I’ve Seen the Lord
Sermon
Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!
Cycle A Gospel Sermons For Lent And Easter
You and I come here for a variety of different reasons this Easter morning. For some, you come because of a deep abiding expectation that yearns to be reminded that our Lord died, but then out of death, God granted life. And in turn you know, therefore, that nothing is impossible with our Lord.
For some you come because it is the thing you do... this Easter morning thing. Perhaps it is the response to an echo of remembrance embedded deep within from your youth that says, if nothing more, you should be here on the high holy days... whether you do so to honor your mother and father, or honor a tradition of affirming your connectedness to something you can’t really give full ascent to but yet are not fully prepared to give up. Or perhaps you come because something within, much like the salmon drawn to their birthplace, nags at you, encourages you to try this worship thing again. Perhaps you come, because, at its most common basics, this Sunday is a Sunday when you can be reasonably certain that you will encounter what you are familiar with. A story told to you since your childhood and hymns that raise you up with the certainty that God loves you no matter where you are on your journey.
Through my many stages of life, my Easter journey has varied and my expectations of it have changed. In my early years I longed to understand the mystery of it all. To have my questions answered, “can this really be?” I know of one pastor who always preached Doubting Thomas on Easter Sunday, certain that most people in the church were those not fully convinced. My only objection to his preaching was that he never moved past the “it’s okay to doubt” portion. I always thought there were answers to my questions, to my life’s questions about who this Jesus person really is. In exploring them I found myself able to affirm the complexity and simplicity of God, both distant and close, both impersonal at times and yet personal at other times. I found myself acknowledging that perhaps the greatest part of the problem of my seeing God lay not in lack of clarity on God’s part, but in my inability to open myself fully to what God was offering. In other words, my doubt was rooted more in my lack of readiness to see and hear, than it was in God’s lack of showing the way.
In my mid years, I loved the examination of all the nuances of the story. I can now move easily through the hidden, provocative messages. The fact that Peter, again, couldn’t see Jesus, but the unidentified disciple “who Jesus loved” understood even if he could not see. The fact that it was the woman, the one who by all accounts of the time was the least important of all humans, who could see him. The men couldn’t see him but the woman could. The fact that the Lord, the teacher, the Rabbouni, was thought to be the gardener and the unmistakable linkage to God tending the Garden of Eden. In Christ’s death a new world has been created, one in which we would be unaccustomed to live. I have even grown accustomed to the incredible intimacy when Jesus told Mary to go and tell everyone and say to them “I am going up to my Father and your Father, to my God, and your God.”
Jesus’ father? My father! Jesus’ God? My God! What an incredible intimate revelation. Jesus and I are related. His Father is my Father. We are kin. We are not just brothers and sisters of faith, but we are, through this imagery, literally brothers and sisters of blood, born of the same parent.
Now in this stage of my life, I’ve come to settle in on the testimony of Mary, “I’ve seen the Lord.” A declaration, an affirmation, a certainty. On this Easter morning, it is my turn to confirm “I’ve seen the Lord”. It is my hope, that you too, have “seen the Lord.”
My brothers and sisters, I have seen the Lord in the work of a mother, passing on to the next world after a well fought battle with cancer that lasted twelve years, and in the end, she could fight no more. I saw the Lord in the way she gave herself over to God... “thy will be done” as she confessed she could do no more and the fate of her husband and her daughter of disability would now be in God’s hand. They would find a way to cope without her... even more, thrive, even if differently than was her own way of doing. I have seen the Lord.
I have seen the Lord in the work of a gardener of a different type. One who, living on the brink of bankruptcy, tended her own little plot of land, mindful of every piece of dirt, mindful of even the smallest of harvests, that would then be frozen or canned, or immediately served so that her family’s hungry mouths could be fed when the cupboards were otherwise barren... would find her way to the free community dinner, not to eat, but to donate three of her hand packed jars so that the community soup would be “heartier” even as her family did not partake of it. I have seen the Lord.
I have seen the Lord in the elders of the church who went to the parishioner who had been arrested, again, for driving under the influence, and told him they would never leave his side until he found a new way to be without his addiction. I watched those elders for four months never leave him alone. For four months they stayed until they were certain as they could be, that he had begun to honestly confront his demons and was walking now with others who could better share his journey. I have seen the Lord.
I have seen the Lord in the stumps of the arms of an amputee, learning to use prosthetics to help fold and stamp the newsletters of the church. When asked, why that task he said, “Because it is what I am able to do now, I want to be of help.” I have seen the Lord.
I have seen the Lord in the woman who decided to read through her Bible in a year based on a comment made in a sermon about how it can be done and multiple years later decided that it was such a valuable thing to do, she reads through her entire Bible every year. With a great exclamation she announces: “I learn something new every time.” I have seen the Lord.
My brothers and sisters. My guess is you have seen the Lord as well. You have seen the Lord in your family circle, you have seen the Lord on the television while watching a person marching for justice or doing a good deed. You have likely seen the Lord as you watch caregivers walk with your grandparent or parent through the stages of death. You may not understand the words, or perhaps even fully understand the importance of it all. But you have seen the Lord.
On this Easter, why not make a new commitment to look closely around you? Look for the Lord. For you know this story. The Lord might not be where you are looking. The Lord might look differently than you were expecting the Lord of hosts to look. But if you look closely, you will see the Lord. You will see what God has been trying to get you to see. You will see the answer to all your questions. You will see the answer to the complexity of life. You will see the simplicity that God is with you, now and forevermore.
