Debra K. Brazzel - Easter Sunrise Service 6:30 (April 11, 1993)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | When Jesus encountered Mary at the empty tomb, | 0:17 |
he asked her, woman, why are you weeping? | 0:21 | |
Whom are you looking for? | 0:25 | |
Each one of you has come | 0:29 | |
to the garden this morning looking for something. | 0:30 | |
I mean it's 6:30 in the morning, for heaven's sake. | 0:34 | |
Something special had to get you out of bed this early. | 0:38 | |
Unlike Mary, however, you aren't weeping | 0:42 | |
because you know how the story ends. | 0:46 | |
There's nothing new in the story. | 0:49 | |
You've heard it all before. | 0:52 | |
Yet here you are again. | 0:54 | |
Easter morning, looking for something. | 0:58 | |
I think Jesus's question to each of us would be | 1:03 | |
whom or what are you looking for? | 1:07 | |
Some of us are here looking for signs of renewal. | 1:12 | |
Easter sunrise service is part of our annual | 1:16 | |
rites of spring. | 1:19 | |
We enjoy the beauty of the gardens. | 1:21 | |
The freshness in the air. | 1:24 | |
The signs of the renewal of life. | 1:26 | |
Some of us are here looking for the Easter bunny. | 1:29 | |
We're here to pay tribute to a god | 1:33 | |
who dispenses favors for worship. | 1:35 | |
To fulfill our annual obligation | 1:39 | |
so that we may be blessed with prosperity and health | 1:41 | |
in the coming year. | 1:45 | |
Some of us are here because we were taught | 1:48 | |
to pay our respects to Jesus, | 1:50 | |
at least once a year. | 1:52 | |
It's nothing personal, really. | 1:54 | |
More a part of our heritage. | 1:55 | |
Like visiting the grave of a loved one we hardly knew. | 1:58 | |
They tell us He was a good man. | 2:02 | |
And some of us are here looking for signs of hope | 2:05 | |
in a world gone crazy. | 2:08 | |
Whom are you looking for? | 2:12 | |
When Jesus asked this of Mary, | 2:15 | |
she gave Him a strange reply. | 2:18 | |
Sir, if you've taken Him away, | 2:20 | |
tell me where you've laid Him, | 2:22 | |
and I will take Him away. | 2:24 | |
Mary, with a single-minded focus was looking for the body | 2:27 | |
of Jesus to pay her last respects, | 2:32 | |
and to make sure He was properly buried. | 2:36 | |
She didn't recognize Him when He spoke to her, | 2:39 | |
because she was looking into the tomb, | 2:42 | |
looking for a dead Jesus. | 2:45 | |
What we see is so often limited by what we expect to see. | 2:49 | |
How many opportunities have we missed to see | 2:54 | |
the risen Christ because we expected something less? | 2:58 | |
We talk about Jesus, | 3:02 | |
remember His life and deeds, | 3:04 | |
even try to emulate Him, | 3:06 | |
but do we really expect to encounter Him? | 3:08 | |
John had been fighting a cocaine addiction for 10 years. | 3:14 | |
He'd lost his job, his family, his home, his friends. | 3:19 | |
He looked like a shadow of himself, | 3:24 | |
and he couldn't stand to look in the mirror anymore, | 3:28 | |
for the shame that was there. | 3:31 | |
The next high was all he looked forward to. | 3:35 | |
One night when he had nothing to lose, | 3:40 | |
he got down on his knees and prayed, | 3:44 | |
Lord help me. | 3:47 | |
And he can't exactly explain what happened, | 3:50 | |
but he knew that from that moment his life was changed. | 3:53 | |
The horrible grasp that cocaine had on his life was broken. | 3:58 | |
He'd gotten a job recently, started attending NA meetings, | 4:05 | |
and for the first time in years, | 4:10 | |
he felt that he had something worth living for. | 4:12 | |
Mary had come to the tomb to pay her last respects to Jesus, | 4:18 | |
to remember what had been, | 4:22 | |
and grieve for what might have been. | 4:24 | |
She focused on the past | 4:26 | |
with no thought or hope for the future. | 4:28 | |
But our God is a living God and a God who is never content | 4:32 | |
to live in the past. | 4:36 | |
Jesus confronted Mary with her expectations. | 4:39 | |
She was expecting to pay tribute to a dead teacher. | 4:43 | |
Mary came to grieve for her lost hopes and dreams. | 4:47 | |
But God had other plans for Jesus and for Mary. | 4:51 | |
All of us have come to the garden this morning | 4:57 | |
looking for something. | 5:00 | |
But I need to warn you. | 5:02 | |
Your expectations may not be met. | 5:04 | |
You may be looking for a God of nature, | 5:07 | |
awe-inspiring, but impersonal. | 5:10 | |
Or you may be looking for a teacher | 5:14 | |
from among whose teachings you can pick and choose | 5:16 | |
as you desire. | 5:19 | |
Or maybe you're seeking a tit for tat gumball type God | 5:21 | |
who dispenses favors. | 5:25 | |
Put your money in and the favors pour out. | 5:27 | |
Or you could even be expecting a dead God | 5:31 | |
