Luke 24:36-49 - "Just Keep Dancing"

         A number of years ago, Joe and I took a series of beginner ballroom dance classes in Portland.  The studio was downtown in a storefront on Congress Street.  That was interesting because you never knew if you would have an audience of bag ladies or down-at-the-heels men curiously observing any given class. 

         Our instructor was a tall, dark-haired young Russian gentleman who had once been a competitive ballroom dancer.  His name was Zergai, and he had one cardinal rule:  You were not allowed to dance with the person you came with.  I understand his reasoning.  It was so that we could get used to dancing with a variety of partners.  However, for me, it was problematic because I really only wanted to be able to dance with Joe.

         The class also turned out to be not exclusively a beginners’ class at all.  Now do not get me wrong.  There were certainly those of us learning dance steps for the first time or, in my case, re-learning basic moves I had once mastered decades ago at Miss Wilson’s dance studio in the fifth and sixth grades.  However, there were also a number of quite accomplished competitive dancers who returned to the beginner classes in order to “refine their steps”. 

         That also was problematic, especially if you ended up being partnered with one of the more intense competitive dancers.  Those folks were there, putting up with “the rest of us” in order to prepare for an upcoming competition or to make personal amends for a previous pitiful performance.  In contrast,  “the rest of us” were there just because we loved to dance and had absolutely no delusions of grandeur.

         Zergai’s classes had a certain predictable pattern and format.  He would teach a step, and we would practice it a couple of times.  Then he would teach another step, and we would practice that step.  Then he would demonstrate a third step and sometimes even a fourth step, and we would dutifully repeat the latest one.  

         This style of teaching was also problematic because, at some point, Zergai would announce in his clipped Russian accent that we would now put all those steps together.  More often than not, by the time we had learned the fourth step, I could no longer accurately remember the first one.  That was particularly problematic if I happened to be paired with one of those more intense competitive dancers who strove for nothing less than perfection – even with an imperfect partner.

         Needless-to-say, Joe and I no longer take dance lessons.  We have our own style.  We know exactly what to expect from each other on the dance floor, and we just keep dancing – not always knowing what we are doing, but joyfully dancing just the same.   

         As I reflected this past week through our lens of dance on yet another post-Easter appearance story set in that upper room in Jerusalem, I realized that my words of advice to the disciples gathered around after they had encountered Jesus would have been these:  “Just keep dancing.” 

         You see, the disciples were not quite sure about this resurrection business. In fact, the Gospel writer of Luke tells us point blank that they “still could not believe”.  However, Jesus goes ahead anyway and instructs them to get ready to start spreading the good news of repentance and reconciliation, beginning in Jerusalem, but soon thereafter fanning out to all the nations. 

         In short, Jesus tells them to just keep dancing.  Why?  Because, he knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that they have everything they need to dare to dance again.  They have been witnesses, he tells them, witnesses to everything that has happened

– not only everything that has occurred in the past three days since Jesus’ execution, but also everything that has transpired in the past three years.  In short, they have been witnesses to all that love can do – heal the sick, feed the hungry, turn water into wine, and even raise the dead.  What more do they need?

         According to the Gospel writer of Luke, who sets the scene for this vignette, it is Easter Sunday evening, and the horrible few days previous are still fresh in the disciples’ minds.  However, that very morning, as we know, a couple of the women had brought word that Jesus’ tomb was empty and that angels had said he was alive. Peter and John had dropped everything and rushed to the gravesite, only to find an empty tomb as well.  The bottom line was that none of it made any sense. 

         Then the appearances started – first to Peter and a few of them on the beach by the Sea of Galilee.  Then two more of them declared that they had walked with the Risen Lord on the road to Emmaus, that he had taught them the meaning of the Scriptures, and that they had recognized him when he broke the bread for supper.

        It was while the disciples listened to that latest astonishing story that all-of-a-sudden everyone was aware of a Presence in the locked upper room, something or someone that was not there before.  Luke makes no bones about it.  It was Jesus showing up, and when he did arrrive in the middle of listening to that crazy Emmaus tale, the disciples were terrified and feared that Jesus’ ghost had come to haunt them. 

