Colossians 3: 1-4
Dr. Charles J. Tomlin
Easter Sunday, April 24, 2011
Flat Rock –Zion Baptist Partnership
A woman named Mary has a four-year old daughter, named Elena. As Easter approached she struggled to get through to four-year old Elena the meaning of Easter. It went something like this:
"Mommy, will the Easter bunny bring me purple jelly beans?"
I am sure he will bring you jelly beans, Elena. But, remember, Easter isn't about the bunny. It's about Jesus.
"But will they be purple?"
Yes, honey, I am sure there will be some purple ones in there. Honey, the important thing about Easter isn't the bunny. Easter is about how much Jesus loves you and me and the whole world.
"Mommy, HOW MANY purple jelly beans will the Easter Bunny bring me?"
Elena, I think he will probably bring plenty of purple jellybeans. Do you know how much Jesus loves you?
"Mommy..."
Yes Elena?
"Will he bring me tootsie rolls too?"
For a four-year old, Easter bunnies and purple jelly beans and tootsie rolls are way more interesting than JESUS. They are what makes Easter fun. And fun is, for a four old, enough!
Showing up in worship on Easter is just what we do. Even for many adults just to come to church to hear some nice “candy-coated clichés” at Easter is good enough. But others of us will need more. We want to know more about Easter than “bunnies and jelly beans.”
Perhaps the reason we want to know more is because we have finally come to realize that life is not always “fun”, sweet, joyful or exciting. Sooner or later, and probably sooner rather than later, we will all encounter the dark night of heart wrenching grief, devastating disappointment, smothering guilt, or wearisome failure. Meeting dark side of life head on, we will come to understand we need Easter to be MORE than just bunnies and jelly beans.
When will the moment of realization come to Elena?
· Will it be when she's bullied at school and feels like there's no one to turn to?
· Will it be when she's betrayed by a so-called "best friend" or has her heart broken by the person around whom she's built her whole life?
· Or perhaps one day she'll look in the mirror and admit to herself that she has been the bully or the betrayer or the heartbreaker and knowing she can never undo the damage she's done will make it hard to keep looking at that face staring back at her.
· Maybe she'll be on a mission trip and meet people who own none of the things that make her happy, yet they possess a joy she has never known, and she will feel the darkness of an empty soul.
· Maybe she will be waiting at the airport to greet a relative's flag-covered coffin as it arrives back in the States, and a frightening anger will blanket her soul in a dangerous kind of darkness.
· Maybe it will be the day she's told by the doctor it's not just a cold after all.
· Maybe she will be spoon-feeding the frail beloved mommy who once fed her and whose strong body once gave her piggyback rides, and a sense of powerlessness will overtake her.
· Or will it be the day when her life's work ends with a memo and a deadline for cleaning out her office?
· Or will it be in the middle of a night of family crisis when she's looking into the desperate eyes of her own child and realizes she doesn't really know him and worse yet--he doesn't want her to?
· Maybe it will be when she encounters some insidious expression of human cruelty will astonish and paralyze her, so that she will need more than bunnies and jellybeans to gain any hope at all.
Mary Chapin Carpenter's song, “This Is Love” has lyrics which describe life when: It seems so black outside that you can't remember Light ever shone on you or the ones you love in this or another lifetime.”
And that's when we really need to know what Easter is all about.
Mary Chapin Carpenter’s song, “This is Love” describes life when: “It seems so black outside that you can’t remember light ever shone on you or the ones you love”.
Maybe that’s how Mary Magdalene felt that first Easter morning. John’s gospel (20: 11) describes how Easter began for her: “But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb….” When you read something like this, you’ve moved far beyond “bunnies and jelly beans.” It was so dark outside; fear and grief hung like a dark cloud over her life, because her “light” had been extinguished on a Roman cross. It was not only dark early that morning, but it was dark in her soul. Where there had once been a glimmer of hope, there was only despair. But it was also right there; while it was still dark, while the light was nowhere to be see, that even when looking into the tomb she was surprised by the “light” of Easter.
Today we live 2000 on the other side of that first Easter. How can we connect with a story that has been told over and over again? How do we move in to see something more than “bunnies and jelly beans?”
