Real Resurrection
Acts 10:34-43
John 20:1-18
                                                                                              by Rev. Dr. Michael Stotts

What a difference a day makes--especially Easter! Before the first Easter day, we had no destination. With Easter there is hope. There is new life. Death is defeated! In Christ--with the Easter morn he gave us we now have . . a destination! Before, we had only wanderings--a feeling of being lost--of not really going anywhere. But Easter makes all the difference. Gives our lives a destination.

Of course in our skeptical era, some people want to say, but how can you trust in this new destination for our lives---- new life beyond--eternal life with God--that Easter reveals. Well as Christians, we begin to trust in that new life ahead-- even eternal life after death-- by first by looking for the signs. We've heard the news of Christ's resurrection, and that gives us the hope. So we start to trust in resurrection, by . . . looking for the signs. Isn't that what having a destination does for us? When you have a specific destination in mind, on a trip, what do you do to find your way? You look for the signs.

I'm reminded of the Wall Drug signs. I think I brought this for a children's time one Sunday awhile back. If you'll recall, Wall Drug, if you've been to South Dakota, as Peggy and I were this summer--Wall Drug is an actual Drug Store, but far more than that. It is a very famous Drug Store-grocery store-restaurant- clothing-store-souvenir shop, amusement t park, tourist trap all rolled into one. How did it become famous, and so large that it now takes up a whole city block? Because early in its history, when it was just a drug store, it's owners started putting these signs all over the western part of the country. As you travel in its direction, seeking to find what has peaked your interest, the signs increase, telling you you're getting closer, then lo and behold, as you arrive in Wall, South Dakota-- you find there really is such a place, in living color! And I have a witness here this morning. You've seen it, right Peg?

Well so it is with the eternal destination Christ has shown us all, this Easter Sunday--life after death, new life after our crosses. Maybe we haven't believed before, but now we see, and if we still don't believe, look for the signs and they will lead you.

For yes the signs are everywhere in our lives--if only we'll look for resurrection. Why did Mary and the disciples find the empty tomb, after all, and then see the Risen One--because first they saw the signs and began to look. The signs: the burial stone, rolled away from the opening of the tomb; the cloths--burial cloths rolled up neatly in the tomb, (if someone had stolen his body as those discovered the empty tomb first though, would the robbers have neatly placed the burial cloths there before leaving. No, and so the signs were enough to keep Mary close to the tomb, to wonder perhaps--weeping in her grief at losing him. Perhaps she wouldn't even have cried if she had read the signs more correctly.

So too do we need to look for the signs, if we are to see what is a very real part of life that God has given us--the very real fact of resurrection--in this life and beyond. Our trouble of course is--looking for the signs isn't easy today. Our world teaches us to do just the opposite, doesn't it. Like the world of our all pervasive media, where news is all bad news, and the focus is always on the latest crisis or catastrophe, rather than on the resurrecting, new life, hope -giving events that happen all the time in our world. Even Mary, first saw the empty tomb, with bad news eyes and ran in fear to tell the disciples in effect--"they've stolen him away!"

So too for us--If only instead we'd see the good news--not just the bad news, not just focussing on all the signs of all the little deaths in our lives, but the signs of new life that come after each of those little deaths--what a difference it would make.

At the prayer vigil the other night, I came across an article in the devotional materials--an issue of the Weavings magazine. The author of the article, Deborah Smith Douglas, said that she and a close friend who corre-sponded regularly by e-mail, one day decided, in their writings back and forth, to be intentional about naming, in each of their e-mail to each other, one specific blessing for which they were grateful. They had to be specific--to mention real, tangible blessings--not just generalities--(Like, the old "I am fine, how are you?") They had to be specific. And they noticed as they continued this practice over a long period of time, that it gradually reshaped the way they looked at the world. The author said, "as we deliberately sought out specific blessings in our lives, we began to see how lavishly those blessings were strewn across our paths. We began to be more grateful, more cheerful, more patient with others and ourselves.

"Gratitude, in other words, 'works.'" She said. Yes, and the practice of looking for blessings works --for signs of new life from God--little resurrections each day if you will, and soon we'll see yes--resurrection is real --it's signs of new life ahead are everywhere, if only we see them, and believe. ["Thanks Be to God", by Debora Smith Douglas, Weavings, XXXIII:2 ,pp.6-12]

So how do you look at the world? Do you see with bad news eyes, or eyes expecting to see God's new life. God is about the business of bringing new life--and yes, we see today even life after death itself! What a wonder--if only first, we'll look for the signs.

Then the wonder is, if we'll look for the signs of resurrection, we begin to experience resurrection even in the midst of some of the more difficult times in our lives. We'll see, even in the midst of times of death--God is already bringing about new life. Yes, even in even in dead times, God is brings new life.

When my mother died years ago, because she died at a relatively young age, and very suddenly, it was very much a shock, and hard on my family. There were many things that got us through that time. As just one example, after Peggy and I had gone to my parents home, to be with my father, once he'd phoned us with the news, many friends stopped by to show their care. But one in particular, a close friend, Dick Swan, who had also been my teacher and senior pastor in one of the first churches I served as a seminary student, Dick, when he heard the news, came right over to my parents home, and for some time shared his presence and his care for us. It means so much to know a friend cares at such times. That's one of God's new life signs. It also happened that while Dick was there, Peggy needed some medication. She'd begun to run out of an experimental medication the doctor had prescribed, that was very helpful for her neurological condition. But when the call had come, about my mother's death, we had left hurriedly for my parents house about an hour's drive away-- without the medication, which was being shipped to our parsonage at the time, but hadn't arrived yet. So since my friend Dick was there with us at the time, he volunteered to drive me home, to check and see if UPS had brought the medication. So we took the hours drive from Lexington to E. Bridgewater, Mass., and indeed, just as he and I rounded the corner to the street where our parsonage was, from the other direction we saw the UPS truck, that yes was headed to our house to leave off the medication.