         Now, it is very important to the Gospel writer of Luke to convey to his readers that this could not possibly be so.  He needs to convince them that resurrection does not mean hanging around the living as some sort of haunt. 

         As Roman Catholic priest and writer John MacKinnon explained in his commentary on Luke, “Within the culture some people believed that in the case of violent, untimely death and improper burial, the residual “person” went around (as ghost or spirit) vainly seeking to be united to its original body. Jesus had certainly been violently and untimely murdered. Luke was concerned to emphasize beyond doubt that Jesus was not some shadowy, residual “person”. Resurrection was more than the uncertain continuation of some spirit or ghost. It was more, indeed, than immortality.”

         To make his point clear, the Gospel writer goes on to say that, once again, Jesus showed the disciples the scars on his hands and feet.  He even invited them to reach out and touch him and so be assured that he was no ephemeral ghost. 

         However, even that was not enough to convince these folks of little faith.  So, in order to provide additional proof, Jesus asked if they had anything to eat. 

         Silly question!  Of course there was food around.  After all, wherever two or three or more are gathered with him on their minds - well, that would be like the church – and we know there is always food around at church gatherings. 

         And sure enough, the locked upper room was no different.  There just happened to be freshly broiled fish on hand, and Jesus ate it – not because he was particularly hungry but in order to convince his audience that he was real, that he was more than real, that he is reality itself. 

         The Gospel writer does not tell us whether or not this nutritional demonstration convinced the disciples.  I am guessing that, because faith has a habit of coming slowly and is always coupled with doubt (which is a good thing, by the way.  As Presbyterian pastor and theologian Frederick Buechner notes:  “Doubt is the ants in the pants of faith.  It keeps it alive and moving.”), because faith and doubt are linked so closely, the fact of Jesus eating fish was probably not 100% convincing. 

         However, Jesus does not seem to care if the disciples are not completely onboard.  It does not matter to him that he must appear to them again and again, that they cannot believe just once and for all that he is alive and not a figment of their imagination, that he is bursting with new life and is the fulfillment of God’s promise that love will overcome anything, even death. 

         And so, Jesus goes on to explain just how all of Holy Scripture pointed to this moment and to his presence as the one who embodied God’s dream for the world.  Then, still not knowing if they had really wrapped their minds around this phenomenon called resurrection and what it meant for them and for the world, he tells them to get ready anyway because he intends to send them forth to preach and to heal and to forgive.

       Why them?  Because they are witnesses to all that love can do.  They may not have it all together, but Jesus instructs them to dare to dance again anyway.  Why?  Besides, he says, they will have the Holy Spirit to guide them – and she is a darn good teacher.

         And so it is for us – we who are Jesus’ 21^st century disciples.  Faith comes slowly to us as well.  It would be nice if the world were black and white, if we could easily tell right from wrong.  It would be nice if nothing ever threatened to dismantle or shatter our faith – a tragic accident, a devastating and undeserved illness, all sorts of bad things happening to all sorts of good people.  It would be nice if simply by answering an altar call or making a personal proclamation our salvation was assured.

         But deep down inside – because we are sitting here in this church and not in some fundamentalist mega-church – deep down inside we know that life is not that simplistic.  Life really is a journey – a difficult one at times – and faith is not always easy. 

         And yet, this passage assures us that Jesus understands that sometimes it is hard to dance again – especially if we are not sure of the moves. He understands that we are going to need to be told over and over that his resurrection is real, that he is real, that he and all he stood for is reality itself.  He understands that we are going to need ongoing evidence that new life abounds in what so often seems like a dead and decaying world and that transformation is possible when often any change at all seems highly unlikely. 

         He understands all those limitations, but (and this is the catch) he does not let us off the hook.  Just as Jesus commissions his first disciples to heal loneliness and take care of the impoverished, to mend broken relationships and love the unlovable, so he also commissions us.  Even though his first disciples could still not completely believe even after he appeared to them in a variety of contexts, he still sends them forth to minister in his name. 

