Easter Sunday: Luke 19:41-48 on April 20th, 2025
Above is audio of the sermon pulled from the video and amplified.
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This Easter things might feel a little discombobulated, like really out of place. Here we are in the fellowship hall only remembering what Easter's on the end were like, the days when we could plan, prepare and expect the same old thing. However, the renovations that we are undergoing do have some parallels to the three days of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. First, you really could get pierced by a nail. The hallways and the bathrooms are dark, dusty and we bit tomb-like. Concrete blocks have been rolled away and what once was sealed off is now open. There's a guy in a dazzling bright orange shirt holding his holy jackhammer. You know, just like the Bible says. And the things that we thought would always be, well, they just aren't the same anymore.
For us who are St. Philip Lutheran Church, this Easter feels a little out of place. And somehow that feeling is appropriate today. Even with all the construction chaos or maybe especially because of it, Easter reminds us of why we're here. To remember. We come here to remember life and love, forgiveness and grace, community and hope. We come to remember that God is still active in our world and in our lives, even when it doesn't feel like it.
This morning's Gospel lesson from Luke begins without a lot of that good stuff that I just mentioned. The women have a completely predictable, if not gut-runching job to do. And they've likely done it before. Bring spices, anoint the body, say goodbye. And yet to their surprise, they do not find the body of Jesus. And most of us are desensitized to how utterly shocking that must have been. If anyone should be present in a particular place, it would be a dead body in its tomb. But Jesus is missing. And in the middle of that confusion and fear too many and dazzling clothes appear. Now it answers, but with a question. Why do you look for the living among the dead? He's not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you.
And then they remembered. They didn't see Jesus. They didn't touch him or hear him speak. All they had was memory. All they had was what he had told them. And somehow, that was enough. Jesus's words to them were enough. And there's power in that moment. And their remembering turns them from mourners into messengers. They remember that Jesus, what Jesus said, and that re-orients everything. They go and they tell the others. And their act of remembering becomes an act of remembering. Pulling back together the community that was dismembered by fear, confusion, grief, despair. It's a redemptive type of remembering. Not just calling to mind the past, but letting that memory transform the present.
And that is what we do when we gather. When we remember and we remind each and every week, but today in particular, we remember what Jesus said and what Jesus did. We remember his life, we remember his death, and we proclaim his resurrection to life ever lasting. We remember who he is, and in doing so, we remember who we are. We remember that we are named and claimed forever. That we, that you, you were fed and forgiven. You are graced and given life. You are forever joined to Jesus in baptism. And we remember that since we had been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. Because God does what we could never do. Break the power of sin, reconcile us with God and open the way to eternal life. Because we remember Jesus, we remember those things are for us too.
We think we come here today to celebrate, to sing songs and hymns, to give thanks. But really, like the women at the tomb at first Easter morning, we just come here to be reminded that the unbelievable has happened. That Jesus is risen, that the impossible is possible, the unthinkable is now our hope. Death has been defeated once and for all, our greatest enemy crumbles under the depth and the breadth of God's love. Love that won't ever stop. And that is a reminder that we need regularly.
I mean, today, right now, in this very moment, in this room, sure, we remember. But day to day, we forget in our world, in our lives, in the midst of all that is opposed to love, grace, and resurrection life, we need this reminder that God is bigger than it all. That God is more loving than we can be, that God shows us that love by raising Jesus from the tomb. And sometimes a small reminder is all we really need, a gentle nudge, a whisper that cuts through the noise and says, remember, remember how He told you. But sometimes we need something more, a brass quintet, a crowded fellowship hall, a holy jackhammer, a bustle walls of resurrection and new life. God has changed everything, even when we forget. But when we do remember, oh, how that changes us.
Because remembering doesn't just open our minds, it opens our hearts. It calls us to love more expansively, because we have been loved without conditions or limits. It calls us to hope more deeply, because in Jesus, even death has lost its grip. It calls us to remember, to put back together what fear and despair have torn apart. Remembering becomes more than memory, it becomes mission, it becomes life.
So today we remember. We remember what Jesus said, we remember what God has done. We remember who and whose we are. Because in a world where it's so easy to forget, Easter calls us back. Back to life, back to hope, back to a God who breaks through tombs with whispers, jackhammers, and eternal resurrected love. Amen.