The Easter Story

 

How do you tell the Easter Story

In a way that is thought-provoking and engaging

To people who have either

Heard the story their whole lives or

Come to church for the first time?

 

How do you tell the Easter Story

In a way that is new and exciting

To people who have either

Stayed true to the story their whole lives or

Wandered away from its impact due to questions and doubts?

 

How do you tell the Easter Story

In a way that is meaningful and real

To people who have either

Known you your entire life or

Seen you for the very first time?

 

These were the questions I was asking myself

As I prepared to preach the Easter Story for the very first time.

My dad was able to go to church yesterday,

To welcome the congregation and to pray,

But he didn’t have the stamina to preach,

So Little Rev. delivered the message instead…

And I was very nervous.

 

Easter is highest of Holy Days in the Christian Tradition.

It’s the pinnacle of our faith and

The very promise of hope, redemption, resurrection, and life.

Easter is one of two Sundays per year that many people come to church.

Easter is a time of joy and celebration, and

Easter is a time of family togetherness and remembering.

 

So how does one prepare an Easter message?

One only needs to

Tell the story:

 

Jesus is not dead.

Christ is not in the tomb.

Jesus Christ is not trapped behind the large, heavy, immovable burden of stone.

And because of this,

Because of the power of resurrection,

Neither are you stuck behind the stone of hopelessness and death.

 

The stone is rolled away!

Christ is risen!
A new beginning is here!

 

Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift.

 

Amen.

Real People

 

I cried at church on Sunday.

We were reading from 

Palm to Passion 

And the emotion of it all just got me. 

 

I think we sometimes go on autopilot 

When we read the story of Jesus’s last week of life. 

We read the events and see them as history 

And forget that real people actually lived them. 

 

I think, too, we sometimes dismiss Judas’s betrayal as preordained 

And forget how difficult it must have been for 

Jesus to receive that kiss. 

 

For that matter, 

I think we sometimes see the whole week as preordained 

And forget how difficult the whole week must have been. 

 

The ups and downs. 

The moments of beauty and of horror. 

The silence and the noise. 

The praise and the condemnation. 

 

It was all lived in real time

With real people who had 

Real emotions and real pain.

 

All of the ways that we’re human now

Were all of the ways that people were human then

And the mob mentality then was just as strong as it is now. 

The mob mentality freed a convicted criminal 

While it condemned an innocent Jesus to death. 

 

It was ugly.

It was brutal. 

They came at him with swords.

They used violence against a peaceful man. 

 

It didn’t have to be that way.

And yet it was.

 

And still Jesus found it in his being to say

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

 

Today, on Maundy Thursday, 

As we remember Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, 

Serving his disciples his last meal, 

Going to the garden of Gethsemane, 

And being betrayed, 

May we remember just how real it all was

And may we cry at the emotion and weight of it all.

 

Jesus was fully God, 

But he was fully human.

And we humans haven’t changed much in 2000 years.

 

Amen. 

Go To Dark Gethsemane

Were you there when the disciples fell asleep?
Were you there when Christ Jesus was betrayed?
Were you there when the disciples ran away?
Were you there in the violence and the fear?
Were you there when Peter turned his head in shame?
Were you there when Pilate sentenced Christ to die?
Were you there you when they crucified my Lord?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble...
Were you there…

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While working at Antioch a few years ago, I partnered with my mom to catalogue the music at the church. As part of the organizational process, I made a spreadsheet that included each song’s title, composer, arranger, publisher, date of publication, subject matter, and whether or not I thought it was a good match for the choir. My friend Barb would call this one of my OCD moments.

At the time, I was working on site-reading with the choir. One of the songs that I marked as a long-range possibility for us—largely because it was so different than anything we’d ever done but also because it had a very compelling text and haunting melody—became one of our site reading victims. We looked at it together. Read it. Sang it. Struggled through it. Acknowledged both its difficulty and power. Then put it away…but I didn’t forget it…and neither did they.

One of the first things I did when beginning work again at Antioch was hand out “Go To Dark Gethsemane.” Almost five years later, the choir having worked with a strong choral director in the time in between, I figured that my long-range choir dream might actually come true. Easily the most difficult song in our repertoire, “Go To Dark Gethsemane” has occupied a few minutes of choir practice each week for the past two months. Phrase by phrase, we have worked our way through the Lenten Season to prepare ourselves for this very night…and the three days that follow.

After searching for a YouTube recording to post with this note, I realized that “Go To Dark Gethsemane” is a text that has been set to many different melodies. I couldn’t find the one that we’ve been rehearsing, so I’m simply going to post the words and ask that you join me in Gethsemane.

Be prepared, though…the garden is dark…and the next few days are, too…

Go to dark Gethsemane
Ye that feel the tempter's power
Your Redeemer's conflict see

Watch with him one bitter hour

Turn not from His grief away
Learn with Jesus Christ to pray

Follow to the judgment hall
View the Lord of Life arraigned

Oh the wormwood and the gall
Oh the pangs of soul sustained

Shun not suffering, shame, nor loss
Learn with Him to bear the cross

Early hasten to the tomb
Where they laid His breathless clay
All is solitude and gloom
Who has taken him away

Christ is risen
He meets our eyes

Savior teach us,
Savior teach us,
Teach us so to rise.