Sermon John 1:1-18 1Easter-B

The Resurrection of our Lord; Sunday, April 4, 2021

Gloria Dei Lutheran Church,

Coos Bay, Oregon

 

Halleluiah! Christ is Risen

Christ is risen indeed! Halleluiah!

 

Quick quiz…Unmute yourselves and shout out the answers as you know them…bear with me.

◊What is the name of the River that runs north through the middle of our state, splits Portland in two, and empties into the Columbia River?

The word "Willamette" is a French corruption of the name of the indigenous Clackamas village on the river near what is now Oregon City. Okay, that was pretty easy.

 Here’s a harder one: How did Mingus Park get its name?

Originally called Marshfield City Park, in 1937 the Parks Commission passed a resolution changing the name to Mingus Park in honor of local resident Dr. Everett Mingus. As chair of the Parks Commission, Dr. Mingus was instrumental in the park's development.

 People who have the power to name also have the power to tell the story. In the retelling of any story, it’s always interesting to note whose voices get heard and whose have been silenced.

 Think about how you got your own name.

 Your story might have included the fact that historically, some groups of people were denied their names. Many people from Eastern Europe had their names shortened at Ellis Island because their last names were too long or too difficult for the officials to pronounce. My last name was likely a phonetic version of a common German name changed by a clerk at Ellis Island.

 When Africans were stolen from their homeland and enslaved, their names and the history of their people were stripped as well. In many instances what they received in return was the names of those who had enslaved them. I read a story about young man of African descent who felt compelled to change his name. He recalled that “I changed my name to Bakari Chavanu six years ago, and my mom still won’t pronounce it. The mail she sends me is still addressed to Johnnie McCowan. When I brought up the subject with her of changing my name, she said ‘How could you be my son if you changed your name?’” I knew she was responding emotionally to what I had decided to do. I knew and respected also that she was, of course, the giver of my life and my first identity, but how do I make her understand the larger picture? That the lives of people are more than their families and their birth names, that my identity had been taken from me, from her, from my father, from my sister, from countless generations of my people enslaved for the benefit of others? How do I make her understand what it means for a kidnapped people to reclaim their identity? How do I help her understand the need for people of African descent to reclaim themselves?”

 Years later, when his mother rushed to his hospital bed, she remembered her son’s request. When his mother called him lovingly by his chosen name, Bakari was freed from the hold of his confusion and found his way back to a relationship with his mother. And what he came back to was, really, a whole new world, one where, at least for the moment, his old fears and hurts had been banished, replaced by a sense of belonging and contentment and security that showed itself in his delight.
I have a hunch that it was something like that for Mary Magdalene.
John tells us of two trips that Mary makes to the tomb early that first Easter morning. On the first trip, she discovers that the place where they had laid Jesus was empty, so she runs all the way back to the city to tell Simon Peter and another disciple, the one Jesus loved.

 They, in turn, race to the tomb, followed by Mary on her second trip that morning. Peter and the other disciple saw nothing, likely shrugged at Mary, and then each went back to his own home, presumably to ponder what they hadn’t just seen. But Mary remained, alone, in the burial garden.
Mary is, as we may well imagine, distraught and exhausted, troubled by equal measures of grief and confusion. So much so, in fact, that when she finally peers into the tomb and observes two angels in white, she shows neither the fear nor the wonder that I think any of us have shown if we, ourselves, had witnessed that amazing scene.

Instead, Mary displays only the distress of a lost child. And when, turning, she is confronted by none other than Jesus, the one whose body she is seeking, she is still too overcome by the trauma of last few days to recognize her Lord.

And then it happens. “Mary,” Jesus says, calling her by name, breaking through the shroud of her grief to grasp hold of her and draw her into a whole new world.
It’s hard to imagine all the emotions that must have coursed through Mary in that moment; and yet, while the text doesn’t give us many clues, I have a feeling that after no more than a heartbeat she responded at first with a shy smile, wiped away the tears soaking her cheeks, and then broke into a grin of recognition and delight, breathing “my teacher.”

Ah, but it doesn’t end here. No, after only a brief moment to savor this encounter, Mary is addressed by her Lord once again. “Go to the others,” Jesus tells her, “and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

And having been called by name, Mary is now sent to proclaim the wonder of what she has just seen. And she does.

Mary raced back to the city once more to announce to the other disciples and to the world, “I have seen the Lord.”

In so doing, Mary becomes the first Christian preacher, the first proclaimer of the resurrection. People like you and me who also tell of the good news are her descendants.

But if you aren’t telling others, where might you be stuck?

Why is this good news so difficult to share?

Might you be afraid you could be embarrassed? Are you not sure how to begin?

What is it that has you paralyzed or traumatized, confused or bewildered?

Can you not begin to share with others because you’re still in grief over the death of a loved one or the disintegration of an important relationship? Maybe it’s the recent tragedies in our hospital Intensive Care Units across the world, on a street corner in Minneapolis, in a grocery store in Colorado, on the steps of the US Capitol building, itself. Even this week, which we call Holy, included the shooting death of Billy Williams, another Capitol police officer.  Maybe it’s an uncertain future or a painful past. Maybe you feel rather empty inside, numb from the thousands things you are worried about and feeling alone and isolated. Maybe it’s the reality of living on a fixed income and the squeeze that many of us feel?  

Maybe,…maybe it’s any one of a host of things that plagues us on any given day of the year, diminishing our lives and paralyzing us where we stand.

But whatever it is, hear once again the good news that Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, is calling you by name, addressing you in a tender voice, and reaching out to draw you to himself and to reconnect you to those who love you. And, truth be told, it’s the significance of all of the preaching and teaching you will ever hear. This good news is the substance of our celebration and our worship, because through it, God calls us by name once again.

 This, in a nutshell, is the significance of Baptism, where we are named by God to be one of God’s children now and forever. It’s the good news of the baptisms that will happen in a few minutes, when God will name little McKenna and baby Madison God’s beloved children. For the rest of us, hearing our names called by God, God penetrates the numbness and brokenness of our lives so that we are able to reconnect with God’s unending love, and by that love, be guided into a whole new world.

Now, I know, I know, in one way, it’s the same old world, ravaged by conflict and shadowed by fear. And yet, because Christ has been raised, it is also entirely new, infused with divine possibility and sparkling with the promise of a Creator determined to redeem it in love.

That’s good news! And yet it doesn’t end here, as the Lord has something more yet to say. For because you have been called by name, you are now also sent to proclaim what you have seen and heard to his other disciples and all the world. And this world is ready for such news!

Called by name, sent to proclaim. That’s the Easter message for you.

 Because our God, who has infinite power, also stoops to call each of us by name. And in calling your name, God has called you as people to whom God has given the power to tell the story. This story.

 On this Day of the Resurrection, we tell the story that the stone was already rolled back. That that tomb was empty. The story of how God used the cross, an instrument of humiliation and death, to give us life, to remind us just how much we are loved. The story that by his rising from death, Jesus has freed us from the culture of death and fear.

 That God loved us so much that God would do anything – even dying on a cross to prove that love for us.

And you, in telling the story, you reconnect yourselves to Jesus and to each other in a whole new world, one infused by the promise that nothing – not even death itself – can separate us from the love of God.
Quick Quiz: What is the Good News of Easter?

 The good news is that God has named and claimed each one of us as God’s own beloved child, this Easter Sunday and always. Blessed Easter morning. Amen