Easter in Worry and Hope

What is the witness of the church today? It is an ever-present question for us that love and lead God’s people. It is also a question that, along with the Holy Spirit, breathes new life into the church generation after generation. God’s word may stay the same, but the way that word gets lived and preached often changes with the time. The times do not dictate the message so much as the message is directed to the times - and these are challenging times. 

I do not need to rehash for you what is happening in the church and broader society. You live it. You read the headlines and see the news alerts as they are sent to your phone. You know what you, your church, your community, and your family are facing. You know the difficulty and unease. 

On the eve of Holy Week, we are reminded that the good news is not all good news. As author and preacher Frederick Buechner begins his book Telling the Truth, he writes, “The gospel is bad news before it is good news.”  Drawing on that quote, I wrote in one my favorite Easter sermons: “We live through a week of bad news during Holy Week to get to Easter Sunday and good news.  Even in the triumph of Palm Sunday and Jesus’ grand entry into Jerusalem, we become all too aware that Jesus is entering Jerusalem to die.  And more than that, the crowds that shout “hosanna” so joyously on Palm Sunday will be the same crowds that shout “crucify him” at the trial on Good Friday.  On Thursday of Holy Week, we learn of a sinister treachery - that one of the disciples that dines with Jesus at the last supper will betray him: Judas.  And still, another, Peter, one of his first disciples, will deny even knowing him.  And finally dying on the cross, his disciples are scattered, hopeless, in the wake Christ’s death.

The bad news extends to us, as well.   For it is in the death of this innocent man, that our own brokenness is made ever the clearer by comparison.  In his goodness and sacrifice, our evil and avarice come to light, our sin in his sinlessness.  In his death, the bad news strikes us that we are his murders.  As Buechner continues, the bad news is “that man is a sinner, to use the old word, that he is evil in the imagination of his heart.” That is the bad news we are confronted with in the gospel before we get to the good news.  That is Good Friday before Easter Sunday.”

This may be particularly instructive for us this year. It is difficult to hold the good and the bad together. It is challenging to see the worry of the world and still hold on to hope. It is tough to see so much going wrong and then try to do the right things. It is easier to only believe the worst instead of relying on the firm and certain knowledge of God’s goodness, Christ’s resurrection hope, and the ever-presence of the Holy Spirit.

It is difficult but not impossible, because it is the holy reality of Holy Week and every week. The brokenness of this world is real, but so is the grace and goodness we find in Christ, Christ’s people, and Christ’s church - active and present in the world. To say that another way: Easter hope is never separate from the reality of the world. What makes it real and hope-filled is that it exists in a world where there is also the reality of Good Friday. 

As the hymn instructs, we “Live Into Hope.” We live into hope by making the freedom, joy, community, healing, and reconciliation a reality. We work towards it in a world that desperately needs it this year. 

How will you bring good news to your community?

Blessings,

Rev. Tim Blodgett

General Presbyter