standing near the bag containing a bomb, and lost both legs in the blast. A year later, he is engaged to the girlfriend he was cheering on at the marathon, and the couple is expecting a baby. Bauman has just released a book about his ordeal and recovery, titled Stronger. On marathon day 2014 Bauman will be at the race again, with his fellow survivors. Looking ahead, he says,
“I think it’s going to be a little tough, but I’m going to be with all of the survivors, and it’s great to see everybody and we’re all doing well. We’re all getting on with our lives so I’m looking forward to seeing everybody and having a good time.”
Karen McWatters lost both a leg and a best friend in the bombing, and has healed both body and spirit with rare generosity. She and her best friend, Krystle Campbell, were waiting at the marathon finish line for McWatters’ then-boyfriend (now her husband) when the bombs exploded. Campbell was killed, and McWatters lost a leg below the knee. As she was recovering, a stranger in a store told her about Estefanía Salinas, a teenager in El Salvador who lost a leg after a car accident. “She had nothing, and here I am in a city with all this outpouring of love and support and amazing care. And here is this poor little girl, and she had none of these options,” said McWatters. Facebook allowed her to follow the girl’s progress, and when it turned out that Salinas needed a prosthetic leg, McWatters secured a donation to make it happen.
After that, it turned out that Estefanía also needed physical therapy, so McWatters helped raise money so she could come to Boston to the Shriners Hospital for Children. McWatters says: “The first thing I said to her at the airport was, ‘Now that you’re here, you’re going to be OK.’ And I talked to her a lot about patience because that was the hardest thing for me, to all of a sudden be so dependent on other people and wanting to just hurry up and get up and walk.”
CBS News reports that “Estefanía continues to undergo physical therapy. She and McWatters meet a few times each week.” McWatters adds, “I think it was a good thing for me just because I was being busy doing something to help somebody else and not spending all my time this winter feeling sad because I was having difficulty getting outside or the challenges that I was facing.”
None of this recovery -- for people or the city of Boston -- comes without a price. The much-used motto “Boston Strong” belies the anger, guilt, second-guessing, and pain that people continue to suffer. In a recent Associated Press article, Jennifer Lawrence, a social worker at Boston Medical Center, says that the emphasis on “Boston Strong” has had some unhappy consequences. “A lot of it is portraying that people are so resilient and so strong. While that is absolutely true, we are neglecting that people still have hard days,” Lawrence says. “These are very long-lasting impacts, and that’s important for people to remember.” The article notes that “In the aftermath of the bombings, more than 600 people took advantage of the medical center’s mental health services. There were those who were injured or who witnessed the explosions; there were runners who suffer survivor’s guilt, because loved ones who came to root for them were caught in the carnage. And while most needed no help after the first few months, [Lawrence] has seen an increase in demand in recent weeks, as the anniversary approached. Still, she says a ‘vast majority’ of those who came through the hospital’s programs intend to attend this year’s marathon, either as bystanders or runners. For so many of the people caught up in last year’s horror, there is no question: They will be there.”
Boston offers us a modern-day version of a resurrection story -- or hundreds of them. As with every resurrection, this is not restoration of the old, but new life born out of the experience of death. Lives are still lost, limbs are still missing, hospital and rehab bills still pile up -- and yet people have worked their way toward resurrection hope. Resurrection good news is never a solitary pursuit. In story after story from Boston, the community of survivors holds each other up. Good news comes to people whose lives are now woven together by the work of making sure good is born out of evil. This kind of resurrection happens not in the absence of death, but includes it, encompasses it, embraces it, and then transforms it, by an effort of heart and will.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Ron Love:
South Carolina is trying to pass a law that will allow public schools to express the Christian faith without violating the constitution. The new wording for the state statute is that schools will be able to display “traditional winter celebrations.” As long as one other non-Christian display is visible, all Christian displays will be acceptable. The bill states that a secular symbol can be a Christmas tree without an angel or star, for then the tree is a pagan symbol, even if it placed within the setting of the nativity scene. Barry Lynn, spokesman for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said, “If there is not a single ‘Christmas’ item in any public school in South Carolina, I’m quite confident that the state’s residents, particularly its Christian majority, will figure out what time of the year it is.”
Application: If churches properly celebrate Easter, there will no doubt among believers and non-believers alike that Easter Sunday is a very special Sunday.
