What do we celebrate on Easter morning?
This year on Easter we also celebrated April Fool's, which is perhaps appropriate since being a Christian in Silicon Valley really is considered foolish – if not borderline illegal.
But even here in SV we know that Easter celebrates new life. Ask Google what Easter’s about. Google (or perhaps Palantir) is the Seer Stone Silicon Valley can get behind. Google “Easter” and its awash in pastels: it’s all babies and bunnies and brunch. The imagery of Easter is a bunny and bushels of eggs (symbols of new life).
And this is the religious message of Easter as well. On Easter morning we celebrate the happy story about new life and how things will end up after we die.
Or is it?
New Life
Let me tell you my own experience with new life.
I was in my second year of law school when we learned Ruthie was pregnant. I was something of a reluctant expectant father ‐ I worried about the cost. We were financially strapped and to save money, we had gone out to eat only one time that whole year. My kids cannot imagine that level of deprivation. Barbaric! To save money, we had a goal (or at least I had a goal) to not turn on the heat in our apartment until January (although we lived in Connecticut when average low was 26 degrees; think thick blankets!).
Then there were Ruthies’ extravagant desires – she wanted to buy a crib! A crib? Are you serious? Needless luxury – I knew perfectly well that a spare laundry basket would do the job. But no, Ruthie was set on the model 10K10 from ToyLand – I still know the name and approximate price. She spoke of that great crib reverently and in hushed tones and we made weekly pilgrimages to its Toyland Temple on the Post Road.
I was also worried about the demands that a baby would make on my time.
And then, one morning, a red‐headed baby boy arrived – my wife became a mother and suddenly, nothing else mattered. I was satisfied beyond words. I felt I had won the game. The years of anxiety about what to do and who I should become and how to save money just evaporated.
Here’s a quote from my journal that month:
" I have never been happier, more content ... each day is song and dance and laughter. I feel like I've finally crossed the finished line...... no more "if onlys", no more struggle to get things right or straight ... I've feel as if I just cracked the safe – as if my life has been spent twisting the dial and struggling and yearning to hear the tumblers, not quite sure what to listen for and not sure if I’ve already heard it – when suddenly, the right number came up – the tumblers slipped softly into place, the door opened and we are in milk and honey."
Now. I’m not sure now that imagery works (safes and milk and honey) but you get the point. New life arrived and so had the end of my troubles.
You can also guess what came next. Surprise! New life was the end of my troubles – but only in the way that my father’s best friend told me on my wedding day: “Congratulations, you’ve have reached the end of your troubles, but I won’t tell you which end.”
My son has brought me enormous happiness – he’s grown into a wonderful loving young man and I’m enormously proud of him – but fatherhood proved painful. It wasn’t the end of my troubles I thought it was: I suffered when that little boy suffered – when he skinned his knee, or worse when he felt lonely or doubted himself. More than the cost of the fancy crib we of course ended up buying, fatherhood was costly – it made personal demands on me far beyond what I’d expected.
So, let’s get back to Easter.
We celebrate Easter as new life – and it is and it’s wonderful, but Easter and Christ’s atonement are not a happy story about how things turn out at the end. For me, the message of Easter is not “Hooray, we get to live again and go live with Jesus when it’s all over.”
Easter is a story about where we are headed as disciples – but it isn’t all bunnies and brunch. It's joyful, but it is also sobering and makes enormous demands on us.
In John’s gospel, the very first words Christ speaks are an invitation to come, to follow him. Jesus extends this invitation twice in John chapter 1 just to make sure we get the point: we should follow Christ. (John 1:39, 43)
So today I want to make two points – (1) we are to follow him into Gethsemane and (2) we are to follow him on into the Resurrection. I want to say a little about what each of those means.
The First Easter
Let’s start with the tough part: We are to follow Christ into Gethsemane.
The point of Easter is that Christ defeated death. He came back for the disciples full of life and He will come back for you and me. I believe that with my whole soul.
But the Easter story also tells us that, if you follow Christ, there will be times you feel only pain and darkness and abandoned. The Easter story has joy, but it assumes – no, it's built on – a foundation of real pain – faith‐shaking, startling, confusing, disorienting sadness and personal anguish, defeat and loss. Easter is serious business.
You might think I exaggerate. Ruthie tells me I do sometimes. But I don’t think I do here. One way to see this is to ask what Easter meant for Christ’s first followers. What was Easter like for Christ’s disciples? Put yourself in their shoes (or sandals).
They had followed him from the beginning. They left home, jobs, families, and financial security. Why? Because they heard his voice and trusted in him and in the Kingdom of Heaven that He promised was at hand. They trusted in the prophecies and believed God was keeping his ancient promise to send a Messiah. They said their prayers, they’d gone on missions, and stayed true when His teachings were difficult or publicly embarrassing.
They did all this all because they had faith that Jesus was the promised Messiah who would rescue them from pagan rule.
And then it all came crashing down. The life the disciples had hoped for and planned on, sacrificed for and left home for, all vanished. Their life and future and hope were shattered because, in the most shameful, humiliating, horrible, painful and public way possible, Jesus was murdered by the pagans the Messiah was supposed to defeat. Jesus’ death meant for them that he wasn’t the Messiah after all.
And, as Jesus himself said on the cross, let us say this reverently, he’d been forsaken by God at the end and was killed.
They had seen with their own eyes that God’s power had failed them in the key moment. You have to see that. God was gone and they were alone and afraid. And so they scatter and hide. Find me in the story the disciple who says at this point: hang in there, it’s going to work out, it’ll all be ok. It isn’t there!
