Good News Spreads: That Church

Our story today is about Paul. Or Saul, depending what language you are speaking. Saul didn’t change his name to Paul after his conversation. Saul is simply the Hebrew version of Paul, which is Greek. It’s like the difference between John, which is English, and Johannes, which is the German form of John. And vice versa. 

Now that we’ve got that straight, we can move forward with our story. We’re making a bit a leap forward from last Sunday’s text about Thomas and about his experience with Jesus. Saul appears in the New Testament after Jesus has ascended. And after the Holy Spirit - promised by Jesus - has been poured out onto the believers at Pentecost. 

This Jewish community of Jesus followers is growing by leaps and bounds. If you remember that Pentecost story, something three or four thousand were baptized in one day. The early disciples are speaking truth to their religious leaders - the Jewish religious leaders - about Jesus. This truth-speaking is not without consequence. Just before today’s story, is the story of the stoning of Stephen, the first martyr of these Jesus followers, these people who called themselves “The Way.” At the edges of the scene of Stephen’s martyrdom is where we first meet Saul, where we read at the beginning of Acts 8, rather ominously, “Saul was in full agreement with Stephen’s murder.”

Stephen’s death was the beginning of vicious harassment of the people of The Way. They quickly left Jerusalem and scattered through the surrounding regions to get away from the violence. Soon after, we again read these words in the early verses of Acts 8: “Saul began to wreak havoc against the church. Entering one house after another, he would drag off both men and women and throw them into prison.”

Saul. Devout. Faithful. Was a zealot. What he was doing was, in his mind, the right thing to do. It’s at this point that our story opens today, which we will read in three scenes.

Meanwhile, Saul was still spewing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest, seeking letters to the synagogues in Damascus. If he found persons who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, these letters would authorize him to take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. During the journey, as he approached Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven encircled him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice asking him, “Saul, Saul, why are you harassing me?”

Saul asked, “Who are you, Lord?”

“I am Jesus, whom you are harassing,” came the reply. “Now get up and enter the city. You will be told what you must do.”

Those traveling with him stood there speechless; they heard the voice but saw no one. After they picked Saul up from the ground, he opened his eyes but he couldn’t see. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind and neither ate nor drank anything. --Acts 9:1-9 (CEB)

Paul was desperate to stop these people who were undermining his religious tradition. So desperate in fact that he went to high priest to get letters for the synagogues in Damascus about 200 miles away. These letters introduce him to the synagogue leaders and authorize him, on behalf of the high priest, to capture and take Jesus believers - men and women - back to prison in Jerusalem. Paul was acting under the authority of the religious leaders. 

But along the way to Damascus, something completely unexpected happened to him. Like the Thomas narrative last week, the theme of believing without seeing is picked up in today’s story. But, in Saul’s conversion it is the story of believing by not seeing. Like Thomas last week, Saul has his own unique experience with Jesus. An experience that completely disrupts his life. An experience that makes him vulnerable - a vulnerability that he can’t run away from, or try to deny, or try to reason away. Saul has an experience in which he meets Jesus and is forever changed. 

Do you notice what Jesus says to him is this brief interchange on the road? Jesus’ first words to Saul are “Why are you persecuting me?” Why are you persecuting me? Jesus asks him. Saul isn’t persecuting Jesus. Or so we think. But, whenever we persecute any follower of Jesus, any member of the body of Christ, we - like Saul - are persecuting Jesus himself. 

Saul’s friends lead him to a house in Damascus, where he waits in his blindness for three days. For his own resurrection.

Our story continues. Scene 2.

In Damascus there was a certain disciple named Ananias. The Lord spoke to him in a vision, “Ananias!”

He answered, “Yes, Lord.”

The Lord instructed him, “Go to Judas’ house on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul. He is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias enter and put his hands on him to restore his sight.”

Ananias countered, “Lord, I have heard many reports about this man. People say he has done horrible things to your holy people in Jerusalem. He’s here with authority from the chief priests to arrest everyone who calls on your name.”