         And so it is for us:  Even though this resurrection business still does not make complete sense to us (and probably never will), even though we may be slow in our faith and tentative in our steps, Jesus still sends us forth to minister in his name. He still dares us to dance again.  About that we really have no choice because we are witnesses to the power of love.  Its rhythm is part of who we are as Jesus’ followers.

         Even though we may be unsure of our moves and sometimes cannot remember all we think we need to know, Jesus dares us to dance again – with the Holy Spirit as our guide – and she is a pretty darn good teacher. And so I say to you just as I would have said to those tired and frightened disciples in that locked upper room so long ago:  Just keep dancing!

John 20:19-23 "Just Dance"

         Back in the days when the Beach Boys sang how Midwestern farmers’ daughters and northern girls in general could not hold a candle to the young women who lived in California (that sunshine-y, almost magical place I had never been) and when they crooned about surfer girls (which I never was) in their bikinis (which Imy mother never let me wear) with their undoubtedly long blond California hair (which I never had), back in those days this New Jersey teenaged girl’s favorite movie was “The Endless Summer”.

         The film was a quasi-documentary with dreamy summery theme music and an awesome poster about two young men who navigated all around the world searching for the perfect surfing wave.  The duo traveled a full twelve months, with money apparently no object.  They began in California (of course), swung through Australia and New Zealand, stopped in Hawaii and Tahiti, ending up in Senegal and South Africa. 

         I do not remember exactly where they found their perfect wave, but I do remember one line from the film.  “You should have been here yesterday.”  The surfers were told on several occasions that they had just missed it!  Not long ago, the locals assured them, the weather had been perfect, the beach had been perfect, the water had been perfect, and, most importantly, the waves had been perfect.  You should have been here yesterday!

         I am reminded of that line now that we are post-Easter here in church.  You should have been here on April 1st!  Two weeks ago, it was a perfect morning:  The flowers were perfect, the music was perfect, the message was perfect.  You should have been here on Easter!  We belted out the Hallelujah Chorus.  We breathed in the sweet fragrance of lilies.  Some of us even wore our colorful spring clothes. 

         And most every one of us fairly danced our way out of this very sanctuary – so filled with the news of the resurrection were we!  Derek Hough, Patrick Swayze, and Fred Astaire had nothing on us.  You should have been here on Easter!  It was perfect!

         But here we are – a mere two weeks later – back in own real and exceedingly imperfect world again:  The same old President stirring up the same old bad feelings and fears with his latest tweets, the same old marriage with its myriad problems, the same old job, the same old tangled and complex family issues. Though the church considers Easter not simply a day, but rather a seven-week season, we are hard-pressed to keep up the celebration for even a short time.

         In that regard, we are not unlike the disciples who huddled in an upper room behind locked doors in Jerusalem post-Easter, post-resurrection news.  Like us, in spite of the women’s cries of “He is risen”, the only dance the little band of followers were capable of was a dance of quiet desperation. 

         Lutheran pastor William Flippin describes the scene this way:  “I can imagine them sweating profusely and can even see some occasionally checking the doorknob to see that it was locked. Other disciples might have been looking out of a peephole or a window because…they were now fugitives because their beloved leader, Jesus, has been executed…by the means of crucifixion.

         The disciples fear the Roman and religious authorities that murdered Jesus would possibly murder them for being associated with this radical, itinerant preacher from Galilee. Their messianic hopes have dissolved into mere survival, coupled by utter confusion and calamity.” 

         What had they been thinking these past three years?  Not only did they fear for their own skins now, but they must also have concluded that they had been duped.  Here they had given three years of their lives – left homes and families and, if not well-paying, at least reasonably steady incomes - to follow this man who had turned out to be a fraud. 

         Jesus’ words had been so revolutionary.  The disciples had been swept in, convinced that he was the Messiah who would lead all of Israel in a complete overthrow of the oppressive Roman imperialist domination system.  This charismatic preacher, along with his fervent hope for a better world, had been little more than a charlatan.    

