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United Church of Paducah
4600 Buckner Lane
Paducah, KY 42001
(270) 442-3722
Worship Times
Sunday Service: 10:00a
Refreshments &
Fellowship: 11:15a
Christian Education
For All Ages:
11:20a - Noon
Nursery Services Provided Handicap Accessible
All Are Welcome!
A Congregation Of The
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From March 23, 2008
God's Big Give
John 20:1-18
What would you do if someone handed you a
bundle of cashand told you to give it away? That's the
challenge facing a handful of ordinary people on Oprah's Big
Give, a new series ABC is hosting this season.
Here's the deal: women and men of all ages and backgrounds
are given money and tasked with finding and helping total
strangers. Over the course of the eight-week series, we
follow their every move, and even before the finale airs
know that the person who ends up being the biggest giver
also becomes the biggest winner--one million dollars goes to
whoever was the boldest and most generous giver.
That's one big give, all right. I don't know how Oprah will
top it; maybe another season with a two million dollar prize
at the end. And yet even if Oprah had 20 seasons of her Big
Give, and billions of dollars were spent making a
difference, even that wouldn't begin to come close to God's
big give of Easter.
This "give" no sum can summon. This "give" no human being,
community, or nation could ever accomplish. Easter morning
we receive the gift of life. The gift of resurrected life.
The gift of Jesus Christ alive and on the loose again.
Easter morning we celebrate the biggest of big gives, a gift
we are given not only today but every day, every moment of
our lives. Because of God's big give we are, always and
forever, Easter people.
For the longest time, my Easter celebration centered on
remembering. Remembering that the cross and the grave turned
out to be powerless. Remembering that God would not, could
not did not abandon Jesus, that God would not, could not,
did not let the forces of evil have the last word.
Easter is what happened way back then, when those closest to
Jesus went to the tomb and found the stone rolled away.
Easter is what happened when Mary wept and explained herself
to the gardener, only to hear her name being spoken in such
a tender, familiar voice that she raced back to tell the
disciples, "I have seen the Lord."
For so many Easters, this was a Sunday firmly rooted in the
past, a celebration rising up out of the disciples'
experience of our Risen Lord two thousand years ago. And of
celebrating that those who die in Christ, rise with him.
That is, that eternal life awaits and so even as we grieve
the deaths of friends and loved ones, we know we will at
last have the joy of a reunion, one without end.
Certainly members and friends of this church have held fast
to Christ's victory over death even before this Easter dawn
unfolded. With Mary Caldwell's death a week ago and Ronnie
Sarten's unexpected passing yesterday, we have grounded
ourselves in certain hope of the resurrection of the dead.
And in the truth that nothing, not even death, can separate
us from the love of God in Christ.
As marvelous as this is, Easter offers us more than comfort
and reassurance in times when death visits our friends and
family, and those times when we face our own death.
It was not until I was in my mid-thirties that I had an
opportunity to understand the greater gift Easter makes
possible. At 35, I underwent a crucifixion of my own. Not a
literal one, of course. But one that was very painful
because I had not seen it coming and when it came, it made
little sense.
In the course of responding to what I felt was God's
calling, which was simply to serve and love in the manner of
Christ, I came face to face with some of the same unlikely
reactions Jesus faced.
Like Jesus in Jerusalem, I too knew my days were numbered.
But unlike Jesus, who laid in the tomb a short time, I spent
a six months there, not physically dead but certainly
spiritually so.
And then one Easter morning, through a series of
coincidences that I know were not coincidences at all, God
resurrected me. Friends were holding a sunrise service on
the lawn of a nearby school and in the course of our worship
together, someone read the story of Mary going to the tomb
and discovering Jesus alive again.
As we sang our joy over the most profound of miracles, I too
sensed a heavy stone being rolled away. I too felt the fresh
winds of the Spirit coming into my nostrils and lungs. I too
felt the grave clothes fall away, after which I was lifted
up and set down on my feet, back to life again. Back to life
not by my own willpower but by the will of a power far
greater than any other.
Resurrection is God's big give. A big give that began when
disciples found what they never expected to find: life, not
death, at Jesus' graveside. This big give stunned and scared
them at first, which is understandable, but it quickly grew
into joy.
God's big give that Easter gave and gave and gave as the
Risen Savior found his way back to friends once again--the
living, breathing truth of God's undying love for them
despite all the ways their love had failed him. Love alive
again and seeking them out. Seeking us out, too, no matter
what.
God's big give at Easter is more than a memory we inherit
from the faithful. And it goes beyond the awesome knowledge
that just as Jesus cheated death, so we will, too, one day.
God's big give is real and available now, a gift meant for
each of us and all of us.
God's big give is a gift of incomparable worth, one no
amount of money can buy, a gift that sets us free to embrace
life and all that life holds out to us--its highs and its
lows, its successes and its failures, its wild processions,
its humiliating crosses, and its inevitable and often
unwelcome endings.
God's big give at Easter doesn't belong to Jesus alone. It's
yours, too. It's yours in times of loss and confusion, in
times of dead ends and tomblike conditions.
It's yours when you proceed in confident faith, with love in
your heart and God on your side, and still things turn out
badly. Easter is yours when your journey resembles Jesus'
and most especially when it doesn't. God cannot, will not
forsake us. God honors the life in us and restores us to
live--in this life and in the life to come.
That's one big give. And yet God's big give is bigger still.
God's commitment to life and all that gives life reaches out
beyond you and me to embrace all of creation.
Isaiah heard God describing the fullness of this big give
long before that first Easter morning dawned. God spoke to
Isaiah saying, "For I am about to create new heavens and a
new earthbe glad and rejoice forever in what I am
creating."
This theme resounds in the 21st chapter of the Book of
Revelation, as well. There we hear "The one who was seated
on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new.I am
the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.I will
be their God and they will be my people."
God's big give, the one we celebrate today, is that
nothing--not even death--is as it was before. God's new
creation has begun, even if like Mary Magdalene, we do not
expect it or quite know how to embrace it at first.
Years ago when I discovered that Christ's resurrection was
not his alone, that he shares it with each of us and all of
us and indeed all of creation, I couldn't believe this had
never occurred to me before.
But how could it? I had never died before. Had never known
the inside of a tomb. Had never felt God break the bonds of
my lifeless state and bring me back to life, at once the
same and yet--like Jesus--somehow more than before.
Christ is risen, friends. Risen indeed. Risen that we, too,
might rise. Not just later, in the next life, but within
this life--again and again and again.
The death that could not hold Jesus in its grip will not,
cannot hold us. Nor can it hold back the new creation that,
even now, God is bringing to life in and around and through
us.
May God's big give come alive in you, in us, in creation.
Not only today but every day, always and forever.
All praise and glory be unto the God of resurrection and
life. Amen.
© Rev. Karen Winkel
United Church of Paducah (UCC) |
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie
Allen
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