The Lord replied, “Go! This man is the agent I have chosen to carry my name before Gentiles, kings, and Israelites. I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” --Acts 9:10-16 (CEB)

Like Paul, Jesus comes to Ananias in a vision. Ananias was, as our text tells us, a faithful disciple living in Damascus. God directs him to go to Saul, staying in a house on Straight Street (no pun intended). And just as most faithful disciples - or prophets - respond to God’s call, his first question to Jesus, is “Are you crazy?” You want me to go to this man - this persecutor of my fellow believers, my friends, those whom I love - so that I can lay hands on him and heal him of his blindness. Yeah. No.

It’s interesting isn’t it. That just as this is a story of Saul’s conversion, it is just as much a story of the conversion of Ananias. He has his own blind spot, not only with Saul, but also with regard to the power of God to transform. He knows Saul as an enemy of God’s saints. He knows Saul as having free reign to bind those who invoke the name of Jesus. And, not so surprising to us, probably much like we would respond, he doesn’t want to go anywhere near him.

But God has plans for Saul. For this agent - this vessel - that God intends to use to spread the good news of abundant life in Jesus. Ananias will be called to serve Saul, so that he, in turn, can serve those whom he persecuted. Gentiles. Then, kings. And the people of Israel. God will, in time, reveal to Saul how much he must suffer for the sake of God’s name - suffering that Paul lists later in his letter to the church in Corinth. Beatings. A shipwreck. Imprisonment. And on and on. Not that God desires this suffering, but that God knows the fearful human response that comes from living according to the Way of Jesus Christ, this way of peace, of truth, of life. The human response is a violent response that comes out of fear. Fear of being vulnerable. Of being open to a new Way. Open to Jesus. Where death leads to life. Oppression, freedom. Hatred, love.

We continue with Scene 3, our closing scene.

Ananias went to the house. He placed his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord sent me—Jesus, who appeared to you on the way as you were coming here. He sent me so that you could see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Instantly, flakes fell from Saul’s eyes and he could see again. He got up and was baptized. After eating, he regained his strength. --Acts 9:17-19a (CEB)

What a powerful response by Ananias! He lets go of the fear. Of the hurt. Of the possibility of his own death. And goes to Saul. Lays his hands on him. Calls him, “Brother.” Then baptizes him, by which Saul is cleansed and purified, reborn and brought to new life through the Holy Spirit. And welcomed into the community - into the body of Christ. With a snack to boot!

This story of Saul’s conversion. This is the story of mutual conversion - Saul and Ananias. Is a story of disruption. About the way that God works in our world, where God breaks into our lives in surprising ways. Upsetting our understanding of things or to challenge our belief system. Working through unexpected people. And changing us to be a people - a church - of hospitality and welcome. It is a story about how God calls us - the Church - to be. A place of truth, where we recognize the complexity in one another, where we have pasts that may not always be so pretty. Yet, where we are called to embrace each other in all of our differences. Where we move away from division, and violence, and fear, and retribution, to a place of invitation. Of openness. Of acceptance. And, where we, like Thomas, like Saul, and like Ananias, experience Jesus. Here. Now.

May we be that Church. Amen.

Preached May 1, 2022, at Grace & Glory, Prospect, with Third, Louisville.

Easter 3

Readings: Acts 9:1-19a, Matthew 6:24

Pain and Promise: A New Song

The Psalter - the entire book of Psalms - ends with the Psalm we just heard. Psalm 150 is the last of seven psalms of praise, an extended call to praise - that invites everything that breathes to praise the Lord. Everything that breathes. People. Animals. Birds. Fish. Plants. All of God’s creation in this psalm is invited into an attitude of praise.

Yet, we know that not everyone experiences grace from God. We grow sick. We can be killed. We can be oppressed. We can experience disaster.

