Easter 2024
He is Risen!
Part of Like No Other—Lent 2024
March 31, 2024

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PRAYER

We gather:
a community of faith in God’s subversive world.
We gather to celebrate
that no darkness can extinguish light,
to remember
that love will always be more powerful than death,
and to trust that
peace will always be stronger than violence.

We gather,
people of faith in the light of God’s world.
To give thanks for the gift
Of resurrection life.

Amen.

SERMON

POINT: The Paschal Greeting: He is risen! (He is risen, indeed!)

POINT: Easter is not the end but rather the beginning.

Luke 1:78-79 NRSV (Zechariah’s Song)
The dawn has come!
By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

“Here, then, is the message of Easter, or at least the beginning of that message. The resurrection of Jesus doesn’t mean, “It’s all right. We’re going to heaven now.” No, the life of heaven has been born on this earth. It doesn’t mean, “So there is a life after death.” Well, there is, but Easter says much, much more than that. It speaks of a life that is neither ghostly nor unreal but solid and definite and practical.

The Easter stories come at the end of the four gospels, but they are not about an “end.” They are about a beginning. The beginning of God’s new world. The beginning of the kingdom. God is now in charge, on earth as in heaven. And God’s “being-in-charge” is focused on Jesus himself being king and Lord. The title on the cross was true after all. The resurrection proves it.” —N.T. Wright, Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters

POINT: Death is not the end.

Luke 24:1-12 NRSV
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly, two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed 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 but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

POINT:
If God is Love;
And if Jesus is God incarnate;
In the resurrection of Jesus; love wins!

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