March 31 (Easter), 2024 Sermon
Rev. Robert McDowell
Whenever I hear the gospel account of that first Easter, so many emotions surface to the top. These emotions are so powerful, you can almost touch, smell, and taste the events of that first Easter morning.
Easter. The biggest day in world history. Far bigger than even Christmas. Easter. The day death died. I want to take you back to that distant Sunday morning, the first day of the week, when the dew lay heavy, the sun was warming up, the birds were shaking sleep away with the thrill of dawn, and all of creation breathed in the smell of anticipation.
Two people rose early, their sandaled feet covered with dust. They went to the tomb, and met an angel, who broke open their whole world, saying, “He is not here: he is risen.” Feel the intensity of their emotion: smell it.
Matthew, the gospel writer, tells us what they did and what they felt. They ran, with fear and great joy. With fear and great joy. And we can see them running, with fear, with the hasty, gulping breath of fear, and with gurgling joy, with the outstretched hands and billowing cloak and squealing yelps of joy.
Fear and great joy: at the heart of the resurrection.
I’ve been thinking about how much the bible addresses the emotion of fear. Fear is interwoven throughout the pages of scripture. And no one seems to be immune from its hold upon us as we go through life’s peaks and valleys.
There’s the fear of judgment. Adam and Eve, banished from the garden. Cain, discovered to be a murderer. David, exposed as a scheming adulterer. Israel herself, thrown into exile as a result of her own sin.
The fear of holiness. Moses meeting God in the burning bush and on Mount Sinai in a dark cloud amid thunder, lightning, fire, and smoldering cloud. Shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night, and an angel needing to tell them, “Do not be afraid.”
Fear of taking a risk, like the third servant in the talent parable who buried his talent in the ground out of fear. Terrible fear.
Then, there’s fear of the unknown. A stone rolled away, a mysterious presence of an angel, the shaking of the earth, soldiers confused.
And yet, great joy. After forty days of rain and 150 days of flood, Noah sends out the dove and it returns with an olive branch. After the shame of the tower of Babel, God calls Abraham to be the father of a nation.
As the Ark of the Covenant is brought into Jerusalem, David dances before the Lord. As Ezra reads aloud the books of the Law to the returning exiles, they weep with joy. As Elizabeth greets Jesus’ mother-to-be she feels the babe within her leap for joy.
Zacchaeus, the despised tax collector, ends up picking up his robe and runs home with glee to prepare a kingdom banquet for Jesus. The father of the prodigal son is bursting with joy when he sees his son, the one who has just squandered his inheritance, off in the distance. Great, great joy!
Fear and great joy are at the heart of the resurrection story of Jesus, at the heart of the entire biblical narrative, and at the heart of what it means to be a people of faith.
Fear that the person who lives down the street and is sure that God doesn’t exist might be right. Fear that we’re just not good enough to be a Christian. Fear that Jesus calls us to peace when we know all too well how extremely difficult it is to love our enemies. Fear that Jesus will call us to a new way of living, a new kind of ministry, or carry his cross farther than we think is possible. So much fear.
As I was walking down the hospital hallway after visiting a church member who was a patient there, a stranger abruptly greeted me, “Are you a pastor?” He had noticed I was wearing a clergy badge.
As he struggled to keep the elevator door from closing and with a tone of desperation in his voice he said, “Pray for me pastor. I am going through a divorce, and I’m really scared. Say a pray for me, pastor.”
As he was losing his grip on the elevator door, I quickly said, “The peace of Christ be with you.” As I continued down the hallway, I kept thinking about the expression on this man’s face.
Fear. Horrifying fear! Yes, we all know fear.
And yet, also great joy. Joy, when you discover that love isn’t just a fleeting feeling but that it became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. Joy, when after years of living under the burden of guilt and self-hatred for something you’ve done, you finally hear the words, “You are forgiven” and you now know it to be true.
Joy, when in the midst of your anger and frustration at how the world isn’t the way it’s supposed to be, God calls your name and says, “This is what I want you to do,” and you realize that you are being invited to play a part in God’s story after all.
Joy, when a family stricken by death, can somehow gather with the pastor at the church and through the telling of shared stories, can begin to laugh again, and celebrate the life of one who has touched each of them in so many special ways.
Joy, when you’re going through a very dark time in your life and someone leaves a card or brings some food, or gives you a look which says, “I don’t know you very well, but we’re both part of the body of Christ, so I’m here for you.”
Joy, when a person says to you, “I don’t know if it’s something you said, or in something you showed me through your actions, but I’ve come to believe in Jesus because of you and my life has been transformed.” Joy. Fabulous joy!
Fear and great joy: at the heart of the story of Easter, and at the extremes of our hearts today. So much to fear, so many reasons to be afraid.
Fear for ourselves, that the hole in our hearts will turn our faith into dust and our hope into cynicism. Fear for those around us. Fear that we feel so powerless. So vulnerable. So helpless. Fear that we won’t know what to say to a friend whose loved one recently passed away. Fear that our hidden fears will be exposed.
And also, great joy. Great joy! Joy of a lamb finding its rickety feet in a meadow. The joy of a baby discovering how to swallow. The joy of the song, when we have the words and God has the tune. The joy of friendship, of those we have known and have loved through thick and thin.
The joy of forgiveness, when bitterness and failure do not get the last word. The joy of creation, when we hear birds chirping on a spring morning. The joy of giving someone a hug when they were expecting a simple handshake. The joy of suddenly realizing that God really did answer a prayer that you have been lifting to God for a long time.
Great joy. Great, great joy.
So here we are friends. We are at the moment when the angel’s words break open in our lives, and we start to run with fear and great joy.
Fear and joy, the two poles, the two extremes of our human response to the awesome intimacy of God. Fear and joy run with us throughout our lives together, as constant reminders of the cost and promise of following Jesus. Fear and joy, at the center of our deepest longings and at the very heart of our desires.
But there is a secret.
It’s a secret that we only glimpse at in this life. It’s a secret that was first revealed to those two early risers on the first day of the week, while all creation breathed in the aroma of anticipation. It is the secret of Easter. It is a secret that I pray we will realize and embrace in the midst of our heavy hearts today. It’s a secret that is the climax of our gospel. A secret of the mystery of fear and joy.
And the secret is this… Joy wins.
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Note: Portions of this sermon have been incorporated from the April 8, 2007 sermon, “Fear and Joy” delivered by Rev. Sam Wells, Dean of Duke Chapel, Duke Divinity School, Durham, NC.
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