Over these past six weeks, we’ve been reading selections from Jeremiah and the Psalms. We’ve heard of Jeremiah’s call and his subsequent challenge to the kings and people of Judah to turn back. And of their failure to do so. And the resulting destruction and exile. We’ve sat in Saturday with them for a time as they lamented. Grieved their losses. Trapped in a place they did not want to be. Wondering how they might go on. We’ve witnessed Jeremiah’s symbolic act of hope and heard his call to the people to prosper where they were planted, even as they waited for restoration.

Today, we hear the promises of what that restoration will be. How God will restore, not only the people, but the nation and its leaders. Today, we read our last reading from Jeremiah. This work of resilience. This survival manual. This story that seeks to help Judah, and us, make sense of the wreckage of their world. 

We begin with chapter 33. 

The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill my gracious promise with the people of Israel and Judah. In those days and at that time, I will raise up a righteous branch from David’s line, who will do what is just and right in the land. In those days, Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is what he will be called: The Lord Is Our Righteousness. The Lord proclaims: David will always have one of his descendants sit on the throne of the house of Israel. And the levitical priests will always have someone in my presence to make entirely burned offerings and grain offerings, and to present sacrifices. --Jeremiah 33:14-18 (CEB).

This first passage is about leadership. It is a promise of a new shoot from an old tree. Here Jeremiah picks up a prominent theme from Isaiah, that in the grand restoration of the nation, an ideal king will come from David’s line, one who will bring about a reign of perfect justice.

Our minds immediately take us to the New Testament promise and fulfillment of The Anointed One. Jesus. Son of God. Son of Man. Yet, this covenant of which Jeremiah speaks is a continuation - not the end - of the covenant made with Israel and Moses at Sinai. It is a promise that, for Israel, David’s line will not end. That God will provide legitimate and righteous rulers - both political and religious - so that the people will once again live in safety. So that the nation can be saved. And, particularly, so that Jerusalem will be restored and will become known as a place of righteousness and justice. This is a covenant from which Israel can expect great things from God for its future leaders and for its future nation. 

But, this is not all. Because, not only is this renewed covenant between God and a nation and its leaders. It will be the old covenant reborn in a much deeper and more profound way. 

Our reading continues in chapter 31.

The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. It won’t be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant with me even though I was their husband, declares the Lord. No, this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my Instructions within them and engrave them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. They will no longer need to teach each other to say, “Know the Lord!” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord; for I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sins. --Jeremiah 31:31-34 (CEB)

This new covenant that God will create with God’s people is not radically new. It is the old covenant, reaffirmed, reasserted, and re-inaugurated, but in a deeper, more intimate, more equitable way. This relationship that it promises will be as intimate as the marriage relationship. God’s instruction will be written on the hearts of the people. So that they will know God internally. No longer will this covenant exist only on tablets of stone and require an obedience to an external rule, but it will be something that God’s people will live and breathe. It will move into their hearts and take residence within their very beings. They will know God. From the least to the greatest. No longer will any individual or group have spiritual superiority in the community. All of the members of God’s family will share equally in the dignity of their humanity. And all will participate in God’s life. Their knowledge of God will be the same as the knowledge of lovers, one for another. 

This is the gift of the book of Jeremiah - the gift of God’s Word spoken through Jeremiah. It provokes possibility and awakens within us a yearning for a better world. It breaks into the frightening aftermath of a diminishing disaster by insisting that God and God alone has the power to bring about new life and a changed world. It defends God, yet promises an intimate relationship with God - a relationship that is profound, life-altering, and life-sustaining. It promises a life for everyone that is marked by equity, by thriving, and by a radical joy that will help us to forget the bitter sorrow of the past. 

Finally, it disrupts the apathy and cynicism of the present time because it teaches us that God is the interrupting energy within the heart of the world, who breaks into our suffering, meets us where we are, then restores and leads us into a renewed place through the most mysterious Spirit of God’s incarnated, arisen and ascended Son. 