         Now all they had to show for their efforts was a dead rabbi, a stolen body, a cockamamie story from a couple of women, Jerusalem in an uproar, and, worst of all, them fearing for their own lives.  Thanks a lot, Jesus!  No wonder they huddled, sweating in the heat, behind locked doors. 

         It was in the midst of that wretched scene, of course, that the Risen Christ showed up.  The locked door did not keep him out.  Nothing could keep him out. 

         What did the disciples think – they who knew they were little more than a ragtag bunch of nobodies, they who realized they were merely cowards, they who wondered now if they had lost their souls when they had chosen to save their skins on that black day of crucifixion?  Did they feel ashamed?  Did they fear Jesus’ presence? 

         Who knows?  The Gospel writer does not tell us because maybe the Gospel writer knew it really did not matter how the disciples initially felt.

         What mattered was that Jesus showed them his wounds and scars.  What mattered was that Jesus was not angry with them.  What mattered was that he did not yell at them and tell them they were the poorest excuse for human beings that he had ever seen. What mattered was that he did not condemn them or belittle them or berate them. 

         What mattered was that he offered them the age-old Jewish greeting of love and reconciliation:  “Peace be with you.”  Shalom. Peace.  Do not be afraid.  Everything is going to be all right.  You are not alone.  I am here to dance with you.

         And then to prove his point, the Risen Christ took a deep cleansing breath and exhaled.  He breathed the Holy Spirit upon all of the men and women gathered in that stifling hot upper room. 

         And suddenly the air felt cool and clean again, and there was the faintest odor of lilies.  For an instant, they were sure they heard music, and the stories of King David long ago dancing with wild abandon before God flitted across their minds.  They could not help it, but their feet started tapping just a little bit too.  It was perfect!

         And then Jesus sent them out into the world to continue to dance the work that he had begun with them – to offer forgiveness, to preach reconciliation, to be peacemakers, to welcome the unwelcome, to heal, and, most of all, to love – all the time, of course, trusting that they were not alone in their ministry.  After all, they had been filled with the Holy Spirit, and so with the rhythm of the dance that Jesus offered them also came the pulsing beat of power and purpose. 

         In breathing upon them the Holy Spirit and sending them forth into the world, Jesus told them it was their time to dance – dances of freedom, dances of justice, dances of hope.  He told them:  “Dance, dance, wherever you may be.  I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.  I’ll lead you all wherever you may be.  I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he.”

         From wallflowers to dancers, from hopelessness to joy:  Suddenly the disciples had something to live for again.  They had peace.  They had power.  They had purpose.  In short, they had every reason in the world to dare to dance again.

         And so it is with us.  We too have every reason in the world to dare to dance post-Easter.  We too have every reason for our feet to start tapping.  Here are just three reasons.

          First, just as Jesus met the disciples where they were – huddled in a dark and fear-filled upper room down some back alley in the Holy City, so Jesus meets us wherever we are too – in whatever dark and fear-filled room down whatever back alley of our lives we have decided to hang out in.  And he is already extending his hand, pulling us to our feet, declaring that we shall be wallflowers, sitting on the sidelines in doubt and fear, no longer, daring us to dance again.

        One blogger I read this past week wrote:  “You can depend on the fact that when you begin to doubt and fear – whether this week, or next week, or a decade from now — the risen Christ will not stay away from you. You can put as many locks and dead bolts on the door as you like, but the risen Christ will come to you anyway. Your doubts will not keep him at bay.

         Into our bomb shelters, into our doubts and disbelief, just when we’re sure that this time, the sky is really falling: the Risen Christ appears to us. He walks right into the midst of us: with arms outstretched, bearer of peace, vanquisher of death, the champion of heaven.  He promises to come and to come again, one more time, and another time after that, as many times as it takes.  As long as you and I have need, he comes.”  Even in doubt, even in fear, he comes – and invites us to dare to dance.  And isn’t that a reason to accept the invitation?