*****
Returning to the Masters tournament again this year, golfer Phil Mickelson reflected on when he won his first Masters at Augusta ten years ago and was awarded the coveted green jacket -- which he slept in it that night. His joy at winning the tournament was exhibited when he sank his final putt and leaped into the air in joyous celebration -- a jump captured on a photograph that has become immortalized. When asked about that photograph at a recent press interview, Mickelson said: “I jumped so high I almost hit lightning that day. Unfortunately the photographers, they just didn’t time it right. I probably could have dunked a basketball if need be.”
Application: Those gathered in the Upper Room, upon seeing the resurrected Jesus, did jump in ecstasy -- if not physically, then certainly spiritually.
*****
The first woolly mammoth to be discovered in the continental United States came from a fossil discovered in a South Carolina swamp in 1725. Since South Carolina is one of several states that does not have an official fossil, Olivia McConnell, a third-grade student, wrote to the state legislature asking them to adopt the fossil as a state seal. Her simple proposal suddenly became international news, because the state legislature could not accept the fossil without endorsing evolution. To circumvent this and to maintain an official stance of Creationism, the legislature passed House Bill 4482, which states that the woolly mammoth “was created on the Sixth Day with the other beasts of the field.”
Application: Easter is not the season of biblical legalism; it is a season of faith.
*****
Neil Shubin, a paleontologist with the University of Chicago, is hosting a three-part series for PBS titled Your Inner Fish, in which he examines the human family tree dating back more than 3 billion years. The show defiantly supports evolution, but is not void of mystery and unanswered questions regarding creation. Discussing the purpose of his telecast, Shubin said: “My personal strategy is to show the power of the scientific evidence and how fun, how joyful it can be to discover something no one else has seen before.”
Application: In the Upper Room there was the joy of discovery of something never seen before -- the resurrection of Jesus.
*****
With baby boomers working beyond traditional retirement age, for the first time the workplace is filled by workers from very different generations. It’s no longer unusual for employees who could be each other’s parents/children -- or even grandparents/grandchildren -- to be working side by side. But different generations have differing outlooks on work ethics and social habits, which can create misunderstanding and miscommunication in the workplace, and at times resentment. So in order to foster understanding and acceptance, leading to coherency in the workplace, JB Training Solutions has embarked on a program of teaching awareness. Brad Karsh, one of the group’s leaders, said about generational disparities: “They’re not better, not worse, only different. What’s important is understanding what those differences are.”
Application: There are many Christian denominations, but only one resurrection, which is the unifying proclamation of Christianity.
***************
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:
The Rabbit of Easter
Easter is a time to celebrate the resurrection, not to explain it. Attempts at explanation inevitably fail -- but none so spectacularly as that of David Sedaris, when he and his colleagues in a first-year French-as-a-second-language class tried to explain it to a Muslim classmate in their halting and limited French. He describes the encounter in his book Me Talk Pretty One Day (click here to hear Sedaris give a hilarious reading of this excerpt):
“Excuse me, but what’s an Easter?”
It would seem that despite having grown up in a Muslim country, she would have heard it mentioned once or twice, but no. “I mean it,” she said. “I have no idea what you people are talking about.”
The teacher called on the rest of us to explain.
The Poles led the charge to the best of their ability. “It is,” said one, “a party for the little boy of God who call his self Jesus and...”
She faltered, and her fellow countryman came to her aid.
“He call his self Jesus and then he be die one day on two... morsels of... lumber.”
The rest of the class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have given the pope an aneurysm.
“He die one day and then he go above of my head to live with your father.”
“He weared the long hair and after he die, the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples.”
“He nice, the Jesus.”
“He make the good things, and on the Easter we be sad because somebody makes him dead today.”
Part of the problem had to do with vocabulary. Simple nouns such as cross and resurrection were beyond our grasp, let alone such complicated reflexive phrases as “to give of yourself your only begotten son.” Faced with the challenge of explaining the cornerstone of Christianity, we did what any self-respecting group of people might do. We talked about food instead.
“Easter is a party for to eat of the lamb,” the Italian nanny explained. “One too may eat of the chocolate.”
“And who brings the chocolate?” the teacher asked.