Is it any wonder that, in that new world that is about to break in, old and young, laity and priests, men and women, black and white, gay and straight, all people eat, rejoice, and dance together, singing the words of the psalmist: “All that is alive, praise. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah!”?

May we, too, join the song of praise! Amen.

Preached online July 4, 2021, with Grace & Glory Lutheran, Goshen, and Third Lutheran, Louisville.

Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Readings: Jeremiah 33:14-18, 31:31-34; Psalm 150

Not the Same Anymore: Rethinking What Happened

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. (Acts 2:14a, 36-41 NRSV)

Grace and peace to you from God, our Father, and from our resurrected Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

I think most of you know that I’ve lived in a few different places. When I was 19 years old I moved from rural, West River South Dakota to the Los Angeles-Orange County metropolitan area. In looking back as an older and more mature adult (cough! cough!) I realize what a huge cultural shift that was for me at the time. 

But I didn’t really recognize it then. I was so focused on figuring out what life looked like from day-to-day, that I didn’t really have the perspective I do now.

I lived in that area for just over 30 years. I was surrounded there by my entire immediate family--my mother, my brother, and my sister--and by a number of extended family. Over time, through either move or death, by 2008, which was the year my sister died, I was the only remaining member of my immediate family in Southern California.

It was after her death, that I began to feel a pull to move to Texas, to be reunited and to live in closer proximity to my brother and sister-in-law and their family, who had moved to Austin, Texas, some 15 years earlier.

It was quite a coincidence then, a year and a half later, that the organization I worked for announced that they were looking for someone to move to Texas to head up a new organization there. And, so, in the summer of 2010, I moved to Austin, Texas. In the three years I lived there, I was able to renew what had been a very close relationship. And, I was also able to regain another sister in my relationship with my sister-in-law, a relationship that so helped to fill the deep void left in my life left by my own sister’s death.

While I was going through all of this--the move, the re-establishing of relationships--I wasn’t really aware of why I was doing this. It was only in hindsight, that, as with my original move to California, I gained the full perspective of what was happening in my life and why. 

Has that ever happened to you? I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “Hindsight is 20/20.” Right? Sometimes when we’re in the midst of things that happen in our lives--both good and bad--we don’t fully understand everything that was happening until we are able, often with the help of friends and family, to gain a full perspective of what was happening and why. To rethink what happened.

Rethinking what happened. That is what is happening in both our Acts and our Luke lessons today. In both stories, someone is helping others rethink what happened. 

In the Luke story, the story of the two disciples on their way to Emmaus, some seven miles from Jerusalem. In that story, it is Jesus who helps them connect the dots. Who points out everything in the Hebrew scripture that refers to him. Who helps them understand. Who helps them rethink what happened. 

And, then, in the Acts lesson, which is the second half of Peter’s sermon on Pentecost. (We heard the first half last week.) It is in this sermon that Peter is the one, filled with the Holy Spirit, who connects the dots for the people of God gathered there. Those people of God, part of the Jewish diaspora, who have so acclimated to their new homelands that they have forgotten their mother tongue. Who are only able to understand because the Spirit has had to engage in a linguistic miracle that allows the disciples to preach to them in the language of their newly-adopted countries. It is the Spirit-filled Peter who helps them understand. It is Peter who helps them rethink what happened.

This is what Peter means when, after he repeatedly appeals to them to see what has happened and why it has happened, he says to them, “Repent.” Here, repentance isn’t simply about a changed behavior or a confession. At its root, it refers to a changed mind. It means embracing a new way of understanding something. Peter is telling those gathered to recognize that God is at work in Jesus Christ. And, therefore, to recognize the authority of Jesus to announce and to put in place God’s salvation. “Rethink what happened,” Peter is saying to them, “And then, imagine new possibilities in what God continues to do.”

