Sunday Service for 4 April 2021, Easter morning

Sunday Service for 4 April 2021, Easter Day
Prepared by Rev. Teri Peterson, Gourock St. John’s
Manse phone: 632143, Email: tpeterson (at) churchofscotland.org.uk

To hear an audio recording of this service, including music, call 01475 270037. Minutes should be included in your phone plan for landline numbers.

Today’s video service was recorded at sunrise from Tower Hill. There is no manuscript. However, the sermon from the Easter Eve service and the sermon for the 11am service are both printed below, for those who would like to read them, as neither service was recorded. They are both following the same text, Luke 24.1-12.

 
Easter Eve message: “Remember”
It’s such an interesting question — “why do you look for the living among the dead?” The short answer, of course, is that they weren’t looking for the living. They were looking for the dead. Going to the grave to pay their respects, as so many of us do. They had prepared everything, and gone out at the first possible opportunity — walking through the valley of the shadow of death as they navigated the pre-dawn shadows outside the city gates. They were doing the same thing that thousands of people have done this year — just a handful of them, still in shock from something that should not have happened, gathering to grieve in a way that they never imagined.

When the men at the open tomb said “he is not here, but has risen” I imagine their minds could not comprehend the words. What could that mean?

Then they said — remember?

Remember.

Look back, and draw those moments together into the present. The meaning of all those teachings, and healings, and meals, comes together in this moment. All the pieces from the past, the promises of God’s faithfulness, the reminders of God’s call, the bread and wine, the sermons in the boats, the calmed storms, the blind who see and the lame who walk and the outcast who are included…when we re-member, put it together, we see the truth that has been there all along: that God was in Christ, bringing us into the kingdom even now…and of course God cannot be defeated by the empire or by death or by anything else. There is nothing that can separate us from Love, and God’s love was certainly not going to be stopped by a tomb.

The women ran back with this news — they remembered, and that gave them strength to see and live anew. In remembering, they too were re-membered, put back together. All the broken pieces that shattered on Friday were re-made and the breath of life was flowing through them.

The other disciples were still in the shadowed valley. They hadn’t gone to do the grieving, and they were stuck…they thought this was silly women being delirious. It would take some time for them to remember, and to be re-membered. The women faithfully told the story, putting pieces together. They may not have understood it all, but they trusted that Jesus’ word was true.

Isn’t that how all of us are, really? We don’t understand it. We expect the shadows of death to hold our grief and confusion and hearing the words “he has been raised” contradicts everything we’ve ever experienced. But if we can remember…and trust…we may just find ourselves telling an unexpected story of life and love and grace and light that changes everything.

 
Easter morning 11am sermon: “Goo”
I have mentioned before about perhaps my favourite ever podcast episode, when I learned what happens to caterpillars once they build themselves a chrysalis. The caterpillar spins its cocoon and then, basically…dissolves into goo, and is entirely re-made into a butterfly. Scientists discovered that somehow, though, butterflies retain memories of their caterpillar life…and they also discovered that if you were to dissect a caterpillar, you would be able to see the structure of future butterfly wings tucked up under the skin. So a caterpillar already contains the seeds of what will be…and a butterfly remembers things from its past…even though in between it’s just a slimy sticky pot of goo.

I have been thinking a lot about that story this week, because it feels a little bit like what happened that first Easter morning. The women and the other disciples had experienced the worst possible trauma, watching their friend be tortured and killed, all their hopes and dreams dying along with him. Everything they thought they knew was sealed up in a tomb, and they retreated behind closed doors during the Sabbath. With the curtains drawn and the door locked, it was the perfect time to fall apart, to dissolve into tears and let the grief wash over them, because soon they would need to pull it together and attend to the details.

They must have still been feeling a bit fragile, a bit gooey, even, when the women left the house in the morning darkness. The men stayed in, leaving the women to do the dirty work of tending to the dead. Perhaps they weren’t ready to venture out yet, to show the depths of their grief, or perhaps they were still asleep after the trauma of the past few days, or perhaps they just assumed it was women’s work — though they could have at least come along to move the stone! In any case, it’s the women who moved silently through the shadows when the sun was still just below the horizon. And it’s the women who got the shock of their lives when they reached the tomb.

When the men in dazzling clothes spoke, their question was ridiculous. Why do you look for the living among the dead? Well….because they’re looking for the dead, that’s why. But then the instruction the men give points them to the future by way of the past: remember.

