Finding Faith ... in Jesus conquering death

EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 2.5 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and the deepening of my theological mind. This sermon originally took place on April 20, 2019.

The altar cross remained unharmed after the fire.

If you’ve watched or read any of the news coverage about the tragic fire at France’s Notre Dame Cathedral in the past week, you’ve likely seen the now-famous photo of the cathedral’s massive cross standing center stage on the church’s altar.

Unharmed, untouched. … Gleaming for all the world to see. … Standing amid the pile of rubble formed when the church’s massive spire and roof crashed down during the devastating fire last week.

The photo is a breathtaking image.

Listen to how a couple of new sites described that photo:

“The spire fell. The roofing was ravaged. But then, after officials announced late Monday that the cathedral would survive, signs of hope surfaced among the damage.

The cathedral's golden altar cross was seen standing as officials surveyed the charred structure. Votive candles lit prior to the blaze — each one symbolizing a prayer — still flickered undisturbed in the cathedral, CNN reported.”

And then this might have been my favorite description that I found in a news story this week:

“While mostly everything inside the cathedral seemed to be damaged from the flames or covered in smoke and ash, the giant white cross in the front of the building was miraculously captured still standing and lit up among the darkness.

Even from afar, with parts of the roof still burning and embers falling down onto the charred pews, the cross was brightly shining down the cathedral’s aisle.”

Notre Dame’s cross certainly serves as an unforgettable metaphor for this Easter Sunday. … Hope amid the destruction. … A beacon in the dark. … A symbol that in a world that is designed to destroy, there is good, there is joy and best of all there is … hope.

That’s why we’re all here today after all, isn’t? … This day. … That cross. ... Jesus’ resurrection. … All of them a reminder to us of the hope we share as Christians. ... The hope that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ conquered death for us. … Each and every one of us.

Just as that cross in the Notre Dame Cathedral symbolized to so many that fire could take the roof off that 850-year-old structure, but fire could not take the faith or the hope that dwells in that House of God.

And Jesus does the same for us. … This world can try to defeat us with its death and despair, but it cannot crush our hope. … Because Jesus is standing there untouched and unharmed among the rubble.

But it’s never just that easy, is it? This faith thing? This hope thing? … We pastors can stand in this pulpit and preach faith and hope to you, and tell you that that cross standing over there makes it all easy.

Yes, we faith leaders can make it seem that this task of ours as Christians is so easy, can’t we? … Some would even have you believe that this faith thing, this hope thing, is as easy as seeing that inexplicably miraculous photo of the cross and just knowing that Jesus has indeed won the war on death.

We, as a faith family, gather together this one day a year to mark Jesus’ triumphant resurrection, and our faith and our hope is just supposed to fall into place the rest of the year.

But a day or two later, after we leave here, after the ham has been eaten, what happens? … What happens when we’re not sitting here in this beautiful Sanctuary, and life intrudes? ... This world bent on chaos, destruction and death looks to blind us, to disillusion us, to convince us that what we are all here to celebrate today is a lie. … And then the struggle gets real, doesn’t?

A loved one dies. … We hear about black churches being burned to the ground in the American south, and terrorists killing hundreds at Easter services in Sri Lanka. … We actually see all of the death and despair all around us.

… And this faith and hope that we cherish so much becomes a little harder to find, a little harder to hold onto.

But what would happen if we didn’t let it. ... What would happen if we took this experience, this same Spirit that is descending on us today, into each new day with us. … What would happen if today, as a faith family, we made a commitment to each other that while Easter is worth celebrating, it’s just not the only day worth celebrating.

Because, you see, Easter is not only about Christ’s conquering of death, it’s also about his resurrection, and that resurrection means that Easter is also about new starts, new creation … about making every day a new day. And Jesus invites us all into that daily celebration as well.

We simply cannot forget that Jesus’s resurrection brings us his new creation not just today on Easter, but he does so each and every day. … In a sense, every day we awake, it’s a little mini-Easter of sorts.

And if I can get you to buy into that idea in here -- you faithful, you believers, you hopeful -- if we can believe that together in here today, then we also can believe that together out there, each and every day!

If today stands as a new day, the day Christ rose and blazed a new path for each of us, taking away the power of death in our lives, then we must also realize that he didn’t only win that battle on this day, he won that battle for every day!

It boils down to this: We know that Easter takes place only once a year. … After all, that’s why we’re here today and we’ll be heading to our families’ homes for a big ham dinner later … but if we truly believe that in Jesus’s life-giving power, in his new creation that arose from his resurrection, then we must know that each and every day in between now and next Easter is also essentially a new creation as well.

Each day we wake is one more resurrection not only for Christ, but for us. It’s a day for us to recognize that sin, and therefore death, does not ultimately win. … Each day is an opportunity for us -- the church body -- to claim the resurrection promise that God is making all things new, beginning with the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

As a body of believers who belong to the risen Christ, we are the community of the new creation. And as such, the church -- or us believers if we want to get specific -- are at our best when we continue to be the community of the new creation in a world that is too often headed for dissolution by violence, abuse, death and destruction.

Being people of the resurrected Lord Jesus, the church is in the business of praying for the renewal of the world and seeking to renew it.

So, just how do we do that? ... How do we, personally, seek to renew it?

Well, in its most simplest form it begins with today. It begins with what you choose to do after you leave those double doors that lead from our church to the outside world.

When you leave today, will you take the Easter message with you? … Will you leave thinking that each day gives you the opportunity to find Christ, to find his new creation? To be his new creation? … Or will that just be something that you leave here until next Sunday? … Or worse yet until next Easter?

Because you see, the seeking of the new creation, the reason we gather together today, is about whether you are going to embrace God’s life-giving agenda, or whether you’ll accept what this world has to offer instead?

Will you buy into the greed, and self-centeredness and the fear that lead to Jesus’ death? … Or will you willingly seek out the life-giving ways that raised Jesus from the dead?

Will you feed the hungry, or fetch something to drink for the thirsty?

Will you invite the stranger into your home ... into your life?

Will you clothe the naked? … Look after the sick and visit those who are imprisoned?

Will you mend those relationships that need to be mended? Forgive those who have harmed you, no matter how deeply?

Will you lay aside disagreements for the sake of harmony? Will you decide that being in relationship is more important than being right?

Will you give someone a hand up … even if it means that you, yourself, doesn’t get ahead?

We each are given dozens of opportunity each day to celebrate Jesus’ new creation, to celebrate Easter. ... Because, after all, Easter isn’t only about what Jesus did for us, but it is also about what we do for him.

I encourage you all to rejoice with me today, because this Easter Sunday IS a new day. … What’s behind us is behind us. … Because just like the cross at Notre Dame served this past week as a beacon to the world, a symbol that you can find hope among the devastation, all of us have that same opportunity to shine light into the darkness, even if it’s just into our little corner of this great big and often uncaring world.

Each of you, my friends, have the opportunity show death that it has not won … that it will not win … not today … and not tomorrow ... because our Lord so utterly conquered death on that cross some 2,000 years ago.

And that is the Good News for this Easter Sunday. … Amen.