Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; Colossians 3:1-4; Matthew 28:1-10
The Rev. Candice B. Frazer
He is Risen! The Lord is Risen Indeed!
Easter is a joyous and triumphant occasion of celebration and good cheer. And rightly so—it is the day when we declare Jesus’ defeat over death and sin. The early Church Fathers declared it the day God played a joke on the devil. Whatever ole Satan thought he was doing when stirring up the crowd and manipulating Pontius Pilate’s lust for power, he was actually playing into God’s hands. The sacrifice is significant, but the joke is on the devil—he doesn’t win. Jesus’s resurrection reveals Satan’s woeful incompetence in playing the game of love and grace.
That is what this day is—at its very least—a spiritual game of warfare between God and Satan and, yet again, God takes the victory. No matter how bleak things may seem in this world—from politics to pandemics—God will always take the victory. We have to trust in that. It is not about sides—God is on all of our sides. That is what this crucifixion is all about. Jesus doesn’t just die for me or for you—he dies for all of us. He dies for Christians, and he dies for Jews. He dies for Israel, and he dies for Rome. Jesus never takes a side, instead he works to draw all people to himself—even unto the end. Jesus dies for Republican and for Democrats, for liberals and conservatives. He doesn’t make a choice between us—he chooses all of us because he chooses love. And that love is made known to us in his resurrection.
Three years ago, none of you were here for Easter Sunday. You watched it on a screen in your home as we isolated from one another. Many of you drove through the back parking lot where the staff and clergy gathered in bunny ears to distribute little baggies filled with consecrated bread and wine that you might participate in the Eucharist. We had just finished the lentiest Lent ever and we were unsure but hopeful that the pandemic would soon come to an end. Few of us could imagine the continued state of dis-ease and disruption that our lives would become for the next year, much less the aftershocks of Covid spikes and vaccinations vs anti-vaxers or that some would still be testing positive even now. It has been a challenging three years—pandemic, politics, the price of eggs. We have been in a state of anxiety for too long. It has begun to shift our hope and furthered our distrust for one another.
That state of anxiety is exacerbated only when we place our hope in the world—in politicians, in material wealth, in power. People, things, even power will never bring us peace. They are skewed perspectives of a bigger picture. To embrace the joy of truth, we must turn to the spiritual—lean into God and learn to rely on him. Leaning into the spiritual means that we ease up on the world, releasing our drive for success and our desire for possession and prestige. Instead, we refocus on purpose—God’s purpose for us. We begin to trust ourselves again because when we truly trust ourselves, we can begin to allow others to be who they really are without feeling threatened by them. We exercise gratitude for all that we have, recognizing that God has given us enough—enough for ourselves and enough to share with others. That is how we grow in our hope again—remembering we have purpose, trusting in ourselves, and being grateful for enough.
As I read over my Easter sermon from three years ago, I was also reminded of how hopeful I felt back then. Even though some of those hopes were misguided, especially the one that we would be back to normal by June, it made me realize how fragile my hope had become as the days and years of pandemic waned. It fractured not only my faith in God but my faith in all the things I thought I knew. When my father died, I sank into the depths of that despair. When protests and riots swept over our country again and again—be they racial or political—I felt the desperation of a country gripped by fear. As tornadoes whipped through the South—killing many and destroying homes and property, including my mother’s—I questioned why as I saw the anguish on so many faces. We haven’t been safe for some time now. We’ve sacrificed a lot. But the sun still rises. The birds come out of their nests and sing joyfully for the newness of the earth after every spring rain. The flowers have bloomed even after suffering such a hard freeze. Life is renewed. And that is when I remembered, faith is not about trusting in all the things I think I know. Faith is about trusting in the new thing God is doing for us every day. That is the great joke that God plays on the devil.
Satan wants us to hold on to what we had. That is what he was doing on Good Friday—stirring up a crowd to resist the new thing God was doing. But God did it anyway. He did it by taking the weapons of Satan—sin and death—and turning them into grace and love. The early Church Fathers are right—God played the best joke ever on the devil himself.
We do not have to live in the places of anxiety and fear—focused on crime or political tension or even disease and death. We get to choose hope and faith and love—because we can set our minds on what God will do, on what the future holds. The Rev. Canon Dr. Mark Oakley, Dean of St. John’s College in Cambridge says, “We can be serious about the past, but our Christian faith is a loyalty to the future.” We don’t forget the past, we honor it—that is what we are doing today—but we hold it in tension with tomorrow because, as an Easter people, we know the joy of resurrection; of the new thing God is doing in the world. God gives us the gift of being. The gift we give back is our becoming.
It is time to start taking ourselves a little less serious and start becoming a little more joyful.
Medieval preachers took the whole “joke on the devil” to a joyful conclusion and would spend Easter Sunday telling dirty jokes from the pulpit. They called it risus paschalis—the laughter of Easter. I won’t tell any dirty jokes; Steve Frazer told me I couldn’t tell you the one about the resurrection and Cialis. But I’ve got a couple others that I hope you’ll humor me with and at least smile. I like making jokes about Jesus…I usually nail them.
Jesus walks into a bar, and orders twelve glasses of water. WINKS AT HIS DISCIPLES.
Jesus is hanging on the cross.
There’s a big loud crowd gathered when he’s heard weakly calling for Peter. Peter rushes toward the cross but is brutally beaten back by the Roman soldiers guarding it. He runs around to the far side and tries again. Again he’s beaten back. Finally after several more attempts a beaten and bloody Peter makes it to the cross.
“Yes lord what do you have to tell me”
Jesus replies “I can see your house from up here”
Or,
Jesus heard that…
there was going to be a stoning at the edge of town, so he headed that way.
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
The crowd goes silent.
Suddenly, a rock comes flying from the back of the crowd and BOOM, knocks out the offender.
Jesus waves his arm to part the crowd, revealing the thrower:
“Mom! I’m trying to make a point here!”
Or, how about,
Do you know why Jesus had to die on a cross instead of being stoned to death? Because making the sign of the cross is much less awkward than making the sign of the rocks.
What? Too soon?!?! It’s only been two thousand years…
Or,
My brother-in-law told his son that everyone goes to heaven until the resurrection of the saints
He said, “Why just the saints? There’s like 31 other football teams.”
Ok, Just one more…
A man, his wife, and his cranky mother-in-law went on vacation to the Holy Land. While they were there, the mother-in-law passed away.
The undertaker told them, “You can have her shipped home for $5,000, or you can bury her here in the Holy Land for $150”.
The man thought about it for a while and told the undertaker he would just have her shipped home.
The undertaker asked, “Why…. why would you spend $5,000 to ship your mother-in-law home when it would be wonderful to be buried here and spend only $150?”
The man said, “A man died here about 2000 years ago. He was buried here and three days later, he rose from the dead.” “I just can’t take that chance.”
My prayer for all of you is to go forth and share in the laughter of Jesus. Tell a joke to a coworker or a friend or post it on your Facebook feed every day this week. Bring a little laughter and joy to this Easter season, no matter what the world brings to you. Laughter releases tension and there is already too much tension in the world these days. Instead, remember this is God’s world and when he created it until all of eternity, it will be good because it is of God. So, maybe, we can stop putting so much emphasis on what is wrong with it and start focusing on all the things God has done so well.
Jesus is the LIFE of the party!