I’d like to begin my Easter message this year by sharing a story with all of you. This is story by Heather Lynn Hanson, and although it sounds like a children’s story, it’s a story that will resonate with all of you, regardless of your age.
The story is about two children, a brother and sister named Roberto and Ramona, and they have a wonderful dog named Feliz.
Together, the three of them would roam around their neighborhood. Sometimes, Feliz would playfully chase a squirrel. Other times, Feliz would sit with the children on tree stump, his tongue hanging out and his tailing wagging as he rested.
And, Roberto and Ramona would talk to Feliz, staring into his big brown eyes. They would tell him their joys and their concerns, and it seemed like he understood them.
Sometimes, when they walked together to the supermarket in town, bigger kids would try to tease Roberto and Ramona, but Feliz would always growl at them, and the bigger kids would leave them alone.
But, one day, something terrible happened. Feliz died.
The children cried and cried. Then, they found a place to bury him in the garden.
A few days later, Roberto and Ramona were walking home from school, and they saw a dog coming toward them that reminded them of Feliz.
He, too, was chasing squirrels, just like Feliz did, and then he came to rest with the children on their tree stump, where he wagged his tail just like Feliz.
The children looked into the dog’s eyes, and they felt Feliz’s love and presence. It was real. Very real. And, then, the dog left them.
On their way home, the children had to pass by that supermarket where the bigger kids would tease them.
Though Feliz was no longer with them, Roberto and Ramona remembered how confident they felt with him at their side, and so they walked bravely past the other kids, feeling Feliz presence and power with them. And, the bigger kids left them alone.
When they got home, Roberto and Ramona asked their Mom if Feliz had come back to life, as an angel or a ghost.
Their Mom replied: “I don’t know about that, but what I do know is that Feliz’s love and spirit lives on. And, every time you remember him, he becomes alive again in you.” The End.
I love that story, because it speaks Truth.
Though Feliz had died physically – though his body had been buried in the ground – his Presence and his Power live!
That’s the Easter story.
After Jesus’s had been buried in the tomb, his loved ones experienced his Presence and his Power in a very real way.
They came to see to see that his Light hadn’t been extinguished, but that it lived on in them…and that it lives on in you and in me.
That’s what we’re celebrating today.
Now, Biblical scholars and historians absolutely have no idea of the exact date that Jesus died, but the early church decided to celebrate Easter during the time of the Spring Solstice.
If you remember back in December, I told you that the early church chose the date of Christmas to coincide with the Winter Solstice.
These are celebrations of the Sun and of the Light. Christmas celebrates the birth of the Light, and Easter celebrates the re-birth of the Light.
“Easter” gets its name from the pagan goddess named Eostre, who is the goddess of Spring.
This is the time of year when people of many cultures and spiritual traditions celebrate rebirth and renewal.
The Spring Solstice is a celebration of resurrection because what appeared dead in winter has come back to life.
Martin Luther, the theologian, monk, and Christian reformer said: “Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in Springtime.”
That’s what we’re celebrating today…that through the winters of our lives, through our times of darkness…that the life and the light (the power and the presence) still shines. It cannot be extinguished.
As it says in the beginning of John’s Gospel, which we read from today: “Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” That’s what Easter is all about.
Now, many Christians understand the Resurrection story as the physical resuscitation of Jesus’s body, while many other Christians understand the story more symbolically or metaphorically.
The earliest Gospel writers – people like Luke and Mark — did not write any stories of Jesus physically appearing after his death. And, Paul never once in his letters to the early Christians described the resurrection of Jesus as a physical body coming back to life.
The Gospel story we heard this morning is from John’s Gospel was one of the last to be written, generations after Jesus was born.
And, in even John’s account, notice that Mary Magdalene doesn’t recognize Jesus. The man she’s talking to outside the tomb doesn’t look like Jesus. She think it’s the gardener.
Could it be that Mary felt the presence of Jesus in that gardener, just like Roberta and Ramona felt Feliz’s presence after he had died?
In the United Church of Christ, we say that we are a church that is more about the questions than the answers. We know that faith is a mystery, and the spiritual life is being open to the mystery.
So, I don’t have a definitive answer for you about what happened on that first Easter morning, but I’ll tell you what I do know, and I know it for sure. I know that the resurrection is real. Very real.
And, the reason I know that it is real is because I experienced it firsthand. A man from Nazareth who died over 2,000 years ago is alive in me. I have felt his living presence in a very real and powerful way.
In the silence of prayer and meditation, I have felt his love, light and protection. I have felt his guidance and wisdom. He is alive in me, and he is alive in you.
That’s what our faith is all about. That’s why we’re here every Sunday, because all of us have been touched and transformed by His Light.
And, that’s what I think those first Christians were trying to convey in the Resurrection stories. They were trying to convey that after Jesus died, they still felt his presence and power alive with them and within them.
And, that is why we say, “Christ is Risen.” Notice, it’s present tense. Not, “Jesus was Risen” but “Christ is Risen.”
The Second Coming of the Christ happens in us and through us. Easter, then, becomes more than a commemoration of an event that happened more than 2,000 years ago. Easter takes place NOW and it takes place within YOU.
When we welcome the stranger, Christ is risen. When we serve the least of these in our midst, Christ is risen. When we forgive those who have wronged us, Christ is risen. When we work for peace and justice in our world, Christ is risen.
Jesus said, “You are the Light of the world.” The Christ Light reigns within YOU.
And, so, on this Easter morning, let the Light of the Christ rise up within you.
May we be the Light and shine the Light for all the world to see, so that we can transform the world and help to bring about the Kin-dom of Heaven here on Earth.
May it be so. Happy Easter.