Paul, writing to the Colossians, has something for us to unwrap. It’s not a piece of candy, but there is a wonderful nugget of truth for our souls. It’s the big “if” of Easter. You really can’t “connect” with the truth about Easter unless the truth of Easter has connected with you. Listen again to how Paul begins his words to the Colossians: “So if you have been raised with Christ,…. ! Can you decipher his big “if”. Easter means more to us “if”, or “when” we have “already” been raised with Christ. The great, hopeful light of Easter is not just that you will go to heaven when you die. The great truth of Easter does not have to await the coming day of Resurrection. Resurrection happens now! Easter is about life, but it is a “life” that “shines in the darkness”, right now! Having life in Christ now, experiencing resurrection now, is where we all can connect! The resurrection is about having Christ’s power for life in us now.
Paul even tells the Colossians, and us, how we can focus on that “power of life” now, when he gives us this imperative for living: “SEEK THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE ABOVE, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (3.1)… “SET YOUR EYES ON THINGS THAT ARE ABOVE, not on things that are on earth”(3.2).
WHAT IS THIS “HIGHER” VISION OF LIFE, PAUL IS TALKING ABOUT?
Think about this: Did you know that scientists have studied the mineral and chemical composition of the human body? That's right. The U.S. Bureau of Chemistry and Soils calculated the chemical and mineral composition of the human body, which breaks down as follows: 65% Oxygen, 18% Carbon 10% Hydrogen, 3% Nitrogen, 1.5% Calcium, 1% Phosphorous, and less than 1 % of Potassium, Sulfur, Sodium, Chlorine, Magnesium, Iron, and Iodine. Oh, and the trace quantities of fluorine, silicon, manganese, zinc, copper, aluminum, and arsenic are also found in the human body.
If we took all those parts and sold them on the common market, it would be worth less than $1. Now our skin is our most valuable physical asset; it's worth about $3.50, I'm told. So, added all up, you're worth less than $5! But take a moment now to place your hand on your wrist or on your lower neck on either side of your windpipe; go ahead. Let's all be quiet and still together for a moment. What do you feel? You FEEL YOUR PULSE. You FEEL the mystery of BIOLOGICAL LIFE beating through your $5 worth of chemicals and minerals.
Do you understand how that works? Do you understand how $5 worth of chemicals and minerals adds up to YOU? Or what about the person sitting next to you? If you only look at things as they seem, as they only relate to the physical world around us, nothing adds up to very much. But if you “look above”, and to the “spiritual” side of life, and if you put your focus on things, higher, nobler, and bigger than yourself, you’ll can find that life can be much, much more. When you look “above”, even worthless elements, can become “priceless”!
EASTER IS ABOUT THE POWER AND THE VALUE OF LIFE! Did you know that? Listen to what Paul told the Corinthians when talking about the meaning of resurrection: “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our message has been in vain, and your faith has been in vain….If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins…. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (1 Cor. 15.12-19). Paul was really too conservative with his words. If there is no hope for life beyond this life, there is no real hope for any meaning or purpose in life--whatsoever. Easter is not just a message for people at church---it is for a message of life for all people.
For all people, life in this broken world ultimately ends going nowhere and meaning nothing. The greatest Philosophers, like Albert Camus and Jean Paul Sarte, have stated that we “human beings live in the constant dilemma of being people who look for meaning in a world where life is absurd; “meaningless.” This is not just how life can feel, this is how the greatest human minds have described it. Life is meaningless. This is what the “mind” says, but surprisingly, our “hearts” won’t let us believe this, without a fight. On the Today show last Wednesday, two women were reunited in friendship after they went their separate ways. Suddenly, a lost card in the mail was uncovered, which was written many years ago and now it has brought them back together. One of the ladies affirmed her belief: “Everything happens for a reason.” “I don’t think this is an accident”. “It was meant to be.” That’s what we hear people saying all the time. We all crave meaning, purpose, connection and hope. Even in this meaningless world, where everything seems to come to an end in death, if this is “all there is”, then even the most beautiful things in life are nothing, and we are, as Paul said, “people to be pitied.” Unless we can come to believe that life ends with life, and that life has overcome death, life remains “pitiful.”
