Easter Sunday was the last sermon on rituals. We reflected on the ritual of greeting one another wiht "Chirst is risen." "he is risen, indeed." I instructed the congregation to say, "He is rsien, indeed," any time they heard "Christ is risen" in the sermon. Not sure how well it worked (it might ahve gotten old), but they kept doing it thorughout the sermon. the poin, of course, is to have that phrase etched in their minds by the end of the sermon.
For the seventeen years prior to coming to St. Andrew, I preached two services every Sunday. In the last 2.5 years here, I have only preached on service. It took me awhile to adjust to only preaching one serivce. Yesterday, was back to two services, and I realized I have fully adjusted to one service, since preaching a sermon twice seemed odd.
I did have two different endings to the two sermons. The first one is the full text below. At the second service, I stopped the sermon before teh conclusion. I had not decided that when I began the seond sermon, but the mood felt right to finish the sermon before the written conclusion. I think it did work better, and it saved a minute or two in a very full service!
“He is risen, indeed” Easter, 2019; St. Andrew; Richard B. Culp; I Corinthians 15: 19-26; Luke 24; Lenten series on rituals, 2019
If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.[a] 21 For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; 22 for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end,[b] when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
Introduction: Rituals during Lent, holy week, now we finish on Easter morning with the Ritual of greeting one another that goes back to the earliest days of the Christian church.
Christ is Risen! He is Risen, indeed!
We will not only reflect on the ritual, but use it to see who is still awake during the sermon. Anytime you hear me say, Christ is risen - you reply with He is risen, indeed!
Christ is risen - he is risen indeed.
Ok, let’s get started with the sermon.
Move 1: Christ is Risen - He is risen indeed! is a ritual that gives us permission to believe in the resurrection without fully understanding the resurrection.
a. this ritual goes back to the early church.
1. In fact, the early church traces the origin of this ritual to a story that takes place just a few days after they had discovered the empty tomb.
2. Read a little farther in the gospel of Luke and you will read the story of a some of the followers of Christ on the road to Emmaus. They are accompanied by a stranger who asks them “What’s been happening in Jerusalem?”
They tell him the exciting, hard to believe news, “the Lord has risen, indeed!”
3. With those words, we discover they had settled on their story - the tomb was empty, so Christ must be raised from the dead. God had transformed death into life.
4. So they come up with a short way of describing what has happened. think the brevity of a Tweet — “the Lord has risen, indeed.”
4. they clearly did not understand fully what they said. After all the stranger walking with them to whom they were sharing the news was indeed the resurrected Christ.
5. but they were forming the basis of their Christian belief. even if they cannot fully explain the empty tomb, they can step out in faith and lay claim to the resurrection — “Christ is risen. he is risen, indeed.
b. We arrive here for Easter worship for a myriad of reasons.
1. You know why you are here.
2. But I think all of us at some level looking for something more, hoping to discover anew God’s transforming power.
3. That’s what Paul is getting at in his letter to the Corinthians.
4. Christ being raised from the dead brings a new power to bear.
5. the power to turn death into life.
4. The power to give hope in the face of what seems hopeless.
5. the power to change our lives.
6. You do not have to name it exactly, nor explain it completely.
7. But our Easter morning ritual gives voice to our belief that becomes the hope in which we live and die, accompanied by the resurrected one.
Move 2: Christ is Risen - he is risen, indeed is a ritual that reminds us of the possibilities the resurrection opens for us.
a. Paul reminds us that the empty tomb has greater meaning than just the reality of the empty tomb.
1. As amazing as the empty tomb and the resurrection of Christ are, the implications are even greater.
2. God has changed the trajectory of the world.
3. Final death is no longer the end game.
4. Transformation, new life, and eternal life are bigger and scarier than the empty tomb sitting there with the stone rolled back.
b. Barbara Brown Taylor suggests why the followers of Christ were scared by the empty tomb.
1. They knew what to do with a dead body.
3. They knew how to prepare the body for burial with spices and ointment.
4. They knew how to grieve the death of someone.
5. The dead body might bring tears to their eyes as sadness overwhelmed them, but they knew what to do with a dead body.
6. but what strikes fear in them is the discovery that there is no body.
7. Christ has been raised from the dead. their reality and their world had been changed (Barbara Brown Taylor's Easter sermon preached in April 16,2006, at Cannon Chapel , Emory University, as shared in Journal for Preachers, Easter, 2008, p. 13)
c. To believe in the God of resurrection means surrendering yourself to the future possibilities.
1. Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife of King Henry II of England says, “In a world where carpenters get resurrected, anything can happen.” “Living the Word, Christian Century, 4/18/12. The line is from Act I, Scene 4, of James Goldman's play "The Lion in Winter,"
2. it could mean embracing death with confidence in the promise of eternal life.
3. It means reading about the bombs exploding in Sri Lankan churches on Easter morning and not just grieving the death of brothers and sisters in Christ, but still hoping in the future God puts before us.
3. Or it could be mean moving through your grief in the assurance that the joy of Christ waits for you.
2. it could mean making the changes necessary in your life to allow you to grow into the person God is calling you to be.
3. It could mean seizing the new opportunity that is so scary you cannot even imagine going for it.
4. It could move breaking away from the brokenness you have known and accepted to remake yourself in the way you hear God calling you to do.
5. Laying claim to the resurrection means turning yourself over to the God of endless possibilities.
Christ is risen. he is risen, indeed.
Move 3: Christ is risen - He is risen indeed, is a ritual that began, and perhaps is best understood, one-on-one or in in a small group.
a. News of the empty tomb was first shared by the women who told the disciples - a few witnesses telling a couple of people.
1. note the disciples did not believe at first, but then they see the empty tomb.
2. what do they do? They go tell a few other disciples.
3. Perhaps words spoken quietly so no one else around heard.
4. Perhaps said with a hug or a kiss, joyfully confirming the words spoken.
3. But shared one-on-one or in a small group like those first followers on the road to Emmaus.
4. As the ritual developed through the early church, it became a greeting shared between believers, not just on Easter morning greeting, but any time.
5. a quick way of identifying who you were to another person, with whom you shared this incredible hope.
b. As we reflect on this ritual, it reminds us that the first Easter gathering was not a public gathering.
1. Now, of course, Easter is a big event.
2. community Easter egg hunts.
3. . Big crowds at church.
4. We announce Christ is Risen….he is risen, indeed as a group greeting.
b. But that first Easter Jesus did not go public.
1. there were were no crowds to witness the resurrection.
2. The story could have played out differently. Think about it - the resurrected Christ could have made a public splash by walking in Pontius Pilate's office and saying: “I am here to see Governor Pilate, please.” “I’m sorry, sir, is the governor expecting you?” “No, I’m pretty sure he’s not expecting me.”
3. or Jesus could have have taken his resurrected self down to the Temple and paraded around, pointing to the chief priests and asking, “what do you think about your arguments against me now.”
4. or he could have gone to the barracks of the Romans soldiers and asked if those who had gambled for his clothes and won could give them back.
(this thought on Jesus appearing publicly was shared by Tom Are, in his sermon “Resurrection Choices,” preached a Village Presbyterian, Prairie Village, KS, on April 15, 2015)
(this thought on Jesus appearing publicly was shared by Tom Are, in his sermon “Resurrection Choices,” preached a Village Presbyterian, Prairie Village, KS, on April 15, 2015)
c. Jesus does not go public with a big splash.
1. Instead he turns to his followers and invites them to believer; he turns to us, and invites us to believe; he turns to you, and you, and you, and invites you to believe.
1. “here I am,” he says. “Back from the dead. Believe it. let me transform your life. Join me in my death and my resurrection.
************In the second service, the sermon ended here with me saying, "Christ is risen" and the congregation responding "he is risen, indeed."
2. Every time we share our Ester morning ritual, we acknowledge the resurrection claim’s on each of us in a very particular way.
Conclusion: A final thought. In Springfield, OH, a town about 25 minutes from where I lived and served a church before coming to St. Andrew, they had one of the most beautiful cemeteries I have ever seen.
Not majestic like Arlington National Cemetery, but a huge cemetery with giant trees and beautiful flowers. I did several graveside services there through the years, and it always felt like a scene from a movie.
As you can imagine, it was a popular place for people to come walk. At one of the graveside services, the daughter-in-law of the deceased told me about living near the cemetery. She told me how she would walk her young kids through the cemetery and when they were learning to read, would stop and help them red the names and information on the gravestones. it was one of her kids’ favorite activities.
She told me that one day they were walking along reading gravestones, and they came upon a gravestone where the someone named Lord was buried.
Her daughter read the name. Lord.
She immediately looked up at her mother and said, “So that’w where Jesus is buried.”
But we know the truth. We announce it to the world today. We live in hope with it everyday.
Christ is risen. He is risen, indeed. Amen.
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