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Sunday's Sermon
April 08, 2007

1067
MIRACLES
The Rev. Dennis Posno

 

Miracles!
Do you believe in them?
Do you have eyes to see them?
Do you have ears to hear them?
Do you have a heart to embrace them?
Miracles are all around us.

In the song ”Ordinary Miracles”
we are reminded of the ordinary miracles
that are not the unusual ~ but the usual,
the remarkable, exceptional, incredible miracles
that are all around us
if we only had the eyes and ears and hearts
to recognize them.

I cannot explain it …
words seem so inadequate …
they fall so short,
when trying to explain the wonder we experience
when we hold a child, new born, in our arms,
and melt at the miracle of life.
Just another ordinary miracle.

I cannot grasp it …
words seem so inadequate …
they fall so short,
when trying to explain the wonder of someone saying to you
as they face you holding your hands ~
“I will love you, for better for worse, for richer for poorer
in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow
as long as we both shall live.”
The miracle of a love promised for a lifetime.
Just another ordinary miracle.

I cannot contain it …
words seem so inadequate …
they fall so short,
when trying to explain the pride of accomplishment …
the kindness of others …
the sweet benediction of forgiveness …
the fullness of heart you feel
when you see an old friend after a time of absence.
The miracles of the joy of life.
Just another ordinary miracle.

Who can explain it?
But if we have eyes to see them
and ears to hear them
and hearts to embrace them,
there are miracles all around us.
Ordinary miracles.
But maybe not so ordinary after all.

On this day, as we celebrate a miracle that is anything but ordinary,
it is important for us to remember,
when words seem so inadequate and fall so short when trying to explain it,
why today means so much.

So let me set the stage for this extraordinary miracle.

Before Jesus was crucified,
when He stood in front of His accusers
the night before and in the early morning,
truth spoke to power … but power would not listen;
love spoke to hate … but hate had no time for it;
justice spoke to oppression … but oppression turned a blind eye;
mercy spoke to cruelty … but cruelty had no heart for it.

When Jesus stood in front of His accusers,
light spoke to darkness … but the darkness did not understand it;
goodness spoke to evil … but evil had the upper hand.
God spoke in this singularly incredible voice … but ears were stopped to it.

And He was crucified.
And if being dead wasn’t enough
He was left to hang there:
humbled …
broken …
lifeless …
dead.

And in the stillness just after His death …
in a time of unimaginable sorrow …
it seemed as though power
and hate
and oppression
and cruelty
and darkness
and evil
had won.
Jesus had been silenced.
Theirs was the last word.

If ever there was a time when people longed for a miracle,
this was the time.
If ever there was a time when people prayed that God would intervene,
this was the time.
If ever there was a time,
this was the time.
But the miracle did not come on that unholy Friday.
Friday was the end of it.

And now, they all felt so alone in it. So helpless. So hopeless.

Jesus was taken down from the Cross and buried.

A silent Friday night followed.
People were too broken to speak …
too torn to move …
too numb to feel …
too exhausted to sleep.
The silence was broken only by their cries.

Saturday, too, was silent. Silent as a tomb. And as death cold.

There was no miracle that could change things.
No miracle that could raise them up.
No miracle.

After a silent Friday and a silent Saturday,
on Sunday, very early in the morning ~
as our scripture lesson proclaimed today ~
something happened:
something impossible
incredible
unbelievable.

Although each of the gospels record the moment differently,
one astounding thing is abundantly clear:
“Why do you look for the living among the dead?
He is not here; he has risen!”

The “what had happened?” of course
would be revealed as the days after Sunday unfolded.
On that anything-but-ordinary day,
in that everything-but-ordinary miracle
the world changed.
“He is not here; he has risen!”

What did it mean? What does it mean?

After a silent Friday evening and a silent Saturday, Sunday morning came.
And on that Sunday morning the miracle came ~
an anything-but-ordinary miracle.

The words that still hung cruelly in the air were “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
The words that were spoken by those who loved Jesus were framed in tears,
if they could be spoken at all.
Most of the words remained unspoken,
held silently in broken hearts.

But on Sunday, very early in the morning,
another word was heard.
It didn’t shout.
It whispered.

It was life, not death, that won.
It was love, not hate, that spoke from the empty tomb.
It was light, not darkness, that shone so brightly.
It was God’s kingdom, a kingdom of justice and righteousness, that would prevail.
The word that was heard was God’s.

Easter Sunday proclaims something altogether incredible.
This was no ordinary, every day miracle here!
It was unusual … remarkable … exceptional.

Against all odds …
against everything that would say impossible …
when it seemed as though everything was over …
everything in fact was just beginning.

Fear could not contain it.
Neither could despair, or hatred, or powerlessness, or death.
By the power of God, Jesus was raised from death to life,
rising above anything and everything
that would attempt to contain and constrain the power of God’s love.

What does it mean?
What does it mean for us?
What does it mean for you?

I believe in the deepest part of my being
that Jesus’ rising means that His spirit is present in the world.
Our Lord’s forgiving
healing
welcoming
empowering
comforting
encouraging
loving
living spirit
is present in the world.

And when hearts are open to it …
when hearts welcome it …
life is transformed …
and in many ways, we are raised up, too.