         Second, – or perhaps it is a corollary to that first reason to dare to dance again  - the Risen Christ will always find us.  A locked door will not keep him out.  As Episcopal priest Michael Marsh proclaims:  “Jesus’ tomb is open and empty but the disciples’ house is closed and the doors locked tight. The house has become their tomb. Jesus is on the loose and the disciples are bound in fear.

         The disciples have separated themselves and their lives from the reality of Jesus’ resurrection. Their doors of faith have been closed…They have locked out Mary Magdalene’s words of faith, hope, and love. They left the empty tomb of Jesus and entered their own tombs of fear, doubt, and blindness…They have locked themselves in. The doors of our tombs are always locked from the inside.” 

         And yet, Jesus manages to break through those doors.  He is in the business of unlocking locks and unsealing tombs – even ours, even today.  And when he finds us hidden away, Jesus offers us peace to overcome the fears we carry – the fears of mass shootings, of the impact of trade wars and tariffs, of a military response to Russia and Syria, of an unpredictable President. Jesus offers us shalom – wholeness and healing for our fraught relationships – with our families, with our coworkers, with our neighbors.  

         When the time comes – as it always does – to live the resurrection – to live the hope and promise of new life and personal transformation – and instead we want to stay in bed and pull the covers over our heads and close out the world and lock ourselves away, Jesus finds us.  He will not let us imprison ourselves in that way.  He invites us to dare to dance.  And isn’t that a reason to accept the invitation?

         Third, a final reason to dare to dance again is the realization that the Risen Christ seldom comes to individuals (Mary in the garden being the sole exception).  The Risen Christ comes to people who are committed to gathering together in community – and that would be the church. 

         The breath of the Risen Christ  - the Holy Spirit – swirls around here – right here in this place – empowering us for ministry, giving us a purpose great than ourselves, sending us forth not only on big excursions like to Maine Seacoast Mission, but also sending us forth simply to our homes and jobs where we re called to embody, with God’s help of course, all that Jesus was and all that he stood for. 

Jesus says that we are better off daring to dance as a church family than daring to dance alone.  And isn’t that a reason to accept the invitation?

         So - yes – you should have been here on Easter – because it was perfect.  However, it is even better that you are here today to feel the rhythm and to get your feet tapping, so that you will dare to dance again – as Easter people – in his name.

        

        

           

        

Mark 16:1-8, Luke 24:13-35

         A pastor was once giving a children’s sermon on Easter Sunday, and, as one might expect, she had more than the usual number of little ones gathered about her on the chancel steps at the front of the church.  She was telling the story of Easter with immense drama and flair – knowing that she would probably not see some of these children again until Christmas Eve. 

         She began with the three women making their way to the cemetery as the first hint of dawn spread its rosy fingers across the Eastern horizon.  The children listened intently.  She then went on to tell how the women found the tomb in the garden amidst the dew-laden lilies and daffodils.  The children were in her thrall.  As she continued the story, she asked the children to imagine being one of the women who saw that the enormous stone across the tomb entrance had been rolled away, revealing the darkened interior. The children were silent.  Their eyes were as big as saucers, hanging on the pastor’s every word. 

         She then paused dramatically before asking them the pivotal and climactic question:  “And when the women peeked inside the tomb, what do you suppose they saw?”

         One little girl, attired in her brand new white dress with its pink satin bow, her Easter bonnet tied coquettishly around her chin, could hardly contain her excitement.  The pastor repeated the question for added emphasis:  “And when the women peeked inside the tomb, what do you suppose they saw?”

         The little girl excitedly blurted out, loud enough for the entire congregation to hear, “Jelly beans?”

         Well, we who are wise to this story know that Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome did not find jellybeans when they came to the tomb that first Easter morning.  However, they knew full well what they would find:  a corpse hastily laid on a cold rock shelf, Jesus’ body – broken and torn - that had not been properly prepared for burial due to the taboo on doing any sort of work – particularly touching a dead body – on the Sabbath. 

