Mystic Congregational Church, UCC

Mystic, Connecticut

Sermon from April 16, 2006

“He Is Risen!”

Rev. Thomas Ratmeyer

Scriptures:

Isaiah 25:6-9

Mark 16:1-8

As a preacher, I often envy Chris Glas—first of all, because she does what she does very well and, also, because when she does the Time with Children, she usually has props.  It’s so much easier to hold the kids’ attention if you do a little show-and-tell.  I rarely ever get to have props.  Sometimes, she goes a step further and she gives out bribes.  So now, because it’s Easter, I’m going to pull a Chris Glas and I’m going to give bribes to the kids.  Bear with me for a minute while we pass out Easter eggs that have significance to our story today.

I’m asking the kids not to open these eggs.  Please don’t open them yet.  Don’t open them for the few minutes that I’m going to talk to you.  Just look at the rainbow that’s on these eggs.  There are the colors of the rainbow on the outside of these eggs.  You need to spend a little time looking at the colors before you can open the eggs.  I’ll tell you when it’s time.

The rainbow is the beginning of the story of Jesus.  You might say, “Wait a minute.  I thought there was a different story.  I thought the rainbow was about Noah.  What does Noah have to do with Jesus?”  The rainbow is the sign of a promise from God.  God not only made all of us and all the people of this world, but God promised to take care of all people, to be there for us, to guide us, and to love us always, even if we do something wrong.  To remind us of that promise, God put the rainbow in the sky.  God first made that promise to Noah—that’s where we know the story from.  But then, when God sent Jesus, he made good on the promise to Noah.

Jesus does at least three things for us.  I want to talk about those three things that Jesus does for us.

First:  Jesus is our teacher.  Jesus shows us how God wants us to live.  Sometimes, we might feel that God is very far away and that it’s hard to figure out what God wants from us, how God wants us to live.  That’s why God sent to Jesus so we could follow Jesus’ example and his teachings.  If we ever have a question about how to live, we can always look to Jesus and the teachings of Jesus.

The second thing Jesus does for us and the second reason that God sent Jesus to us is to offer us forgiveness when we make mistakes.  Have you ever made a mistake?  Jesus offers us forgiveness.  Jesus offers us forgiveness even for the big mistakes. 

The third thing Jesus does for us which is really, really important—Jesus wants us to be never alone.  Because Jesus wants us to never be alone, he went before us through all of life experiences so that whatever happens us, Jesus was there already.  Have you ever felt lonely?  Has there ever been a moment when you felt lonely?  I have.  But Jesus went before us.  Jesus felt lonely in the garden so even if we feel lonely, we don’t ever have to be alone.  Have you ever been sad?  I’ll bet you have been sad at one point or another.  I have been sad.  Jesus felt sad.  Jesus once felt sad when a friend died.  So, even when we feel sad, we are not alone.  Jesus is there with us.  Jesus went before us.  Have you ever gotten hurt?  Have you ever felt pain?  Jesus felt pain as well.  This whole week that was leading up to today talks about how Jesus felt pain.  We know that what’s really sad is that even death is part of our life.  Many of us have lost somebody that they love; that person has died.  Well, even at that moment when somebody dies, they are not alone because Jesus, too, died.  There’s nothing we can experience in this life where Jesus is not with us.

But God’s promise did not end there.  God didn’t just send Jesus so we would have a teacher and find forgiveness, have our mistakes be taken away, and so that we would never be alone.  When Jesus died, God showed that he is stronger than death.  He raised Jesus from the dead.  That is what today is all about—that God is stronger even in death and Jesus was raised.  That is why we say today, “Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!”  God gives life that is stronger than death not only to Jesus but to all of us.  That is the fulfillment of the promise of the rainbow that you see on your egg—that God gives life to us that is stronger than death.

Today, not only your eggs tell the story of the rainbow.  The flowers in this church do as well.  This church is full of life this morning because we celebrate life and I need the help of the kids to find each color that is on the egg represented somewhere in this ocean of flowers and colors. 

The first color on the rainbow on this side is orange.  Can you point to an orange flower somewhere in the sanctuary?  I see some hands pointing in the direction of the cross and there is an orange flower on the cross.  Let’s go to the other side.  There is red on the other side.  Where is there a red flower?  We will consider this one here pink for purposes of covering all the colors.  Try over there.  There’s a red hydrangea and that, I’m told, is a miracle of Easter in and of itself—they’re pretty rare.  How about white?  They’re right over here, you’re absolutely right.  Where’s green?  Green is all around, isn’t it?  Every flower has green in it.  Now, pink—let’s try again for pink.  They’re here.  The next color on this egg is yellow—not hard to find, is it?  The next-to-final color on this rainbow egg is purple.  Where’s purple?  It’s right over there, you’re right.

Are those all the colors?  There is another color on the egg.  It’s black.  Is there any black flower?  There is no black flower in this room.  If you think about it, is there any black in the rainbow?  There is no black in the rainbow.  That is because the black on this egg stands for the moment when Jesus died and everything turned dark.  The moment Jesus died in the afternoon, everything went dark.  But today, we celebrate that death is overcome and there is life everlasting.  That’s the reason why we don’t need black today.  We need all the colors of life but we don’t need black because the darkness of that moment is overcome.

You can now open your eggs.  What is in those eggs will help you remember the promise of the rainbow and take it with you and tell the story of God’s promise.  While the kids open their eggs, I invite the choir and the congregation to sing together.  The words of the hymn we’re going to sing are printed in the bulletin.

Christ is Risen!

Praise be to God!

Alleluia and Amen.