who once did great things but who no longer | 5:34 | |
has any power over life. | 5:37 | |
Whom are you looking for? | 5:42 | |
When Jesus called Mary by name, | 5:45 | |
she heard the unmistakable power and authority | 5:49 | |
of God and knew that she was facing the resurrected Lord. | 5:53 | |
Whenever any of us hears Jesus call our name, | 5:59 | |
whether it happens in the dark of the night, | 6:05 | |
or a hospital room, or a garden or a graveyard, | 6:07 | |
it is unmistakable. | 6:11 | |
We know in that moment that we are dealing | 6:14 | |
with nothing less than the living God. | 6:16 | |
A God who is intimately loving, mysterious, | 6:20 | |
and very much alive. | 6:25 | |
After Mary's encounter with the resurrected Christ, | 6:29 | |
she was changed from a woman weeping in despair | 6:33 | |
to a woman proclaiming with joy, | 6:36 | |
I have seen the Lord! | 6:39 | |
She and all who experienced the risen Lord | 6:42 | |
were transformed from a small group of frightened | 6:45 | |
men and women hiding in their homes, | 6:49 | |
to the most courageous band of witnesses | 6:52 | |
the world has ever known. | 6:54 | |
Whom are you looking for? | 6:58 | |
An encounter with the risen Lord confronts each one of us | 7:01 | |
with a passionately loving God | 7:06 | |
who pursued you and me through death into life. | 7:09 | |
A God who calls us forth from the dead and dried out places | 7:15 | |
in our lives. | 7:20 | |
From resentment and anger to forgiveness and peace. | 7:21 | |
From despair to hope. | 7:26 | |
From fear to courage. | 7:28 | |
From failure to new possibilities. | 7:31 | |
We can never be touched by the living God | 7:36 | |
without having our entire world disrupted. | 7:39 | |
In Christ we encounter both the gift and the demand | 7:44 | |
of God's love. | 7:49 | |
He confronts us with a decision | 7:52 | |
about whether we will recognize | 7:54 | |
Him as Lord over our lives | 7:55 | |
or whether we'll turn away. | 7:59 | |
He confronts us with a decision about whether we're willing | 8:02 | |
to die to self in order that we might be raised with Him. | 8:05 | |
It's one thing to believe | 8:11 | |
and confess that Christ was raised. | 8:13 | |
Quite another to accept that | 8:16 | |
when we acknowledge Christ as Lord, | 8:19 | |
we turn our lives over to Him in loving obedience | 8:22 | |
in order that we might share in His death | 8:26 | |
and in His resurrection. | 8:30 | |
The resurrection of the Lord was not a one-time event | 8:34 | |
distant and irrelevant from this time and place in history. | 8:37 | |
The resurrection is once and for all, | 8:42 | |
an ongoing event that incorporates all believers | 8:46 | |
into the body of Christ. | 8:50 | |
Thomas Merton once said, a true encounter with Christ | 8:54 | |
liberates something in us. | 8:58 | |
A power that we didn't know we had. | 9:01 | |
A hope, a capacity for life, a resilience, | 9:04 | |
an ability to bounce back when we thought | 9:09 | |
we were completely defeated. | 9:11 | |
A capacity to grow and change. | 9:14 | |
A power of creative transformation. | 9:17 | |
Are we willing to allow God to bring forth new life in us? | 9:22 | |
To infuse love into our relationships with family, | 9:29 | |
patience with coworkers, forgiveness of the friend | 9:34 | |
we've harbored a grudge toward, | 9:37 | |
kindness toward our lonely neighbor, | 9:41 | |
compassion toward those who suffer. | 9:44 | |
Bob found out about two years ago | 9:50 | |
that he had tested positive for HIV. | 9:54 | |
Slowly his support systems began to slip away. | 9:58 | |
It became increasingly difficult to work. | 10:02 | |
He was cut off from his family. | 10:05 | |
Several of his friends had already died. | 10:08 | |
What he feared most was dying alone. | 10:11 | |
Janet met Bob through a program called Caring Friends. | 10:16 | |
She meets with him once a week or so, | 10:21 | |
and they talk often on the telephone. | 10:23 | |
She said she's gotten so much more | 10:26 | |
out of the relationship than what she's put into it. | 10:28 | |
And when asked why she got involved with him, | 10:32 | |
she said, well I'm a Christian, | 10:34 | |
and I think that's what Jesus | 10:38 | |
would have wanted me to do. | 10:40 | |
She said, our friendship has been a blessing to me. | 10:44 | |
And Bob said he's no longer afraid to die. | 10:50 | |
Each of us came to the garden | 10:59 | |
this morning seeking something. | 11:02 | |
Only you know whom or what you were looking for. | 11:07 | |
But you may be surprised to discover | 11:12 | |
that the risen Christ is here looking for you. | 11:15 | |
Will you allow Him to be raised and to live in you? | 11:20 | |
Whom are you looking for? | 11:27 | |
Rejoice, I have seen the risen Lord. | 11:29 |