So it went in many different ways, with many little resurrections at that time of my mother's death. And in so many ways God does that for us my friends, gives us the strength we need in the midst of the struggle or the suffering, and brings us yes through the valley even of the shadow of death, eventually to new life.

How is God reaching out for you as you're facing the little deaths of your life? Have you looked to see the signs--how the Lord is always about the busi-ness of bringing you new life? See? In our darkest times--resurrection is real! Why don't we see it more often, then? Well I guess you could say that we just haven't practiced looking for the Risen One, more often in our lives, or listening to the sound of his voice, so we'll recognize it. Mary Magdalene knew that voice--had gotten to know him over many days of walking with him, listening to his teachings and his care and love for those around him. So when did she recognize the Risen one? When she heard the sound of his voice, calling her name. How often have you practiced being in prayer with God, and knowing the sound of God's love. How often have you listened to the Risen Christ's hopeful sounds in the world around us. If we'll get to know God through a regular life of prayer, and look for Christ's rising in the new life signs all around us--we'll recognize him. We too will know the sound of his voice--telling us--resurrection--hope--new life is real, not death!

I don't know about your neighborhood, but when I was growing up, there were quite a few kids on our street; and in the summertime, when it got dark late, we used to play outside endlessly, one game after another. But of course, each day, eventually, whether at suppertime, or when our parents thought it was getting too dark for us to be out, one by one we began to hear the sounds of our parents calling us home. Do you remember those sounds in your neighborhood--the sound of your parents call for you. For my sisters and I my father had this loud whistle--I'd do it, but I never learned the loud, shrill version that he used that would carry to our ears all the way down the block--it was the loud version of a bob-white whistle -------------- Like I said, I can't do the loud version. But it was effective, instantly my sisters and I knew that supper was ready or it was time to go home to family and a warm bed. The other kids in the neighborhood also each had their calling home sounds. For one there was a kind of horseshoe dinner bell their parents rang. And I remember the mother of one of the kids had this funny kind of call --something like "whoopee!" And others just had their names called like my next door neighbor -- Larrry ! or . . Larry! --depending on whether he was in trouble or not. But for the most part everyone of the cries, or calls or calling devices fortunately in our neighborhood were loving calls--so distinctive, that it was as if even with just the whistle and the bell our own name had been called lovingly, and when it was, we knew where to go--time to go home.

Have you gotten used to hearing the call of the Risen One. Be in prayer more often, listen to the hopeful sounds, look for the signs of his presence, and God's constant new life giving ways, and you'll get to know Him--and know his resurrection is real.

Which finally then, you see, will make resurrection real--in a transforming way--for you and me. We will be resurrected. Mary Magdalene, once she knew resurrection was real--was transformed-- her joy overflowed, and she became a powerful witness to tell the world of resurrection. And so it will be, and should be for us. As we heard in Peter's sermon about resurrection in the reading from Acts this morning, we, as the followers of the Risen One, are called to be his witnesses. Not only to tell others of the constant new life--resurrection--that God brings to our lives--but to let the Risen be seen, through us.

I'm reminded of a story by Episcopal priest and spiritual director Ron Del Bene--one that also speaks well to us here. Del Bene said, "My week had been especially hectic. After three evening meetings in a row, I had to get up at five to make it to a six-thirty class at the church. Although I enjoyed teaching the class, I was tired even before I started the day. As I pulled into my parking space, a woman was cutting across the church lot. Given the earliness of the hour and the neighborhood toward which I was headed, I imagined she was a maid on her way to work. On this brisk Feb. morning she wore a plaid knit hat topped by a large pom-pom and had a wool scarf tied under her coat collar.

"As I opened my car door," said Del Bene, "our eyes met. Stifling a yawn, I said, 'Another day, another dollar.' She broke stride momentarily; and a smile, warm and as bright as spring sunshine, lit her face. With a lilt in her voice she said, 'And ain't it a blessing!' For a few moments," said the pastor,"I watched as she went her way, the pom-pom bobbing jauntily. She had probably gotten up an hour before I had, ridden the bus downtown, and transferred to a second bus to reach this neighborhood, where she would spend her day looking after other people's children or cleaning another family's house. Yet she saw the day as a blessing, and I --who so often referred to myself as a servant to the congregation --saw it as a grind.

When I got out of the car, he said, I filled my lungs with the crisp air and looked east, where the sun was just beginning to brighten the sky. "This is the day that the Lord has made ," I said to myself. And a woman whose name I did not know had reminded me to rejoice and be glad in it."

Once we know resurrection, have seen the signs in our lives, and gotten to know the Risen One, we too, you see, become witnesses--givers of new life--a resurrection people who tell others, just like the woman on her way to work: "resurrection is real!"--a constant blessing--new life, every morning for us , too!

So rejoice this day brothers and sisters in Christ! Look for the signs of resurrection, and let the Risen One--his hope, his new life, his risen Presence-- come alive in you! And you will know, and by the way you live will let the world know, too, that Resurrection is real. That He is risen! He risen indeed! Amen!