Just a week earlier Jesus had been riding into Jerusalem. He and others were saying that he came to be some kind of a king, a leader among God’s people, and now he was dead. The movement of Jesus seemed dead. The crowds who had followed him for years were gone. The faith and trust the disciples had that Jesus was the Messiah, this leader who came from God to establish a new community, was gone and in its place was disillusionment, disappointment, and maybe even some anger because they had given everything to Jesus, and now it was gone. In the span of a few days it was all gone. Life would be forever different.
I think we can all relate to that right now. In what seems like a few days, our lives are now completely different. We have all gone from a stable, somewhat predictable, and for many people a good life, to mass uncertainty. We are still asking questions like: what is this virus? How bad is it? How does it spread? Can we gather with family and friends in any way? How am I going to homeschool and work full time for the next two months? Here at the church we are asking, when are we going to be able to meet again, and what will it even look like when we are able to gather together in one place?
During the past few weeks our fear has increased. Will I get this virus? Could I survive the virus if I do get it? What about my parents? My kids? I’m not feeling very good today, is it just my allergies? Will I have a job when this is over? How am I going to pay the bills? Feed my family? What about all my plans for retirement?
We are all living in the early morning hours of that first resurrection day. We are living with sudden uncertainty, growing fear and anxiety, and with doubts and disappointments. This Easter, we connect with the disciples in these early morning hours in a special way, so maybe we have something we can learn from them about how to make it through this challenging time. The first thing we see with the disciples is that they stayed together. Mary went to the tomb with other women - they stayed together. Mary then told the rest of the disciples and they were all together. .
That they stayed together is not to be taken lightly. If we go back to Friday when Jesus was arrested, the disciples fled. A few hung around the courtyard as Jesus was questioned by the religious leaders, but after being recognized, they fled. A few gathered at the cross, but after Jesus died they didn’t wait around. Most of the disciples weren’t there. In the midst of their lives falling apart - their first instinct was to flee, but at some point they came back together, and that is no small thing because they could have given up and gone home.
Remember, the disciples are in Jerusalem. They had come with Jesus for the Passover, but they were all from Galilee. This was not their home. When Jesus died and everything looked lost, and their lives were literally in danger, they could have all gone home, back to their own towns and villages, back to their homes and families. They could have scattered and never come back together, but they didn’t. They stayed together.
They stayed together because they knew that if they were going to make it through this storm, they needed each other. They needed each other for strength, support, and encouragement. They needed each other for one of the most basic things we all need when life suddenly gets chaotic, they needed each other because in this moment they needed love.
It was love that brought them all together in the first place. Jesus had loved each of them in a unique way, and when they responded to the love of Jesus, it drew them together. Now they needed that love more than ever. When life is falling apart, and the world around us seems uncertain and chaotic, what we need to help us through is love, and love is experienced when we find ways to stay together.
We need to stay together right now. While honoring social distancing and stay at home orders, we need to find ways to stay together because what will help us through this time is the strength, support and encouragement we get from one another. What will get us through this time is not just knowing we aren’t alone but also knowing that we are loved.
One of the most amazing things we witness every day is that as everything has gone kind of crazy around us, we are seeing people find new ways to reach out to love others. It is love that moves people to call the church asking what the food bank needs and how they can help. It is love that pays daycare bills even though our daycare is closed so that teachers and staff can be supported. And yes that has happened.
It’s love that moves doctors and nurses to serve in difficult situations. It’s love that moves all of us in a variety of ways to show doctors and nurses how much we appreciate them. It’s love that moves people to call others to make sure they are ok. It’s love that moves people to make over 1500 masks in our own community to give to people who need them. Daily we are hearing stories about the unique and powerful ways people are staying together in love. And it is inspiring. It’s seeing this love in action, being part of this love in action, and feeling love ourselves that simply helps us hang together as a community.
What helped the disciples during those early morning hours of chaos and confusion was the love and support they got from each other. They stayed together and we must find ways to stay together as a church and as a community, and we must commit to loving one another knowing that as we reach out to love others, we will find others reaching right back to love us.