         And so, because of an ancient Jewish religious ritual that the Pharisees enforced, the three of them had now come to the garden cemetery in the darkest hour just before dawn, carrying their baskets filled with spices – myrrh and aloe, cedar, rose, and lavender – common embalming ingredients in the ancient world.  They had come to offer their final gift of love and respect with the rising sun. They had come to weep one last time and to say goodbye forever.  They knew the rock closing off the entrance to the tomb would be a problem, but, well, they would cross that bridge when they came to it. 

         Of course, we who are wise to this story know that the stone was not an issue.  Nor did the women find a corpse.  In fact, they found nothing – nothing except emptiness and an even darker dark than they had known before. 

         They found only some guy dressed in white whom they did not know sitting where Jesus’ body should have been lying, some guy spouting a tale that he was gone, that he was raised, that he had hightailed it off the Galilee.  In short, the three women only found an empty tomb.  And they were so torn between terror and amazement that they ran away and told no one. 

         It is a lousy ending to the story – no doubt about it. Could not the Gospel writer of Mark have done a bit better than that?  

         It was such a lousy ending, in fact, that an editor years later, when this resurrection business was perhaps somewhat better understood, added on a few more verses about Jesus meeting up with his disciples again. However, any way you read this particular Gospel narrative – with or without the second, later ending, you have got to figure that the women must have told their story to someone – or else we would not be continuing to tell their same story year after year, Easter after Easter.

         However, it is little wonder that the women ran away, their lips sealed.  I mean, there are so many explanations for an empty tomb – and the least likely would have been that Jesus had come back to life again. 

         Was it not in the 1988 film “The Last Temptation of Christ” that director Martin Scorsese speculated that Jesus never actually died on the cross but was rescued by his guardian angel, got married, and lived peacefully to a ripe old age?  That caused a flap in the orthodox Christian world! 

         And then there was the possibility of grave robbers.  It was not uncommon for peasants to make a little extra cash on the side by stripping dead people of any and all worldly possessions they may have tried to take with them – and even absconding with the body itself.  

         And what about the disciples themselves hiding Jesus’ body in the hopes of duping the public into believing that Jesus had indeed returned from the dead and this time really would lead the much anticipated political revolution?

         In addition, scholars of ancient Roman history and cultural practices wonder about the likelihood of Jesus’s body being placed in a tomb in the first place.  It would certainly have been uncharacteristic of the fate of other crucifixion victims. 

         Biblical historian Bart Ehrman notes that it was against Roman practices for criminals to be given decent burials.  Their bodies were left to rot on the crosses as part of their punishment and as a reminder to those living that it was dangerously foolish to cross the Roman governor.  Sometimes all that was left were weathered bones.  Sometimes vultures or dogs or wild beasts ate the carcasses, waiting in the wings until nightfall to pull the parts they could get at to the ground and feast on the rotten remains. 

         Ehrman goes on to say that, if criminals such as Jesus were buried, the Romans took care of it, eventually shoveling them into shallow common graves like first century Holocaust victims. There in peace the worms and insects could finish the work begun by the hot desert sun. 

         And as far as the story of Joseph of Arimathea asking a favor of Pilate and obtaining permission to take Jesus’ body for a proper burial?  Well, Pilate was not exactly known for being a sympathetic ruler and bestowing his kindness for nothing in return. 

         In fact, the first century historian Philo, In describing Pilate's personality, writes that Pilate had "vindictiveness and furious temper", and was "naturally inflexible, a blend of self-will and relentlessness".

         Referring to Pilate's governance, Philo further describes "his corruption, and his acts of insolence, and his rapine, and his habit of insulting people, and his cruelty, and his continual murders of people untried and uncondemned, and his never ending, and gratuitous, and most grievous inhumanity."  Not someone likely to agree to a proper burial for a two-bit Jewish criminal that he had washed his hands of a few days before.

         So where does all this leave us on Easter morning?  After all, this is the day of the empty tomb.  This is the day that is supposed to have us all belting out the Hallelujah Chorus and believing wholeheartedly in Jesus’ resurrection. But on the basis of some guy dressed in white and three women who were too afraid to tell anyone their outlandish story?  Come on!

