Sermon for Easter Day, April 5, 2026 at Church of the Redeemer, Addison: Jeremiah 31:1-6, Matthew 28:1-10
We heard God say through
the prophet Jeremiah, “The people who survived the sword found grace in the
wilderness.” And what was that
grace? God saying, even from far away,
“I have loved you with an everlasting love.”
Sometimes I think that
to practice resurrection in this life, which is to say, to be fully alive, one
has to learn which voices to listen to, and which to leave behind.
Jeremiah was speaking to
people in exile, people who had been torn from their homes, and led away to a
foreign land. The city in which most of
them found themselves was Babylon. Babylon
was by all accounts a beautiful city, but to get there from Jerusalem, you had
to cross a lot of desert, a lot of wilderness.
And for the Jews, Babylon itself may have been on the other side of the
wilderness geographically, but it didn’t feel like that. Their reality in Babylon remained wilderness.
They had been there long
enough that it was tempting to listen to the voices of Babylon, the voices of the
conquerors, the voices of those who felt they were in control of their world,
even if that meant controlling others by ripping them out of their world.
But along comes this
prophet, Jeremiah, and Jeremiah reminds them there is still a different
voice. For a generation that voice had
been silent, or, at least, had seemed to be.
But now it was back. But most of
the Jews in exile must have been very skeptical of someone speaking in God’s
voice after tall those years.
But there it was, loud
and clear, and they had to decide which voice to listen to: the voice of empire
or the voice of God, or, as God put it through the mouth of Jeremiah, the voice
of the sword or the voice of grace.
Now I know you didn’t
come to Easter morning Service to hear anything gloomy. Yet Good Friday is still very much in the air
as we gather to celebrate Easter Day.
Easter Day is what we want to celebrate, but Good Friday will still have
its say.
Good Friday will still
have its say because the resurrection is a promise, a promise not yet
fulfilled. Fulfilled for Jesus, yes, but not yet fulfilled for us.
I don’t know what you
are experiencing these days, but when I look at the news as I eat my Special K
every morning, I hear the voice of Good Friday. I hear the voice of the
wilderness. And it is easy for me to
give those voices my undivided attention, as I am reminded yet again, how far
from home we are. It seems like every
morning I have to go through the deliberate choice of whose voice not just to
listen to, but to shape my reality.
In the story of the
resurrection we just heard, first the angel, and then Jesus himself, gives the
same direction: Go back to Galilee and
you will find me there.
Galilee was home for the
disciples. They had been petrified of
going to Jerusalem, but Jesus had been determined. And, well, the worst they thought might
happen there had happened, and you wouldn’t be surprised to hear any of them
saying at this moment, “Why didn’t we just stay in Galilee?”
I want to propose
Galilee as a metaphor for home, for the place we can find grace even in a time
of the sword. It’s not a place to run
away to and hide. Christians are not
called to hide from the harsh realities of this world. We are called, often, to confront them.
But we need a place to
go to hear the voice of grace rather than the voice of the wilderness, the
voice of the sword.
The Bible, from
beginning to end, has a fundamental warning:
beware the voice of empire. Beware
the voice of Pharoah. Beware the voice of Caesar. Beware the seductive voice of those who think
they can control the world by dividing up its people into the deserving and the
undeserving, the righteous and the sinners.
The triumph and the hope
of Easter is that those voices, as strong as they may seem, cannot
prevail. Oh, for a time, yes, but not in
the fullness of time. Pharoah and Caesar
were voices that seemed to rule the world for a long time, but in the fullness
of time, their version of control could not last.
The hope of a different
way of life—one in which God shows no partiality and people believe that is
among the truest things that need to be—that way of life, will prevail. And even while the forces of empire seem to
have the upper hand, it is our job to be subversive, to undermine the empire
from below. That is what God was asking the people to do when he said,
Again you shall take your tambourines, and go forth in
the dance of merrymakers.
The best way not to give
in to the voices of Good Friday, the voices of the wilderness, the voices of
the sword and of empire, is to keep singing Alleluia, to keep dancing in the
joy of grace, believing with all our heart that the God who shows no partiality
will prevail. May it be sooner rather
than later.
For me, Easter is what
stands between me and despair, and the Easter people I am privileged to be a
part of keeps hope alive in me, despite all the Good Fridays the world has to
offer.
When we shout,
“Alleluia! Christ is risen!” it is a shout of defiant grace in the face of
those who would make us believe that the only way to live successfully is to
divide the world up into winners and losers.
We must not give in to those voices, we will not give in to those
voices, because we know the one who warned that if we live by the sword we will
die by the sword, and the one who offers us a home, a Galilee, where all are
welcome and no one is despised for who they happen to be or on what side of
some meaningless border they live on.
Let Easter grace be what
keeps hope alive in the wilderness, what keeps us dancing the dance of
life—life abundant promised to all.
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