For some you come because it is the thing you do... this Easter morning thing. Perhaps it is the response to an echo of remembrance embedded deep within from your youth that says, if nothing more, you should be here on the high holy days... whether you do so to honor your mother and father, or honor a tradition of affirming your connectedness to something you can’t really give full ascent to but yet are not fully prepared to give up. Or perhaps you come because something within, much like the salmon drawn to their birthplace, nags at you, encourages you to try this worship thing again. Perhaps you come, because, at its most common basics, this Sunday is a Sunday when you can be reasonably certain that you will encounter what you are familiar with. A story told to you since your childhood and hymns that raise you up with the certainty that God loves you no matter where you are on your journey.
Through my many stages of life, my Easter journey has varied and my expectations of it have changed. In my early years I longed to understand the mystery of it all. To have my questions answered, “can this really be?” I know of one pastor who always preached Doubting Thomas on Easter Sunday, certain that most people in the church were those not fully convinced. My only objection to his preaching was that he never moved past the “it’s okay to doubt” portion. I always thought there were answers to my questions, to my life’s questions about who this Jesus person really is. In exploring them I found myself able to affirm the complexity and simplicity of God, both distant and close, both impersonal at times and yet personal at other times. I found myself acknowledging that perhaps the greatest part of the problem of my seeing God lay not in lack of clarity on God’s part, but in my inability to open myself fully to what God was offering. In other words, my doubt was rooted more in my lack of readiness to see and hear, than it was in God’s lack of showing the way.
In my mid years, I loved the examination of all the nuances of the story. I can now move easily through the hidden, provocative messages. The fact that Peter, again, couldn’t see Jesus, but the unidentified disciple “who Jesus loved” understood even if he could not see. The fact that it was the woman, the one who by all accounts of the time was the least important of all humans, who could see him. The men couldn’t see him but the woman could. The fact that the Lord, the teacher, the Rabbouni, was thought to be the gardener and the unmistakable linkage to God tending the Garden of Eden. In Christ’s death a new world has been created, one in which we would be unaccustomed to live. I have even grown accustomed to the incredible intimacy when Jesus told Mary to go and tell everyone and say to them “I am going up to my Father and your Father, to my God, and your God.”
Jesus’ father? My father! Jesus’ God? My God! What an incredible intimate revelation. Jesus and I are related. His Father is my Father. We are kin. We are not just brothers and sisters of faith, but we are, through this imagery, literally brothers and sisters of blood, born of the same parent.
Now in this stage of my life, I’ve come to settle in on the testimony of Mary, “I’ve seen the Lord.” A declaration, an affirmation, a certainty. On this Easter morning, it is my turn to confirm “I’ve seen the Lord”. It is my hope, that you too, have “seen the Lord.”
My brothers and sisters, I have seen the Lord in the work of a mother, passing on to the next world after a well fought battle with cancer that lasted twelve years, and in the end, she could fight no more. I saw the Lord in the way she gave herself over to God... “thy will be done” as she confessed she could do no more and the fate of her husband and her daughter of disability would now be in God’s hand. They would find a way to cope without her... even more, thrive, even if differently than was her own way of doing. I have seen the Lord.
I have seen the Lord in the work of a gardener of a different type. One who, living on the brink of bankruptcy, tended her own little plot of land, mindful of every piece of dirt, mindful of even the smallest of harvests, that would then be frozen or canned, or immediately served so that her family’s hungry mouths could be fed when the cupboards were otherwise barren... would find her way to the free community dinner, not to eat, but to donate three of her hand packed jars so that the community soup would be “heartier” even as her family did not partake of it. I have seen the Lord.
I have seen the Lord in the elders of the church who went to the parishioner who had been arrested, again, for driving under the influence, and told him they would never leave his side until he found a new way to be without his addiction. I watched those elders for four months never leave him alone. For four months they stayed until they were certain as they could be, that he had begun to honestly confront his demons and was walking now with others who could better share his journey. I have seen the Lord.
I have seen the Lord in the stumps of the arms of an amputee, learning to use prosthetics to help fold and stamp the newsletters of the church. When asked, why that task he said, “Because it is what I am able to do now, I want to be of help.” I have seen the Lord.
I have seen the Lord in the woman who decided to read through her Bible in a year based on a comment made in a sermon about how it can be done and multiple years later decided that it was such a valuable thing to do, she reads through her entire Bible every year. With a great exclamation she announces: “I learn something new every time.” I have seen the Lord.
My brothers and sisters. My guess is you have seen the Lord as well. You have seen the Lord in your family circle, you have seen the Lord on the television while watching a person marching for justice or doing a good deed. You have likely seen the Lord as you watch caregivers walk with your grandparent or parent through the stages of death. You may not understand the words, or perhaps even fully understand the importance of it all. But you have seen the Lord.
On this Easter, why not make a new commitment to look closely around you? Look for the Lord. For you know this story. The Lord might not be where you are looking. The Lord might look differently than you were expecting the Lord of hosts to look. But if you look closely, you will see the Lord. You will see what God has been trying to get you to see. You will see the answer to all your questions. You will see the answer to the complexity of life. You will see the simplicity that God is with you, now and forevermore.
