I can’t wait for Easter! Every year, if you’re a Christian anyway, you can’t wait for Easter. You can’t wait to stand with family and faith friends and hear your pastor shout, “Christ is Risen!” And then join in with hopefully a thousand tongues as you respond, “Christ is Risen, Indeed!” As we move through these extraordinary times, I can’t think of a better year to celebrate Easter…to stand at the grave and lean into the hope that only our God can gives us…the hope that proclaims that the stone is rolled away, and the tomb is indeed empty! To unlock the doors of fear and despair and run into the world full of hope!
In my view, you can’t beat Easter, but a close second might be MLB’s spring training. I didn’t realize it, but we have a fierce Seattle Mariner fan base in our faith family! How do I know that? Well, because on Wednesday, at choir practice, I asked the choir to sing at our Good Friday worship service and our tenor section shouted “No can do! We can’t do that!” I said, “Why not?” And all three of them yelled, “It’s Opening Day for the Mariners!” And then proceeded to look at me as if I were the dumbest human being alive! How could I not know that?!!!
If you haven’t been following the Mariners, you may not know that they almost made the playoffs last year, and this year Mariner fans think they are going to win the world series! Why? Well, some of them might say it’s the development of Logan Gilbert, or the acquisition of Winker, Suarez, or Ray. Some might even lean on the further development of Jarred Kelenic (last year’s great Mariner hope). But 90 percent of them, without question, will just start shouting: “Julio!!!!” If you aren’t a Mariner fan, let me help you out. Julio is short for the new Mariner’s “Jesus” figure…Julio Rodriguez. And let me just say that he not only has the bat (his first homer of spring training had an exit velocity of 117 mph!), speed (he just hit an inside-the-park homer), and glove (this kid can play center field) of
a super star, but he has the personality. This guy is soooo fun to watch! Julio just exudes hope! In fact, I don’t think it’s humanly possible for you to sit and listen to a Julio interview and not come out of it with a smile. Julio just makes you start hoping and believing that this is the Mariners year!
In many ways, that’s what the Risen Christ and Easter do for me in my life. No matter how many years I have fallen short of the prize, the Risen Christ gives me hope. Because sometimes I need to know that it doesn’t all depend on me. Actually, most times I need to know that! Most times I need to know that there is a power in this world, outside of me and outside our own political systems, and outside our human-made wars, and outside our bodies bent over in fear, and outside of our millions of refugee tents, which does indeed break through and roll away the stones and obstacles of this world. I know it doesn’t make sense to those of us who have been brainwashed into believing that it is what it is, but I am a believer in this outside river of love that will indeed find a way in, around, and through the dams and obstacles we place in the way. God is on the way!
As Will Willimon, the chaplain of Duke University, once preached on Easter morning:
Because “Jesus is alive again” makes all the difference in how we live our lives, overcome
our fears, handle the past, and face the future. Easter makes all the difference in the world.
Easter gives us hope that the way things have always been will not always be. Easter is
about more than a fortunate Jewish rabbi being raised from the dead. It’s about the
whole world being raised from the dead when he was raised. So, let death thunder and
clang and rage away. We are Easter people, by golly. We are called to handle deadly
things with courage. We are people of hope. We know of God’s victory of joy over
sorrow; love over hate; good over evil; life over death; God’s victory – all for us. We are
called to peer into the tomb, and laughing, run as fast as we can to Galilee or wherever
it is that Jesus waits for us. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Thank you Will Willimon, but Christians can say all that with one phrase: “Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen, Indeed!” And Mariners can say it with one word: “Julio!”
Your pastor, leaning into the hope of the season to come, Brook
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