As we begin our reflection on the true meaning of Easter, I’d like to share a delightful Easter story entitled “A Lesson in Lavender” which comes from the book Chicken Soup for the Christian Teenage Soul.  This story is dedicated to all of you women who were forced to wear a cratchy new Easter outfit every year - you remember the kind, the bright colors, the white gloves, the patent leather shoes, and the Easter hat with the rubber neck band.

    According to Joseph Walker, the author of this story, when he was growing up Easter was all about the new Easter outfit.  He writes:

The best thing about Easter was the impromptu fashion show that took place as members arrived wearing their Easter finery   For those few minutes, the girls and women in our congregation were supermodels, and the church aisle was their runway.

On one particular Easter, Joseph remembers the outfit which Ginger Mac Donald, one of the oldest and most respected women in the church, wore.  Joseph recalls:

Ginger’s entire outfit was lavender, including lavender shoes and gloves, a sweeping lavender dress and a lavender purse the size of a small continent.  But it was her lavender hat, complete with a lavender veil, that got my attention.  It couldn’t be helped - Ginger and her hat were sitting right in front of me.  It was shaped like a satellite dish, with the bottom brim extending down the back of her pew almost to my knees.  I couldn’t even cross my legs without bumping the hat and the prospect frightened me.  If I bumped it, it might tumble off her head and who knows how many people would be crushed if that thing started rolling?  I couldn’t see and I couldn’t move, but I could eat the candy I had stuffed into my pockets earlier.  So I unwrapped the first treat and popped it into my mouth, and without thinking I put the empty wrapper in Ginger’s hat.  I wasn’t trying to be malicious.  It’s just that this big lavender dish was right there in front of me and it seemed like the thing to do.  I continued eating candy and stashing the wrappers in the lavender trash receptacle until it was time for the choir to sing.
 
Well much to Joseph’s horror, Ginger was called forward by the choir to sing with them.  Before he realized what was happening and could retrieve all of the candy wrappers from her hat, Ginger was walking down the aisle.  As she walked she smiled and nodded like royalty.  But as she passed by, giggles could be heard all over the church as the congregation caught sight of the pile of garbage in the back of her hat.  As she came into the choir loft a well-meaning member of the choir scooped the candy wrappers out of her hat and whispered a word of explanation in her ear.

Joseph writes:

I prayed fervently for the choir’s song to last forever, but God chose to ignore my pleas.  When the song ended and choir members began returning to their seats, I braced myself for the reaction I knew was coming.  Instead Ginger looked at me, smiled and winked, then she picked up her big lavender purse and put the wrappers in it.  And she never mentioned the incident again.  I learned an important lesson about forgiveness that day - a lesson in lavender.

    What a delightful Easter story.

It is a story which reminds us that Easter is about far more than that new spring outfit.  Or the cute Easter bunnies.  Or Easter egg hunts.  Or Jelly Beans.  Or the orgy of chocolate.  Or the celebration of the arrival of spring with the new life budding around us in the natural world.

    Easter is about one great question.  One perplexing paradox.
One enormous mystery.  Dead or alive?  Is Jesus a great, but dead teacher from the past?  Or is Jesus a Risen Lord who is very much alive and present with us today?  How you answer this Easter question will change your life forever.

    This is the question which the disciples had to wrestle with that first Easter.  Was Jesus dead or alive?  Now there was no question in any one’s mind that Jesus had died.  Several of Jesus’ followers saw how Jesus was tortured, beaten and brutally flogged.  A few of the women stood on Calvary’s hill and watch the Roman soldiers pound the nails into his hands and feet.  They stood by and watched as his life slipped away one agonizing moment after another.  There was no doubt that their beloved teacher had died.

    But then on Easter morning some of those same women returned from the tomb.  They told the disciples that they had seen a vision of angels who told them that Jesus was alive.  The disciple couldn’t believe it.  They wouldn’t believe it.

Look at verse 11 again in Luke chapter 24.

Look at the very first response to the Easter message:

But these words seemed to them an idle tale
and they did not believe the women.

    The disciples could not believe that Jesus was alive, because they knew with absolute certainty that he was dead. After all the Resurrection was unbelievable.  The Resurrection was irrational.  The Resurrection was un-natural.  That is why Jesus had to keep appearing to his disciples again and again over the next forty days.  It was nearly impossible for them to believe that he was alive again.
   
But despite their fears and doubts, and the scriptures make it clear that there were many fears and doubts, the disciples came to believe with all their hearts that Jesus was alive.  And this belief changed their lives forever.  No longer did they stay in hiding in fear for their lives.  Now they boldly proclaimed the Good News - the Good News not of a great dead teacher of the past, but of a real and risen Lord present with them day by day.  They staked their lives on the
Resurrection.  They were ridiculed and rejected, beaten and tortured, imprisoned and many of them died horrible deaths.