         The empty tomb is traditionally the symbol of the resurrection – but the evidence is so flimsy.  Where does all this leave us on Easter morning?

PLAY SKIT GUYS VIDEO – THE ROAD TO EMMAUS

         Resurrection is indeed central to the Christian faith.   That much we know.  After all, without it, Jesus would have been just a footnote in Jewish history, his followers a small sect within Judaism that likely would have died out over time.  Most assuredly, it was the disciples’ belief in resurrection that changed everything.  However, that belief had little to do with the empty tomb.

         And so, I would submit that those of you who come to church only on this Sunday – but are serious about this resurrection business - ought to hang around for the next few Sundays at least.  Because, you see, what made the difference was not the empty tomb of Easter.

     What made the difference were stories like the two old men in the video.  Decades later, they remembered – maybe not what they had for lunch that day but forever how their hearts had burned inside of them when they had met Jesus on the road, and he had shared a meal with them. 

         There are other stories like that one in all the Gospel narratives.  There is the story of Jesus cooking breakfast on a beach, of Jesus confronting Mary Magdalene in the cemetery garden and her mistaking him at first for the gardener, of Jesus allowing Thomas to touch his scarred hands and wounded side.  Even that later editor of Mark’s Gospel eventually comes round to a story – albeit short on details - about Jesus appearing to his followers, those stubborn men of little faith.

         It was not the empty tomb that caused them – or causes us - to believe in his resurrection – or to toss it aside as a fanciful tale.  It is those experiences of Jesus appearing to those who loved him that make all the difference. 

         It was visions of Jesus alive again – not the empty tomb - that inspired Jesus’ followers to know – beyond the shadow of a doubt – that he had been raised from the dead, that he was alive. The two old men said it themselves:  Their hearts burned inside of them.  Their lives were changed forever.

         The guy in white at the tomb told the three women to tell the disciples to meet Jesus in Galilee, where his ministry began.  Maybe that is what we should do as well: Return to the beginning and see the life of Jesus unfolding with new eyes. 

         As Lutheran pastor Jonathan Davies writes, we see Jesus “caring for the sick, and sitting with the people no one else wants to sit with, and loving the people who hate and betray him. And when we realize those things are still happening today, then all of sudden we have something say about the resurrected Christ in the world today.”  He is risen! He is alive!  He is here!

         And every time we do something, no matter how small, to welcome the refugee, to readjust the off-kilter balance between affluence and poverty, to heal the rift between us and the ones we are unable to forgive, every time we do something that leaves our hearts burning within us because we know we could not have done what we did just on our own, well, there you have it:  He is risen!

     From death to life, from war to peace, from hopelessness to joy:  I believe all those pie-in-the-sky things are possible even when so much in our world tries to prove to me otherwise.  From death to life, from war to peace, from hopelessness to joy:  I believe those glimpses of God’s dream for the world have happened and will continue to happen. 

         Call me gullible, but I will keep belting out the Hallelujah Chorus annually – even though I have never had a vision like those early disciples.  I have never breakfasted with Jesus nor heard him speak outright to me nor touched him.

          In that regard, I am a pretty ordinary person.  However, I am also darn sure that I have been touched by him - if only by being touched by all that he stood for. 

         I have seen him in the face of a wheelchair-bound man who beamed as he waved goodbye to a few of us who had built him a handicap ramp in Tennessee. I have witnessed him breaking bread in soup kitchens in Portland, and I have watched him picking up weekend groceries at the food pantry at Maine Seacoast Mission.  I have even felt his presence once in a while here in church.

        And on that perhaps flimsy basis alone, I will keep telling this story – year after year, Easter after Easter.  Not so much the empty tomb part as the times I have sensed something bigger than myself holding me up, giving me courage and strength that I never really thought I had, leading me – when I actually let him lead me - on a way laced with compassion and justice and reconciliation and inclusion. 

         It may not be much.  It may not be enough for some of you sitting here this morning, but for me, for now, it is enough to be able to say.  He is risen!  He lives!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia – and amen.