Monday's thoughts on Easter Sunday's sermon

Palm Sunday leads to the Passover meal, and that leads to Good Friday and that leads to Easter. There is a path we take in holy week and we have to take it. We have to move from the experience of hopelessness to a time of joy. Easter Sunday without Good Friday is reducing Christianity to sentimentality. Good Friday without Easter is reducing Christianity to a judgmental defeatism and the idea of a punishing God. What we are looking at for Easter Sunday is reconciliation. They used the forces of death. They put Jesus to death to silence the Gospel. They did away with him to make sure he could cause no more trouble for the Romans who wanted there to be conformity without protest. And the Jews wanted to move beyond him because they discovered he wasn't the Messiah they were hoping for. In the end it was over. They thought it was over. Easter awakened them to the fact that it wasn't over; it was just beginning. We look for reconciliation in life. We want wrongs to be made right. We would like to see good come out of evil; hope to emerge from defeated spirits. Easter is a time of reconciliation for the things that were wrong are balanced by the thing that was made right. I don't think anyone knows what happened and this sermon and service will not try to explain the physics of resurrection. What we can and must do is look for the meaning of what happened. We will note how the disciples because cowardly, at first, and then became courageous. We will see how the risen Christ is present to us and today. If you have thoughts on this write me at charlesschuster@fcfumc.net. If you are willing to share your thoughts with the readers of the blog click on the 'comments' box below. I look forward to hearing from you. Charles Schuster