Peter, the disciple who denied knowing Jesus three times, was crucified for his belief not in a great dead teacher but in a risen Lord.  The only difference between Peter’s death and our Lord’s was that Peter refused to be crucified in the same way.  Peter said, “I am unworthy to die the same way my Lord did”.  So Peter insisted that he be crucified upside down in order to increase his agony.  In addition, Peter was forced to watch his beloved wife be crucified before he died.  Peter and the other disciples suffered greatly because they refused to believe that Jesus was dead.  The disciples did not die horrible deaths for a great dead teacher.  They died horrible deaths for a Risen Lord.  If there is any argument which puts to rest all of the conspiracy theories out there (the idea that the disciples cooked up a lie about the resurrected Christ) it is the way the disciples died.  Would you die upside down on a cross for a lie, for a fairy tale, for a cooked up plot to deceive people?

No, the disciple’s deaths prove to us once and for all that what they saw on that first Easter was the truth.  Jesus was not dead. He is alive!

    Dead or alive?  That is the question the disciples had to answer in their own hearts after Easter.  And that is the question we disciples must answer in our own hearts this Easter.  Is Jesus dead or alive?  Do we worship in memory only the teachings and acts of a great man?  Or do we worship the living presence of a real and Risen Lord?

    You see, my friends, as great as Jesus’ teachings are, and let’s remember that people all over the world, regardless of their faith, revere the teachings of Jesus.  Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Moslems all agree that Jesus was a great teacher. As great as Jesus’ teachings are, we cannot do them without his living presence among us.  Without a risen Lord, it is impossible to forgive seventy times seven the people who have deeply wounded us.  Without a risen Lord, it is impossible to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.  Without a risen Lord, it is impossible to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and free the oppressed for there are so many of them!  Without a risen Lord, we are left in utter frustration, because we cannot live out the teachings of Jesus without the presence of the risen Jesus guiding us.

    Dr. William Barclay explains it this way.  Remember learning to write cursive when you were a child?  I remember especially how hard it was to write the capital letters for q and z.  I struggled with those letters and was so frustrated when I could not form them.  Well, Dr. Barclay says that trying to do Jesus’ teachings without a risen Lord by your side is like trying to write those cursive letters without any help.  We can read the letters in the book, but making our hands do exactly what is in the book is nearly impossible for us.  For many of us the only way we could learn how to write in cursive was to have the teacher come over to us, place her hand on top of our hand and slowly help us form each letter. So it is with our faith.  We can read and aspire to follow Jesus’ teachings, but unless his hand is upon us to guide us slowly, but surely, we will never be able to truly do his will.

Are you here to worship a dead teacher from the past or a risen Lord who is right here by your side?  Dead or alive?  That is the question which you must answer in your heart this Easter.
   
    But before we go, there is yet another question which you must answer this Easter.  A question which is raised for us by the scripture passage we just read in Romans chapter 6.  Look again at verse 11.  Read it with me.

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin
and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

    So how about you?  Are you dead or alive?  Are you dead because of your sins?  Are you dead because of your stress?  Are you dead because of your sorrow?  Are you dead because of your fears?  Are you dead because of the horrible mistakes you made in the past?  Are you among the walking dead on this earth who have nothing to look forward to and who feel nothing but emptiness?   If we had the time to go around the sanctuary this morning and I asked each one of you, “Are you dead or alive?” how would you answer me?

    Beloved friends, if you feel dead today - if you feel despair and hopelessness - if you feel that there is nothing really worth living for - then please, please reach out for the hand of our Risen Savior.  For Jesus died and rose from the dead, not for himself but for us.  Jesus died and rose from the dead, so that we could have life and have it abundantly.  Jesus rose from the dead to prove to us that he can conquer all that threatens to kill our spirit.  Our Risen Lord can conquer despair and hopeless.  Our Risen Lord can conquer sorrow and suffering.  Our Risen Lord can conquer physical and mental illness.  Our Risen Lord can conquer fear and worry.  Our Risen Lord can conquer addiction and abuse.  Our Risen Lord can conquer whatever is defeating you and threatening to kill your spirit.

If you will let him.  But you have to take the first step.  You have to reach out.  You have to cry out to him.  Not as a dead teacher, but as a Risen Lord.

Dear friends, please believe the good news of Easter, Jesus is real.
He is risen.  He is right here.  He is ready to help you defeat whatever is threatening to kill your spirit.  Don’t be defeated by the world out there!  Reach out for our Risen Lord who promises us life - life abundantly and life eternally.

Speaking of life eternal, let us go back again to Romans 6.5:

For if we have been united with him in a death like his,
We will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

In other words, there’s an Easter morning out there for each and every one of us.  There’s an Easter morning out there when Jesus will raise us from the dead.  There is an Easter morning out there when we will leave these weak, frail, sick bodies behind and Jesus will raise us into eternal life.  There is an Easter morning out there when we will be reunited with all of our loved ones who have gone before us.  There is an Easter morning out there when Jesus will finally come and take us home - to our real home with God.

Halleluiah!  Halleluiah!  Say it with me now.
Jesus is not dead.  He is alive!
We are not dead.  We are alive!
Our loved ones are not dead.  They are alive!
I am not dead.  I am alive in Christ!

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!
Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!
Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

Go on now!
Celebrate the victory!
Live the victory!
Proclaim the victory!
Kick up your heels and dance the victory!

You are not dead!  You are alive in Christ!

- Reverend Janet Hellner-Burris