This is nearly the same thing that Peter is saying to them when he urges them to be saved “from this corrupt generation.” In the Gospel of Luke, written by the same person who wrote Acts, Jesus speaks of a similar generation and emphasizes its condition, which is an inability to perceive God’s activity.  It is a condition that exists with us today--the inability and the unwillingness to move from our ignorance about what God has done to embracing God’s faithfulness, which is shown in Jesus Christ and is further evidenced in the arrival of the Holy Spirit. 

That is repentance. That is rethinking what happened. That is seeing, through the gift of the Holy Spirit, God’s salvation coming into our world.  It is God, in God’s faithfulness, breaking into our world and disrupting “business as usual.” So that nothing is the same anymore. 

It’s hindsight, really. The same hindsight that my friends and family helped me with--to see God’s hand at work in my own life.  It’s hindsight that comes through the Holy Spirit, who works through those who surround us. And who leads us to see God breaking into our lives and our world, disrupting the dark things. Who leads us to repentance--to changing our minds and coming to a new way of understanding--an understanding of God at work through Jesus Christ. 

And, finally, It’s the Holy Spirit who once again affirms for us God’s faithfulness. That our God is a God we can trust. That God’s disruptive activity is good. And that God’s promises are available for us. That not only were they available then for the assembled people of God. But they are here for us, too. Now.

Notice Peter’s statement near the end of this passage:  “The promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls.” The promise belongs to Peter’s Jewish audience. It belongs to his audience’s offspring. It belongs to those not yet born. It belongs to us. Here and now. 

It is the promise we heard on Easter Sunday. It is the promise Jesus helps the Emmaus disciples understand.  It is the promise we receive when we repent, when we rethink what happened. It is the promise of God’s salvation. For those who heard Peter that day. For us today. And for all whom God calls.

The promise of God’s salvation. What does that salvation look like? Well, that’s for us to explore next week.

For today, though, we give thanks. We give thanks that God is a disruptive and intrusive God. That when God breaks in, nothing is the same anymore. That through the power of the Holy Spirit we are able to rethink what happened and to see our faithful God at work in our lives and in the world.

Thanks be to God! 

Amen.

Preached April 30, 2017, at Grace and Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Third Sunday of Easter
Readings: Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19; 1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35

With gratitude to Matthew Skinner's Intrusive God, Disruptive Gospel: Encountering the Divine in the Book of Acts.

Not the Same Anymore: The Last Laugh

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know— this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power. For David says concerning him,

‘I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken;therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; moreover my flesh will live in hope.For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One experience corruption.You have made known to me the ways of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’“Fellow Israelites, I may say to you confidently of our ancestor David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would put one of his descendants on his throne. Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, saying, ‘He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh experience corruption.’This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.
(Acts 2:14a, 22-32, NRSV)

Grace and peace from God, our Father, and from our resurrected Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Welcome to Holy Hilarity Sunday!

Celebrating laughter and joy on this second Sunday of Easter is actually a long and very rich tradition in the church. There is quite a history of congregations celebrating this day, sharing jokes and fun stories, and engaging in pranks on each other.

The tradition arises from early theologians, where they reflected on the resurrection of Jesus from the dead as a huge practical joke that God played on Satan. They called it the risus paschalis, meaning the Easter laugh.

So, today, it seems especially appropriate for us to laugh and to have fun. To celebrate the pure joy of Easter in a fun way the week after we’ve celebrated it in a glorious way. To mix faith and humor and to stir them both deeply into our lives so that we might live more fully into being and sharing ourselves as joyful people of the resurrection.

This wasn’t always the case. This being joyful people of the resurrection. In those first hours and days after Jesus’ resurrection, even after Mary Magdalene had announced to the disciples that she had seen the Lord, laughter and joy and poking fun wasn’t necessarily on the minds of Jesus’ followers. They were afraid. They had gathered together in fear, not sure what would the authorities might do to them as possible accomplices to Jesus, this enemy of the state.

And, then, one can only wonder at what must have a level of bewilderment and disbelief and, yes, still fear, after hearing Mary’s announcement. Not knowing entirely what was happening. And whether what Mary told them was, in fact, true.