I knew the word, so I raised my hand, saying, “The rabbit of Easter. He bring of the chocolate.”
My classmates reacted as though I’d attributed the delivery to the Antichrist. They were mortified.
“A rabbit?” The teacher, assuming I’d used the wrong word, positioned her index fingers on top of her head, wiggling them as though they were ears. “You mean one of these? A rabbit rabbit?”
“Well, sure,” I said. “He come in the night when one sleep on a bed. With a hand he have the basket and foods.”
The teacher sighed and shook her head. As far as she was concerned, I had just explained everything wrong with my country. “No, no,” she said. “Here in France the chocolate is brought by a big bell that flies in from Rome.”
I called for a timeout. “But how do the bell know where you live?”
“Well,” she said, “how does a rabbit?”
It was a decent point, but at least a rabbit has eyes. That’s a start. Rabbits move from place to place, while most bells can only go back and forth -- and they can’t even do that on their own power. On top of that, the Easter Bunny has character. He’s someone you’d like to meet and shake hands with. A bell has all the personality of a cast-iron skillet. It’s like saying that come Christmas, a magic dustpan flies in from the North Pole, led by eight flying cinder blocks. Who wants to stay up all night so they can see a bell? And why fly one in from Rome when they’ve got more bells than they know what do to with here in Paris? That’s the most implausible aspect of the whole story, as there’s no way the bells of France would allow a foreign worker to fly in and take their jobs. That Roman bell would be lucky to get work cleaning up after a French bell’s dog -- and even then he’d need papers. It just didn’t add up.
Nothing we said was of any help to the Moroccan student. A dead man with long hair supposedly living with her father, a leg of lamb served with palm fronds and chocolate. Confused and disgusted, she shrugged her massive shoulders and turned her attention to the comic book she kept hidden beneath her binder.
I wondered then if, without the language barrier, my classmates and I could have done a better job making sense of Christianity, an idea that sounds pretty far-fetched to begin with.
In communicating any religious belief, the operative word is faith, a concept illustrated by our very presence in that classroom. Why bother struggling with the grammar lessons of a six-year-old if each of us didn’t believe that, against all reason, we might eventually improve? If I could hope to one day carry on a fluent conversation, it was a relatively short leap to believing that a rabbit might visit my home in the middle of the night, leaving behind a handful of chocolate kisses and a carton of menthol cigarettes.
So why stop there? If I could believe in myself, why not give other improbabilities the benefit of the doubt? I told myself that despite her past behavior, my teacher was a kind and loving person who had only my best interests at heart. I accepted the idea that an omniscient God had cast me in his own image and that he watched over me and guided me from one place to the next. The virgin birth, the resurrection, and countless miracles -- my heart expanded to encompass all the wonders and possibilities of the universe.
A bell, though -- that’s [just weird].
*****
We Don’t Know Why
We have theories and even some educated guesses, but we really don’t know why we do some of the things we do. Science, for all its good intentions, has not yet been able to explain why we yawn, for instance. Yes, we yawn when we’re tired or anxious, but we don’t know why.
Likewise with dreaming. Psychology makes attempts, often accurate, to explain what our dreams tell us about ourselves and our reactions to the world around us -- but why we dream is still a mystery.
Blushing is another thing we do that has never been definitively explained. People blush at different times and in different circumstances, but no one knows why the human body reacts in this particular way.
Finally, no one knows why people react as they do to placebos. We’ve all heard of someone who is sick being given a sugar pill and the sickness goes away. But it goes beyond that. According to the website Cracked.com: “Completely imaginary drugs have been found to help everything from warts, to heart disease, to asthma. Doctors have even gone so far as to conduct sham knee surgeries that were almost as effective as the real thing.”
*****
The Divine Proportion
It’s called the Divine Proportion... but it has also been referred to as the Divine Ratio, the Golden Ratio, the Golden Mean, and the Extreme Ratio.
Mathematically, it is expressed as 1.6180... -- or simply 1.6.
