Don't You Believe It (Easter C)

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He Qi, Easter Morning

“Don’t You Believe It”
Easter Sunday Year C
20 April 2014 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. Sung Festal Eucharist

Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)

Jeremiah 31:1-6; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 ; Colossians 3:1-4 ; Matthew 28:1-10

May the light of Christ, rising in glory,
banish all darkness from our hearts and minds.   Amen.

The story of Jesus’ glorious reappearing to his friends alive three days after he was truly and fully killed is the heart of our Christian faith, and the heart of our Easter celebration, the mother of all our worship.   But we live in a secular time, and our nation’s largely unchurched “Left coast”. I have gotten used to hearing the question about this time of year, both from community members not allied with Trinity and from members of the congregation itself, But Tony, do you really believe that story?   

It just seems too fantastic for some, who, following Freud, book it as some kind of wish fulfillment fantasy.  And I must say that part of the reason we call all of what we do and talk about in church “faith” is that it runs headlong into the expectations we have built up from what our senses tell us of the cold, hard facts of life and death.

“Do you really believe that story?” often is said to the tones of, “Don’t you believe it. It’s too good to be true.”   

The fact is, I really do believe that Jesus of Nazareth, dead and buried after being brutalized by the Roman Imperial authorities, was somehow raised from death into a new and more vital form of life, and came to his friends more alive than they had ever seen him before.  I know from experience that he somehow continues to engage us, teach us, and love us even today.   

The other evening on Jefferson Public Radio, I heard a bluegrass cover of a song I used to listen to when I lived in Beijing 25 years ago, Bruce Hornsby’s “The Way It Is.”  I am told that Tupak Shakur did a cover of it before he died.  The song helped put such questions back into perspective for me once again.  The song tells of people waiting in a welfare line hopeless, of a young rich man yelling out to a poverty-stricken elderly woman, “get a job,”  people excluded because of their color, and the failure of the best-intentioned legislation to successfully address what is, ultimately, a sickness of the heart.    The refrain repeats, “that's just the way it is, some things'll never change, that's just the way it is,” and then, “but don't you believe them.”

“Don’t you believe them!”  It’s a little like John Lennon’s dream of a world rid of its problems, including religion, in “Imagine.”  Both affirm that there has got to be something better, something fairer, something more beautiful than what our eyes behold. 

So I’d like to turn the tables on my dear friends and family members who ask me “How can you believe in that resurrection story?”  by giving the reply that Jesus rising from the dead makes to many of the common assumptions we have about our world. 

We are hopeless and helpless.    Don’t you believe it. 

We are worthless or unworthy.  Don’t you believe it. 

We cannot change for the better.   Don’t you believe it. 

There is no forgiveness.    Don’t you believe it. 

There is no meaning.     Don’t you believe it. 

There is no love that endures.   Don’t you believe it.   

There is no love that is not corrupted.     Don’t you believe it. 

All things are random.  Don’t you believe it. 

God has abandoned us and broken his promises.  Don’t you believe it. 

There is no God.      Don’t you believe it. 

The rich and the powerful will always get more rich and powerful, and the poor and downtrodden only more broken.   Don’t you believe it. 

Oppression is inevitable.    Don’t you believe it.  

The best we can hope for is oblivion.  Don’t you believe it. 

Some things will never change. That’s just the way it is.    Don’t you believe it. 

Christ’s victory over death, hell, fear, and evil is also a victory over meaninglessness, bitterness, and remorse.   It is God’s great joke on the world, and must silence all hopeless irony.  We are not doomed to failure and despair.  We are not destined for permanent oblivion after sickness, diminishment, inevitable decline and dignity-destroying death.   We are invited to share in his life. 

Jesus’ coming forth as life itself means that death does not have the final word.  Fear does not have the final word.  Law and judgment do not have the final word.  Vengeance does not have the final word.  Oppression will cease.  We are not doomed to regret and pain.  War does not have the final word, nor does violence. 

Alleluia!  Christ is risen, the Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!