HOW DO WE SEE BEYOND PITIFUL? Whether we are have realized we are not “children” anymore, or whether we have faced the ‘darkness’ so black” or whether we have wondered “what’s it all about” or what’s my life worth,” Paul gives us a key to unlock hope and meaning in his very next words to the Corinthians: “BUT IN FACT, CHRIST HAS BEEN RAISED FROM THE DEAD, AND IS THE FIRST FRUITS OF THOSE WHO HAVE DIED….” (1 Cor. 15: 20). Here in today’s text in Colossians, Paul speaks more about Easter, but speaks less about Easter then, because he wants us to know the meaning of Easter now! Paul can’t write about Easter to the Colossians, without talking about their “own” resurrection. We too can connect with that same power of which is beyond “Bunnies and Jelly Beans,” when we connect with Christ’s power in our own lives, here and now. When we find ourselves “seeking the things that are above” and when we “set our minds on things that are above” we find our true selves, as God would have us be. Resurrection can’t be fully known in Christ, until it is also known in us. Listen to how the apostle puts it in verse 3-4: “For you have died, and YOUR LIFE IS HIDDEN WITH CHRIST IN GOD. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.“
What Paul says here is true: The glory of our lives can’t be “revealed “ without Christ. Until you “have died” and been raised in him, having your life “hidden with Christ in God”, you can’t know who you are nor what life is. No matter how rich you are, how smart you are, how talented you are, or how lucky you are, nor how old you are, your life can’t fully be “revealed in this world”. The meaning of our lives remains “hidden” with Christ, until it is one day finally and fully “revealed.”
I realize this might seem confusing or “strange” language which Paul uses, to say that the meaning and purpose of our all our lives is “hidden with Christ in God”, but let me explain. You need to know that your life is more mysterious than you might realize. Let me ask you again: “Who are you?” You might realize you are worth more than $5 dollars worth of earthly chemicals, but what are you beyond this?
In the Broadway musical “A Chorus Line” sixteen young dancer audition for eight places to be cast in a show. They sing and dance their hearts out, desperate for work and for approval. At one point, the dancers stand in a line with their resumes and portfolio photographs covering their faces, as a tenor sings these words: “Who am I anyway? Am I a resume? That is a picture of a person I don’t know.” (I Hope I Get It," from A Chorus Line, lyrics by Edward Kleban, 1975).
Most all of us know that when people put their “best face on”; whether on a resume, or for a photograph, that this is not really who they are? But who are we? Is your life reduced to a list of the things you accomplished, the positions you’ve obtained, the work you’ve done or can do? Is your education, your training, your wisdom or your responsibilities all you are? Are you only the report card your teacher gave you? Are you the results of your latest medical examination? Is your life merely about your height, you weight, your pulse, your blood pressure, your cholesterol numbers, your EKG, or Your PSA, your white cell count: Does this adequately describe the person that you are? Are you reduced to your SAT, GRE, Miller Analogy or IQ score? Blessed are those who have no idea, what I’m talking about at all.
Who are you? Are you a certain salary, your income, your stock portfolio, your real estate? Are you your job title, your place in the company hierarchy? Are you what you did before your retire or are you the pictures of you that your family have on the wall to decorate their home? Are you who society tells you? Are you working the status system to try to locate yourself as close to the top as you can come?
When my friend Gary’s daughter, Bethany, lost all her memory to a virus that attack her brain, she had start learning all over where she was, who she was and what she was supposed to do with her life. She depended on her family to tell her, but the truth was, that she could remember nothing much at all. She even had to be told what the ocean was or what was her favorite food, or who her friends were supposed to be. She tells in her testimony, that if it wasn’t for her family being close to her, she would have spent the rest of her life, not knowing who she really was. Even today, she has very little memory, she has lived most of her life relearning “who” she is.
What tells you who you are---your memory? What happens when your memory goes? What happens when you are still alive in a body, like many people, who get lost in life, even when they have no physical memory loss at all, but they still don’t know “who” they are? What in this life will define your life with meaning and with hope? This is what PAUL WANTS THE COLOSSIANS TO DISCOVER. He wants them to know: You are only somebody---your life will only matter--- you can only find have hope in both life and death, when “YOUR LIFE IS HIDDEN WITH CHRIST IN GOD.”
MYSTERY IS THE ONLY REAL
This “mysterious” word requires thought. Nothing that has meaning is instant nor automatic.