Here is what Mario Livio says about it in his book The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, The World’s Most Astonishing Number: “Some of the greatest mathematical minds of all ages, from Pythagoras and Euclid in ancient Greece, through the medieval Italian mathematician Leonardo of Pisa and the Renaissance astronomer Johannes Kepler, to present-day scientific figures such as Oxford physicist Roger Penrose, have spent endless hours over this simple ratio and its properties. But the fascination with the Golden Ratio is not confined just to mathematicians. Biologists, artists, musicians, historians, architects, psychologists, and even mystics have pondered and debated the basis of its ubiquity and appeal. In fact, it is probably fair to say that the Golden Ratio has inspired thinkers of all disciplines like no other number in the history of mathematics” (p. 6).
When that ratio or proportion is expressed in art or music or science or nature, we are attracted to it like moths to light and iron to a magnet.
Only we don’t know why. We just are.
*****
Why Do We Laugh?
In their book The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny, psychology professor Peter McGraw and journalist Joel Warner describe a quest that undertook 19 experiments over five continents and covered 91,000 miles to discover if there were any universal laws that applied to humor, that made funny things funny everywhere and all the time.
They conducted interviews, told hundreds of jokes, and listened to thousands more, in places as disparate as New York City and the Amazon basin, from Japan to Palestine.
Their answer: “Who knows?”
For no matter how funny a thing might seem, there is something mysterious and maybe even spiritual about humor. Timing and delivery matter, context matters -- and something else, which they could not finally define.
*****
Hope in a Violent World
According to research accumulated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, one does not have to be a direct recipient of violent action to be affected by it. Just being exposed to violence, especially over a prolonged period, can take a terrible toll on children, youth and adults.
* Youth with past exposure to interpersonal violence (as a victim or witness) have significantly higher risk for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), major depressive episodes, and substance abuse/dependence.
* Women who experience intimate partner violence are three times more likely to display symptoms of depression, four times more likely to have PTSD, and six times more likely to have suicidal ideation.
* 77% of children exposed to a school shooting and 35% of urban youth exposed to community violence develop PTSD, as compared to 20% of soldiers deployed to combat areas in the last six years.
* Teenagers who witness a stabbing are three times more likely to report suicide attempts; those who witness a shooting are twice as likely to report alcohol abuse.
However, “there is a strong and growing science base that confirms that violence is preventable. Further, there are a number of effective strategies that not only prevent violence but also foster good mental health. These include: fostering social connections in neighborhoods; promoting adequate employment opportunities; ensuring positive emotional and social development; providing quality family support services; and making sure young people have connections with non-judgmental, caring adults/mentoring.”
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: O give thanks to God, for God is good.
People: God’s steadfast love endures forever!
Leader: God is our strength and our might.
People: God has become our salvation.
Leader: There are glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous.
People: The right hand of God does valiantly.
OR
Leader: Alleluia! Christ is risen!
People: Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Leader: Out of death, God brings life.
People: Out of despair, God brings hope.
Leader: Christ’s resurrection is our resurrection.
People: In God, nothing can defeat us.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“The Day of Resurrection”
found in:
UMH: 303
H82: 210
PH: 118
NNBH: 124
NCH: 245
CH: 228
LBW: 141
ELA: 361
W&P: 298
AMEC: 159, 160
“Hail the Day That Sees Him Rise”
found in:
UMH: 312
H82: 214
NCH: 260
W&P: 323
“Come, Ye Faithful, Raise the Strain”
found in:
UMH: 315
H82: 199, 200
PH: 114, 115
NCH: 230
CH: 215
LBW: 132
ELA: 363
“Christo Vive” (“Christ Is Risen”)
found in:
UMH: 313
PH: 109
“He Lives”
found in:
UMH: 310
AAHH: 275
NNBH: 119
CH: 226
W&P: 302
“This Is a Day of New Beginnings”
found in:
UMH: 383
NCH: 471
CH: 518
W&P: 355
“Spirit of the Living God”
found in:
UMH: 393
PH: 322
AAHH: 320
NNBH: 133
NCH: 283
CH: 259
W&P: 492
Renew: 90
“God of Grace and God of Glory”
found in:
UMH: 577
H82: 594, 595
PH: 420
NCH: 436
CH: 464
LBW: 415
ELA: 705
W&P: 569
AMEC: 62
STLT: 115
“Sing unto the Lord a New Song”
found in:
CCB: 16
“Our God Reigns”
found in:
CCB: 33
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who is life eternal: Grace us with the faith to know that nothing in life or in death can ever separate us from your love, and that through your love nothing can truly defeat us; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, God of life eternal. Receive our praises, and open our hearts and lives to your love and life that defeats all evil. So fill us with your Spirit that our lives are signs of hope and courage for all the world. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially our failure to believe that you can bring victory out of every defeat.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have come to celebrate the resurrection of Christ from death, and yet we are unable to believe that you can bring victory from the defeats of our lives. We think that our losses, big and small, are what define us. We forget the power of the words “we have been raised with Christ.” We think of Easter as something that happened a long time ago and now is just a time for children. Forgive our unbelief, and so fill us anew with your Spirit that we truly go forth today to live anew. Amen.