Though you’ve felt all dissolved and like nothing can ever be the same again, remember. Reach back through the goo, through the veil of tears, through the fog of grief, and remember. Call up his face and hear his voice echoing in your mind. Remember what he told you — along the road, around the table, in the boat, amidst the crowds. Remember what he did — touching the bodies of the blind and sick, speaking words of healing from afar, restoring community. Remember.

And they remembered his words.

In that moment, when they remembered, it was as if they were being re-made too — from the dissolved pool of goo that was left of their former life, something new and beautiful was born. They trusted that the frame of what would be in the future was already in them before, just like the wings of the butterfly are built in to the caterpillar.

So the women ran back to tell the other disciples…and they weren’t quite ready to hear it. They assumed that the women were wild with grief, not thinking straight, talking nonsense.

My first reaction always is something like — of course they thought the women were just being hysterical and ridiculous, because no one ever believes what women say. But also, to be fair, it’s a pretty outrageous thing they’re saying this time. The idea that someone would be raised from the dead was indeed nonsense. Even today, we know all too well the reality that death is irreversible. Our faith tells us that death does not have the last word, but that doesn’t make it hurt less in the moment…and the other disciples didn’t have that faith yet, it was brand new that morning.

Those disciples who hadn’t been at the tomb at dawn had to rely on the stories told by others. The testimony of those witnesses would be the pieces they needed to also put the bigger picture together, to remember and so be re-membered themselves. The women’s story of trust and renewal could be what would kickstart their own re-making out of the goo of grief, helping them remember what Jesus had said and done so they could see the wings just under the surface and grow into something beautiful and new.

That morning, they couldn’t do it. They couldn’t allow the story to be true, whether because of grief or because they thought they knew better. But ultimately, we need each others’ stories of faith. We need to hear about encounters with the Living God, because hearing those stories help us to remember, and to look forward. We may not be able to see every angle ourselves, but listening to others gives us a clearer glimpse of the picture. That also means we need to be ready, like the women, to share our stories! To tell others what we have seen, even if it’s more about trust than full understanding — that’s what will make it possible for others to move through the goo toward new life as well. It takes all of us, sharing and listening, to be the Body of Christ, to grow together and keep the good news moving through the world.

Whatever stage we’re at — caterpillar, goo, butterfly; women on the way to the tomb, or remembering and being re-membered, or other disciples uncertain how to make sense of these stories, or dazzling messengers pointing others forward through the old stories — hear this good news. God has planted within us what we are meant to be. It’s already in us. And remembering Jesus, God’s word made flesh, and how he embodied God’s kingdom, his teaching and healing and companionship, his death and his resurrection, is how we become who God made us to be — it’s how we are re-membered, put back together into something more beautiful than we could have imagined before.

May it be so. Amen.

Announcements

* All worship is online (or on the phone at 01475 270037, or in print) and we have also begun to meet in person, subject to the usual protocols for distancing, hand hygiene, mask wearing, and no singing yet. We can welcome 33 people for worship, so if you would like to come in person, please phone Cameron (630879) on a Friday morning between 10-12, or Anne Love (07904 617283) on a Saturday morning between 10-12 to book a place.

***Easter weekend will have two services: An Easter Vigil on Saturday evening at 8:30pm, and Easter Sunday morning at 11am. The same booking procedure applies to both services.  An Easter service will also be available on our recording ministry by phoning 01475 270037 anytime after 11am on Easter morning.

* The Kirk now has online giving! If you have not already set up a standing order in order to facilitate your spiritual discipline of giving, or if you would like to make an extra gift to support the ministry St. John’s does in our parish, you can give online by clicking here. If you would like to set up a standing order, please contact Peter Bennett, our treasurer, or Teri and she can give you his details. You can also send your envelopes to the church or the manse by post and we will ensure they are received. Remember: no one is coming to your door to collect your envelopes, so please stay safe!

* The theme for worship during the season of Easter is “Re-membering” — being put back together as a community, perhaps in new ways!

* Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Youtube, and to sign up for our email devotions! Midweek you can watch Wine and the Word on Youtube, pray with video devotions on Facebook, and consider a new angle on something with a devotional email. Feel free to share with your friends, too!

* Evening Prayer with Connect will be led by all three Connect clergy this evening. Join us on the Connect Facebook Page at 6:58pm.

***The coffee money that we normally send on to the school in Venda has been exhausted. If you would like to contribute to keep our donations to the school going, please contact Rab & Eileen for bank details for donations, phone 634159.