So, they continued to hide in fear behind locked doors.

It is there, in their fear and in their darkness, that Jesus seeks them out and meets them. Exactly where they are. Offering peace in place of fear. Offering assurance in the midst of their doubt.

It is at that point, after Mary’s witness to them and after they finally experience Jesus themselves that they, too, could fully experience joy.

But that wasn’t all there was to be. Because, it was at this point--after they had experienced the living and resurrected Jesus--that he sent them out on a mission. It is noted in our John text. It is also the story that precedes our text in Acts.

Did you hear that in both the John and Acts readings? That, before Jesus sent them out, he breathed into them the Holy Spirit?

It may seem weird to hear this at this point. Usually, from a liturgical standpoint, we reserve the outpouring (or inbreathing) of the Holy Spirit for Pentecost. And, yet, here we have it on the second Sunday of Easter--in our first reading, which is an extension of Peter’s sermon after the events of the Pentecost, after the Spirit has been poured out on the disciples gathered together, waiting. After they have begun to speak in the native languages of those listening. Even after those very listeners have begun to question the disciples’ legitimacy.

It is at this point that Peter stands up. And, just like Mary did, he witnesses. He connects the dots for them. He tells them everything that has happened and helps them to more fully understand what this means. That everything that has happened has been part of God’s plan. It’s not a second chance or God’s Plan B. It has been what God has intended for all time. That God would send God’s Son, proving to them through miracles and wonders and signs who Jesus was. That God knew that Jesus would be crucified. That God would raise him up. That God would free him from the “pain” of death. (This is the best translation for this phrase. And that the word used for pain is the same word associated with the pain of childbirth.) God would free Jesus from the “pain” of death by raising him up. It’s almost as though God was birthing a new world. Turning the world upside down. Is it any wonder then, if you remember our resurrection story from last week, that it began with an earthquake?

With Christ’s resurrection, God disrupts the world.  It is not the same anymore.

This is what happens when God disturbs business as usual. Nothing is the same anymore. This is what the gospel does. It tells the story of God bringing something new into being, something that challenges the “world,” the way things are. It is the same disruption that happens when the Gospel is preached. When we, just like Mary and Peter, witness to the Good News. Because it is then that Jesus appears and is experienced and nothing is the same anymore.

Over these weeks of Easter, this is what we will be looking at. Each week for six weeks, we will be looking at the Acts texts, which during Easter, will replace in our readings that from the Hebrew scripture. We will see how, in hindsight, God’s people witness how God disrupts the world. How God intrudes. We will see what it means for Jesus’ followers and for us to share this witness. We will watch and learn right along with those characters who inhabit the pages of Acts. That second half of the Luke gospel that begins by fixing all of our attention and expectation upon God, even as we see that people will also play a part in God’s objectives. We will see how they respond, as people who watch for God’s lead. Not as puppets, but as God’s agents, prompted to tell what they have seen. To report and to share evidence of the new realities that God has brought about through Jesus. New realities that are rooted in the past, that exist in present realities, and that connect us to the future by pointing toward the salvation that God will ultimately accomplish.

And, perhaps, just perhaps, in our listening and learning, we, here at Grace and Glory, might discover--or rediscover--the availability of God’s salvation or God’s commitment to renew and restore right here in Goshen, Kentucky. That we might see, in our midst, our resurrected Lord present, welcoming us into a new life, a resurrected life. A life of joy and laughter, a life of love and freedom, a life of peace and wholeness, a life together with him as part of the body of Christ.

That is the reality of our experience of a salvation from a disruptive God, for whom, with the resurrection nothing will ever be the same anymore. That is the basis for our joy. That is the basis for our laughter. That is why we celebrate Holy Hilarity Sunday.

And that is why we, and not death or the devil, have the last laugh.

Amen.

Preached April 23, 2017, at Grace and Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY

Second Sunday of Easter

Readings: Acts 2:14a, 22-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31