Leader: God, our creator and redeemer, is still at work among us. The one who raised Christ from death raises us as well. We can know the power of the resurrection here and now, not just in some distant future. Live with hope and courage that all may know God’s power and love.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
Blessed be God, our Resurrection and our Life, and blessed be the Christ who raises us.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We have come to celebrate the resurrection of Christ from death, and yet we are unable to believe that you can bring victory from the defeats of our lives. We think that our losses, big and small, are what define us. We forget the power of the words “we have been raised with Christ.” We think of Easter as something that happened a long time ago and now is just a time for children. Forgive our unbelief, and so fill us anew with your Spirit that we truly go forth today to live anew.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which you bring newness of life to us. We thank you for the miracle of our lives and for the renewal that constantly takes place in our bodies. We thank you for the ways in which our minds grow and develop and change as we learn and develop. Most of all we thank you for Easter and for the sure hope we have that nothing can ever truly defeat us, for our lives and our very beings are grounded in your eternal life.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We lift up to you those bound by fear and by the feelings of defeat and despair. We pray for those who have succumbed to the illusion that there is no hope for them. We pray for ourselves, that we may not only have the true hope you bring but that we will also have the courage to bring that hope to those around us.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father . . . Amen.
(or if the Lord’s Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Have a few apples -- enough cut up to share with the children, but leave the core and the seeds intact. Enjoy the snack with the children, and then talk about how the apple’s life is done. It started as a bloom on a tree and then grew until someone picked it, and now we have eaten it. Its life is over. There is nothing left but to throw out the core with its seeds. We might as well go bury this core. But what will happen if we do? The seeds will grow, and we will get not just another apple but an apple tree! The apple’s life isn’t over, it is just beginning anew. God has given us all these wonderful things to help us understand that nothing can defeat God and God’s life. The disciples thought that the evil had defeated God when Jesus died, but today we celebrate that God is never defeated. When we see flowers come up or newly hatched chicks or when we eat an apple, we can remember Jesus and how God is never defeated by evil.
CHILDREN’S SERMON
Just Accept It
John 20:1-18
Object: a radio
Happy Easter, boys and girls! I brought a radio with me today. Can you tell me how to make it work? (let the children answer) You turn on this button. You either have to put batteries inside the radio or you have to plug in the cord. That seems easy enough. When I do that, it should work. (plug in the radio or put in batteries in it and turn it on) It works! (turn it off) But what really makes it work? I really don’t know. I know there’s all kinds of miniature electronic gadgetry inside this radio. I suppose it all has to be connected right or the radio won’t work. But I really don’t know exactly how this radio brings in sounds right here from somewhere miles away. I just know that it does.
Do you know how a television works? (let them answer) All I know is that I plug it in and turn it on and a picture and sound appear. But if it won’t work I have to call a special television repair person, because I don’t have any idea how it works or how to fix it. I just know it usually works if I plug it in and turn it on.
Do you have a computer? (wait for a show of hands) I can’t figure out how computers work either. I know how to turn it on and push some buttons, and it works. But I really don’t know how. Do you? (let them answer) I just accept that someone knows how to make them and fix them, and all I need to know is how to turn it on and push the buttons.
Today is Easter. What happened on Easter? (let them answer) Jesus rose from the dead! I think that’s even more confusing than radios, televisions, and computers. It’s one of those things that I can’t figure out, but I just accept it. Jesus’ friends couldn’t figure it out either. Our lesson says they didn’t understand that Jesus was supposed to become alive again. But when they found out, most of them accepted it and then they went and told other people “Jesus is risen!” They didn’t know how it happened, but they believed it and told others.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, April 20, 2014, issue.
Copyright 2014 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 or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