So much of what defines who we are and what life is, is never fully revealed before our eyes. We only seen hints of what matters most, in the sign of the bread and the cup, in the water of baptism, in the moments of the Holy Spirit speaking to us, which like the wind, is uncontrollable by us, but goes where and when it will. So much of life is still mysterious like the clouds and the wind and we can’t simply stop and look in a mirror and understand or know everything about ourselves. For example, I’ve had my back with me all my life, but if I turn around you can see it better than I can. Everything I am, or you are is not yet plain to any of us. John writes: “Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. (1Jo 3:2 NRS). Paul says the same thing here, but also in another place where he writes: “6 I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. (Phi 1:6 NRS).
We do not yet see everything. We can’t even know ourselves fully. We are a work in progress. God is not finished with us yet. What God has in store for us, we are not capable of seeing fully, even with our own eyes. We have hints, but even with the best of human knowledge, we can’t calculate all that God has in store. Maybe the best “hint” we get of what is now “hidden” is spoken at the Presbyterian Baptism service. As you know, Presbyterians baptized infants, and the child knows nothing about what all this means and they are either screaming or sleeping through the whole thing. But listen to these words they say to the child, to the parents and to everyone who is listening. They do have something good to say. Here are the words:
“For you Christ came into the world;
for you he lived and showed God’s love;
for you he suffered the darkness of Calvary
and cried at the last, "It is accomplished";
for you he triumphed over death and rose in newness of life;
for you he ascended to reign at God’s right hand.
All this he did for you, though you do not know it yet.
And so the word of Scripture is fulfilled:
"We love because God first loved us."
("Order for the Sacrament of Holy Baptism for a Child," Book of Common Order of the Church of Scotland, (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1994), 89-90. The Scots borrowed this declaration from the liturgy of the French Reformed Church.)
In this world we can’t understand it all, but what we can know for sure, is not found in the facts we think we already know for sure, but hope, peace, life and light can only be found in the faith we believe. In the words of faith: “He did all this for us, and you really can’t know it all, at least not yet, but you must keep they final truth hidden as mystery and meaning in the depth of your soul as your live is still ”hidden with Christ in God.”
Whether we are baptized as infants, as some do it, or we are baptized as adults, which we try to do, but still most of us get baptized as children too, the truth is: none of us “know” fully what this means, but we spend our whole lives coming to understand it. And this coming to terms with….being raised with Christ… seeking the things above….setting our mind things above, beyond the things of earth…., this how we connect with the same power that resurrected Jesus and will one day, raise up our dead bodies to new hope and new life. Only then, raised in him, will we “fully know, as we are now fully known” by Christ.
In the film "Tender Mercies," Robert Duvall plays Mac Sledge, a down on his luck country singer who manages to climb out of a bottle long enough to find a new life for himself as husband to a young widow and step-father to her young son. All this happens, the film leads us to believe, through "tender mercies," the "tender mercies" of God. Because that is the case, one Sunday morning Mac and his stepson are baptized in the Baptist church of the small East Texas town where they live. On the way home, their hair still wet, they talk about what has happened to them. The boy seems pleased enough that he has been baptized but perhaps a little confused that the high drama of his baptism has had so little apparent effect on him.
"I don’t feel any different," he says, "at least not yet.... How about you, Mac, you feel any different?"
"No," Mac says, "I don’t feel any different. Not yet."
"Not yet," he says and those words "not yet" tense with promise and expectation. (As told by Patrick Wilson @ goodpreacher.com, which gave shape to this sermon).
Not yet, perhaps, but we shall, for there is a power at work within us, the power of resurrection. Resurrection didn’t just happen back there, back then, two thousand years ago in a garden. Resurrection can burst into our lives right now, and we can discover who and whose we are.
So, my final word to you is this: Don’t just hide your Easter eggs, but hide your life with Christ! In other words: God never meant for there to be only one resurrection but many resurrections, resurrections enough to bring all of God’s people alive with the kind of life Christ has and the kind of “hope” only Christ gives. Only when "Your life is hidden with Christ in God” can you find meaning for your life. But you can’t know all of that know; but “if you have been raised with Christ” one day you will.” “When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory." That just could be the greatest Easter promise of all. Amen.
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