St. Andrew’s Pictou, March 27^th 2005 EASTER SUNDAY

 

Will Yours be the First Voice?

Acts 10:34-43

John 20:1-18

 

When I look at the state of our churches, I often find myself asking the question, “What has happened?”

 

What has happened in our town, our community, and our church that belief in God has almost been eradicated?

 

What has happened that last Sunday, Palm Sunday, a week after stormy weather, on a day of good weather, we had only about 90 souls gather for morning worship in a church seating 500, in a town of 4,000 a few days after we found out the Good News about the Ferry Service continuing?

 

Everybody was angry and scared when there was the threat of losing all or part or it, but is nobody thankful that it will continue?

 

We Presbyterian keep records. Last week I went into the vault downstairs to look up something for a CBC request and I happened to pick up an old visitor register. You know that book at the back door where every month or so someone writes their name? Well some respectable Presbyterian put one of the old visitor books in the vault. What stunned me was the list of names one Sunday in the 70’s that were recorded on Father’s Day; a large list of names and someone had added, “Father’s Day,” alongside the names.

 

The reason that it stunned me was that last year, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day were Sunday’s of low attendance! On Mother’s Day and on Father’s day, attendance in this church last year dropped from what it was on other Sundays!

 

What has happened that in thirty years, in this very church, in Pictou, that worship and thanksgiving to God, together as a family, has so dropped in importance? There has been a reversal. People honour their families now by going away from church instead of going to church together.

 

The book of Acts has an interesting take on church health because it is a history book of the very beginnings of the Christian Church. The passage we read today is like the foundational creed of what they believed back then and what gave them the power to build what we know as the Christian Church from nothing: “a series of active verbs and vivid images.

 

God sent a message by Jesus.

That message spread.

God anointed Jesus with power.

He went abroad doing good and healing.

(The people were) witnesses to all of this.

(The authorities) put him to death.

God raised him from the dead.

He appeared to (the people,) who are witnesses.

They ate and drank with him after he arose.

He commanded (them) to preach.

Everyone who believes in him is forgiven.”                     O’Driscoll p. 53.

 

Essentially, there was a message, those who witnessed the message then took action, and the church flourished.

 

All of us, you and I are still witnesses, the question for us is “What is the action we take from what we witness?” In other words, do we express our faith, do we ever tell those that we love what we believe? Do we even tell those we love that we love them?

 

About our faith: Do we express our God-given ability to make choices and express what it is we have to say?

 

Can we say for example to grown children, “If you want to honour me on Father’s or Mother’s Day, can we go to church together and give thanks to God for what we have in each other?”

 

Can we use our voices to invite someone… a neighbour, a friend, son, daughter, a niece, nephew, or an acquaintance, to come to church with us?

 

It is interesting to witness that the largest attended church services are funerals. Could we learn from observing that fact: the power of personal connections is what makes a church family strong and vibrant?

 

As human beings, we have a lot of sadness and grief to bear, but for us as Christians, Easter is God’s loudest “AMEN!”

 

God’s principle for Creation is resurrection: where we think that there is death, God says that there is LIFE! God can even resurrect a town, a person, or a church!

 

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, whatever or however that happened created an excitement that jet propelled people towards life!

 

Last week, “Judas” in the body of the Minister of Transportation was going to start killing off the ferry service. Many of us from all levels of society were outraged and our outrage resurrected the ferry service. Our witness to the proposed cuts, our passion and our action created… resurrection!

 

The exact same thing is true for individual people, for towns, for churches.

 

Pictou needs resurrection, St. Andrew’s needs resurrection and you and I need to experience God’s resurrection, and it is there for us; the experience is there for the taking.

 

“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.”

 

Resurrection involves risk. It must have been scary for a young woman to leave the safety of the city walls, “While it was still dark” and go to a cemetery and find an open grave and feel the terror that maybe grave robbers were still lurking close by. Considering that she was motivated by the pain of grief desperately seeking comfort, it is probable that her emotions were all over the place.

 

This story goes on that she runs back to the disciples and Peter and John (the disciple who Jesus loved) rushed back and viewed the empty tomb with the grave clothes draped where the body used to be. We read that one disciple, John “saw and believed” but Peter and Mary did not have that response. So we know that not everyone has the same response for the same experience. We each walk our own journey.

 

The men of action run off to tell the others about the empty tomb and missed the best part of the story.

 

Mary lingers at the tomb weeping. She takes a second look inside the tomb. (We can all overlook something at first glance.) Mary sees two angels, one sitting near where his head had been and one at the foot.

 

“They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’

She responded, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him.’”

 

Turning around she sees Jesus standing there, but like many of us, she does not recognize Jesus Christ even when he is standing right in front of her!

 

He asks Mary the same question that the angels asked, “Woman who are you weeping? Who are you looking for?”

 

She thinks that it is the gardener, but the universe shifts when Jesus speaks here name, “Mary.”

 

Mary is the witness to the resurrection; the cosmic shift happens: now we have the action!

 

Mary the witness runs back to the disciples with the words that change the whole world forever, “I have seen the Lord!”

 

Five simple words change the world! “I have seen the Lord!”

 

To the disciples broken and scarred by grief, to a world broken with war, disease, betrayal, and loneliness, to you and I with whatever issues we are dealing with, Mary Magdalene “becomes the first of all voices to announce the news of our Lord’s rising.”    O’Driscoll p. 52

 

This church and all churches would be full today if mine or yours was the first voice that people needed to hear for resurrection from the pain, grief, and suffering in their lives.

 

This world is full of people who are hurting. Will yours be the first voice that they hear that will give them relief, healing, and resurrection?

 

Social Services referred me to a young man in Toronto who had a history of drug abuse, lots of counseling and groups, and lots of relapses back to the drugs. I listened to his story for about two hours, and then I explained from what he told me “why” he took drugs. Lots of people were trying to get him to stop taking drugs, but mine was the first voice that explained “why” he was taking drugs. Don’t you think it would be easier to stop if you knew “Why” you were taking them in the first place?

 

It is up to you and I to witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ by our actions, our responses, our radical loving and caring, by the invitations and the reaching out that we do.

 

Please note that I didn’t say our “loving,” I said, by our “radical loving.”

 

There is absolutely no other way it can happen.                       

 

AMEN        Rev. Alan Stewart