Is your heart open to Him?
Has your heart welcomed Him?

A four-year-old girl was at the pediatrician’s office for a check-up.
As the doctor looked into her ears with an otoscope, he asked,
“Do you think I’ll find Big Bird in here?”
The little girl stayed silent.

Next, the doctor took a tongue depressor and looked down her throat.
He asked, “Do you think I’ll find the Cookie Monster down here?”
Again, the little girl was silent.

Then the doctor put a stethoscope to her chest.
As he listened to her heart beat, he asked,
“Do you think I’ll find Barney in here?”

“Oh, no,” the little girl replied.
“Jesus is in my heart! Barney’s on my underpants!”

Let me tell you just one story
that speaks of the miracle of a risen Christ
in just one person’s life.
A “Jesus is in my heart” story.
It is a moment in the life of an opera singer, Roland Hayes.

Roland Hayes was at the height of his fame in the 1930’s and 40’s.
He was on a concert tour in Europe,
and had accepted an invitation
to sing in Berlin’s Beethoven Hall.

It was the era when Hitler’s National Social Democratic Party, the Nazi Party,
had assumed political power in Germany.
The philosophy of a super race, an Aryan culture, was beginning to surface.
There was no room in it for Jews or gypsies,
or the physically and mentally disabled,
for homosexuals or blacks.

World War II, and all that it would give rise to, had not yet begun.
It was still years away.
But the seeds of hatred
and intolerance
and racial purity
the concentration camps
and the ovens
and “man’s inhumanity to man”
had been sown.

Roland Hayes came to that stage ready to sing.
The audience, many of them Nazis and Nazi sympathizers,
greeted him with disdain.
For you see, as gifted as he was,
Roland Hayes was a man of colour,
as black as midnight in a Cyprus swamp.
And his black figure standing at center stage
at Beethoven Hall in Germany’s capital city
in the heart of Aryan culture
was greeted with hostility and ugliness,
with boos and hisses.
It grew louder and more ominous and dangerous.

As he stood there,
resentment and anger swelling up inside of him,
Roland Hayes remembered a sermon
preached by a black minister
in the church he attended as a boy.

It was a sermon about Jesus, standing in judgment before Pilate.
The preacher contrasted two kinds of power facing each other:
the love of power and the power of love.
Pilate, irked by the silence of Jesus, cried out to Him,
“Don’t you know I have power over your life?”

The preacher went on to say,
“No matter how mad Pilate got, and the crowd got,
Jesus never said a mumbling word, not a word.”

Perhaps he remembered, too, words which Jesus did speak:
“ … I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be (children) of your Father in heaven.”

In that moment, reinforced by that remembrance,
mindful that Christ’s spirit could be in every heart,
Roland Hayes bowed his head.
In the midst of hostility and ugliness and danger
he lifted his heart Godward.
He prayed for grace to meet the moment …
to meet the moment not with anger, but with calm …
not with fear, but with faith …
not with hatred, but with love …
to meet the moment in the power of Christ.
He prayed for a miracle.

As he stood there with his head bowed
the jeers and whistles diminished
until there was absolute silence.
In that silence, Roland Hayes lifted up his head
from his conversation with the Almighty,
and in a hushed pianissimo
began to sing a song of Schubert.
And when he had finished
he was rewarded with a thunderous ovation.
He had won, without so much as a mumbling word.

He didn’t walk off stage ~ he stayed.
He didn’t lose his cool ~ he prayed.
He bowed his head ~ and his spirit was raised.
And when he lifted his head
he didn’t have to argue his dignity as a child of God …
his quiet and controlled dignity were argument enough.

“There’s a song in every silence,
seeking word and melody;
there’s a dawn in every darkness,
bringing hope to you and me.
……………………………………………………………..
unrevealed until its season,
something God alone can see.”

The miracle of Christ risen and living in our hearts
is that He gives us a song to sing:
a song of hope, even when life seems so hopeless …
a song of peace, even in the midst of the storms …
a song of joy, even when it seems impossible …
a song of love, reminding you that He is with you
and you are not alone.
And as He rose, so can you.

You can rise above hatred
and fear
and trouble
and discouragement.
You can rise into the season of God’s grace.

For you see, joy ~
the joy of knowing Him …
the joy of loving Him
and knowing He loves you ~
“Joy comes with the dawn;
joy comes with the morning sun;
joy springs from the tomb
and scatters the night with her song,
joy comes with the dawn.”

That joy gives you a song to sing … and the strength to sing it.

SOLI DEO GLORIA

Luke 24:1-12
The Resurrection

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning,
the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.
They found the stone rolled away from the tomb,
but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
While they were wondering about this,
suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.
In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground,
but the men said to them,
"Why do you look for the living among the dead?
He is not here; he has risen!
Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee:
'The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men,
be crucified and on the third day be raised again.' "
Then they remembered his words.

When they came back from the tomb,
they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others.
It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James,
and the others with them who told this to the apostles.
But they did not believe the women,
because their words seemed to them like nonsense.
Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb.
Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves,
and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

"I would rather live my life as if there is a God, and die to find out there isn't,
than live my life as if there isn't, and find out there is."