What also held the disciples together through the difficult and uncertain time they were going through was routine. They were still living their lives the best they could. The women went to the tomb early in the morning because they had a job to do. They hadn’t been able to properly prepare Jesus' body earlier because of the Sabbath, but it was a new day and there was work to be done so they went to work.
They also gathered food, prepared meals, and ate together. Jesus joined his disciples at these meal times and even asked for something to eat so he could prove to them that he was not just a spirit but that he had risen in flesh and blood. They continued their routine. They went about their lives and that routine helped them find a sense of balance and perspective. It helped them through each challenging day.
Keeping to a routine can also help us through this period of uncertainty, confusion, and fear. Establishing new routines can also keep us grounded and give us a proper perspective on life. New routines also have the potential to improve our relationships. Daily walks together, meals together, and doing daily devotions together are routines that can help us find peace and strengthen in our relationship with God, and each other.
Today is Easter and one routine of Easter for many people is to dress up and come to church. Ok, you can’t come here to church, but we do hope that maybe you dressed up this morning. It doesn’t matter what you are wearing, we are glad you are with us and we also want to invite you to share a greeting with others because community, connection, and staying together are important.
Staying together in love and keeping some kind of routine is what helped the disciples keep going when their lives had been turned upside down, and staying together in love and keeping some kind of routine will help keep us going as we work through these ever changing times. This is how they got through the difficult times, but Easter isn’t just about getting through the difficult times, it’s also about a powerful, life changing hope that came to the disciples later in the evening.
It says that when evening came, Jesus appeared among the disciples and said, peace be with you. He showed them he was alive and that he had defeated sin, death and the grave. He was once again with them in power and love and in that moment the disciples had something they didn’t have earlier. They had hope. They had hope because Christ is risen. And that changed everything.
Christ is still risen. It’s what we celebrate today, and the power of Christ’s resurrection means that no matter how difficult the situation is that we are facing with our jobs, our finances, our future, and our families - we still have hope. We have hope that each new day will bring peace, and health, and strength, and all the help we need. We still have hope that we will see the power of God move in our lives and world in spite of a virus. And we have hope that life will not return to what it was before this virus hit, but that it will turn into what God wants it to be.
I can’t imagine that the disciples thought that with Jesus now standing there with them alive that their lives would somehow go back to normal. They weren’t going to go back to just teaching and preaching throughout Galilee, this was life changing. Jesus' victory over the grave wasn’t like healing the sick, turning water to wine, or even walking on water, this was Jesus being crucified as the Messiah and then rising from the grave in a final act of triumph. They didn’t know all that life would hold for them, but they had hope that it was going to be new, and better, and powerful.
When we say that resurrection is about new life - this is what we are talking about. New life. A hope that life would be forever different and forever better because we have seen the power and love of God.
Today as we remember that Christ is risen, we also hold on to the hope that life will never return to what it was before but that it will be different. Our future will be new, and better, and filled with God’s power and love if we will allow it to be. There will be challenging days ahead where we will need to hold on to one another in love and work to keep the routines going, but our hope is that someday, when jobs and schools open up, and we will be able to be together, we will not be the same but that we will be people who live with the hope and power of Jesus Christ - the risen one.
This year, our Easter hope is that we will always see the needs of others as clearly as we see them today. Our hope is that we will never again see the church as just our gathering here in this place but as the body of Christ living and working and loving in the name of Jesus everywhere we are. Our hope is that we will always remember that the people we need to value the most are the ones who make the greatest impact in our lives and we are learning right now that it isn’t celebrities and social media influencers but doctors and nurses, teachers and custodians. It’s those who work in grocery stores, pharmacies, and gas stations, and we can not forget all those who cut and style our hair!. When we value the people often overlooked and taken for granted, we offer hope and life to the world around us.
Globally, this is an Easter like no other we have ever seen. And while we may not be together physically, we can come together as the body of Christ and offer the world everything that it needs. Hope for the future, and God’s love for today. When we walk with Jesus on this Easter Sunday, we are people filled with hope that life will never get back to normal, but be better and forever changed because we know, we know, Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.
