Wednesday's thoughts

This week there are two sermons I'm writing. One of them for the 6am sunrise service and the other for the three remaining services on Sunday morning. The services in the sanctuary are at 8, 9:30, and 11:00.

There are two thoughts I have been working through this week. The first comes from the reading in Luke 24:1-12. "When Mary of Magdala, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James told the apostles (that they had seen the Risen Christ), the story appeared to them to be nonsense, and they would not believe them". One of the translations suggest that the Easter story is "an idle tale". I want to look at that. I want to consider the Easter story as an idle tale or as nonsense. What makes Easter credible? What makes this story something we can embrace. It seems to me important that if we approach Easter with the attitude that says, "it is what it is", we won't get much out of it. But if we approach it with the attitude that says, "it is more that what it appears to be" we will see things we would otherwise miss. In that sermon (the one at 6am) I'm going to look for seeing if we can find more than it appears to be.

The other services on Easter Sunday draw from the text in John 20:1-18. We find this exchange between Mary and Jesus (the Risen Christ). "Thinking it was the gardener, she said, 'If it is you, sir, who removed him, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.' Jesus said, 'Mary!" She turned to him and said, 'Rabbuni' (which is the Hebrew word for My Master). Jesus said, 'Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to God.'"

What is happening here is important. Jesus is telling Mary, and all of us, not to hold onto him. He is encouraging us to think about Easter as a time when we look beyond him and his life and death on the cross and begin to be about the work that was his. Jesus will only be resurrected from the dead if the people who follow him stop holding onto him, and get about doing the things he tried to accomplish.

Those two texts and those two sermons are the source of the effort this week. Is it an idle tale and a lot of nonsense? What does it mean to refrain from holding onto him?

If you have thoughts on this write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net.

I look forward to hearing from you.


Charles Schuster