Comments for Jim Other sermons.                 

Terror. Fear. Amazement. Alarm. These are the words that the Gospels use to describe the experience of those who witnessed the Resurrection. I think the best word to sum them all up is the word astonishment. Whatever the Resurrection means, and it can mean many things, it is certainly about the experience of astonishment. Astonishment is the encounter with raw reality in all its energy and power and majesty. It is overwhelming, and leaves us groping for words.

Resurrection is about waking up to the astonishing reality that we have been asleep. The Prophet Isaiah describes Resurrection as the lifting of a "shroud cast over all peoples." Living under a shroud is a good description of how most of us exist most of the time. Mental health professionals say that most Americans most of the time suffer from "chronic low grade depression." (or the manic denial of it). Think of Resurrection as waking up after a bad night, and throwing open the curtains and feeling the sun blazing in your face. You hear the birds singing and feel the breeze and you see everything as if it were all alive. As for the first time. The darkness of the night wasn’t real. It was a bad dream. But this is real. What a relief and how astonishing!

I believe that Resurrection is less about life conquering death, or light coming out of darkness, or good overcoming evil. I understand how we use those terms. But in a deeper sense, Resurrection is living into the astonishing reality that God is. We can’t see God in the darkness, and we find God in the light; but God has been there all along. Jesus said, "Before Abraham was, I am." Life, in darkness and light, is the energy and being of God. But we must let the shroud lift, wake up, and behold.

Speaking for myself, the Resurrection is not so much about a revived Jesus walking around in bodily form, or Jesus eventually ascending into heaven, or God descending as the Holy Spirit. For me Resurrection means that the Risen Christ has infused every wave and participle of creation and made it holy. Made it divine. We are first and foremost called simply to behold it. Why is it so astonishing to us? Because it seems easier to be asleep. Because it seems better to worry. Since we define ourselves as this limited mind and body, we live to protect and preserve this limited mind and body. My mind. My body. But we are invited into the Mind of Christ. Which is everywhere. And the Body of Christ. Which is everything. When I wonder at the whereabouts now of people I love who have died, my Mom, Steve Gilbert, I believe somehow they have become unlimited – they have become everywhere and everything. Pure Consciousness. In other words, they are, just as God is. O I weep at these losses, but those tears are for me, not them. They are fine. It will just take me a little while to be able to see them again.

And because the Body and Mind of Christ are everywhere in everything, and the departed saints are everywhere in everything, life in this world matters. Because Jesus was a real person and because the Resurrected Christ is the very essence of reality, we are called to care for the Body and Mind of Christ. We can’t do that by staying in bed asleep. We can wake up and open our eyes to what God is doing in the lives of others, and among the nations - what God is doing to heal the brokenness of our world. And in all this, God is saying, "Join me. Walk humbly with me. Do justice and love kindness." Do it now. Be astonished. Wake up to life. Know to the depth of your being that life is good, very good. And because it is good, indeed all will be well. AMEN.

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