The disciples felt betrayed and with good cause – they had been!
They’re so crushed that, when glimmers of hope and light appear, the disciples snuff them out. They are told by Mary that He is alive – but they reject it and don’t believe her. It’s not just Thomas who doubts, all of the disciples doubt when told He’s alive. All of them refuse to believe unless they see for themselves. And then even when they see him on the road or on the shore in Galilee, they don’t recognize Him. They’d lost hope.
Why this matters
Now, why am I going on like this about their loss and confusion and the apparent failure of God’s promises?
Because we need to understand the whole Easter story. We are called to follow Christ into Gethsemane. And that involves surprising pain and sometimes you will feel alone and abandoned. Christ did – and so did his disciples. We should not expect anything different for ourselves.
In fact, that’s how it worked for the disciples on both continents. We don’t have time, but sometime later go back and take a look at 3rd Nephi in the Book of Mormon if you want an account for how Christ comes – he arrives with healing in his wings to embrace every person, one by one – but he comes only after days of destruction, death, and absolute, complete and total darkness; after everything the Nephites have built collapses and lies in ruins at their feet.
Of course there is Easter Morning – the empty Tomb, and the risen Lord. Jesus will come. He absolutely will come. But he may not come until you’ve gone through real pain and disappointment, when you look around and see, it seems, that God has let you down and your faith begins to fail you.
There will be Easter morning – but first there will be Easter mourning.
There will be sadness and weeping and real darkness. So, yes, Easter is about new life and our new life as Christ’s disciples. But new life is painful. And are called to follow Christ, including into Gethsemane. And that involves surprising pain and sometimes you will feel alone and abandoned. Christ did – and so did his disciples and we should not expect anything different for ourselves.
So here’s the point: if life isn’t turning out like you wanted, if you feel disappointed by God, surprised by pain and your faith is failing, if things aren’t turning out like you thought the scriptures promised they would – don’t throw it all away. Don’t decide that Easter story is wrong or not your story and seek solace in the bosom of a lesser god.
It may be that, like Mary in her sorrow and darkness, you just do not hear the comfort that heaven’s angels speak. You may just think yourself abandoned, when God’s own son stands beside you as He stood by disciples on the Road to Emmaus. Like them, you may not recognize the new life Christ has for you.
If you’re experiencing pain and sadness, if you think you’ve been abandoned by God or man, don’t be confused – don’t assume you’re in uncharted waters – you’re in the Easter story. This IS the Easter story. It’s just not the end of the Easter story. Hang in. You’re in the Easter story, you’re just not at the end of the Easter story.
He IS coming. He absolutely positively does come in the end.
So, let’s talk about the end of the Easter Story.
The Resurrection
How does the Easter story end in John? It’s Stanford, so let’s have a quiz: what are Christ’s last words? I told you his first words– “come see, follow me.” A double invitation. But what were his last words?
They are, and here I quote John 21: 22: “Follow thou me.” And do you know his penultimate words were? (verse 19) “Follow me.” Just to make sure we get the point – he’s repeated it.
Follow him? Where? Well, where had he been? He had been into Gethsemane and on into the Resurrection. We’ve talked about following him into Gethsemane – but how do we follow him into the Resurrection? What might that mean?
I have three possible answers and a suggestion.
Do what he did
The first possible answer is that is that we should follow him by doing what He did as a resurrected being. We don’t know exactly what he did, but we do know a fair amount. And from what we know, he didn’t retire to some distant resort in the universe, put his feet up and wait to get fitted for his throne.
What did he do?
a. He visited spirits in prison
b. He visited people who were afraid to go outside and hiding behind locked doors (the disciples) and brought them peace.
c. And he read scriptures with disappointed travelers and built their faith.
d. He made meals for and fed other people. On the shores of the Sea of Galilee, he built them a fire, caught and cooked fish for the disciples and invited them to come eat. He broke bread with disciples several other times. I count at least three different times.
e. What else? Well, we know from 3 Nephi that he visited people in America who were grieving the deaths of loved ones. We can do that.
f. He also visited the sick and lame and blind and he brought them the sacrament.
So, we can follow Jesus into the resurrection by doing the things he did after he was resurrected. Maybe you and I can’t heal them but we can darn well visit them.
Resurrection Work
A second answer is that Christ invites us to participate in the work of resurrection understood more broadly. Christ wasn’t resurrected to just sit on a throne, but to build the Kingdom of God and help bring about God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That’s the work of resurrection, to bring the Kingdom of God to earth to help people live together in love.
Read 4th Nephi for a description of the society the resurrection can create: it ends poverty and class division and tribalism and division of every kind; it ends racism and pride and contention and selfishness. That’s resurrection, kingdom building work and you and I can work here and now to do that and help end those divisions rather than just sitting by to watch the conflict and wait for heaven to be happy.
For early Christians, NT Wright tells us, the resurrection was about living a new life here and now, being transformed by Christ and helping others live as He did, even more than it was about going to heaven after we die.
So, if you’re through (for now) the pain and doubt of your Gethsemane – great! Follow Christ and do what He did. Go to your Father in Heaven. Worshipfully enter his holy presence – at the temple and the sacrament table and go to your Father in secret prayer. Worshipfully return, report, and then go and try to heal others. Heal wounds, emotional, spiritual and physical where you can.
You, like his disciples in Acts, then join in the work of Christ’s resurrection. Like Peter, you can say to those wounded or lame outside of the temple, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.” (Acts 3:6). Rise up. Those are resurrection words and we participate in that work when we connect with our Father in Heaven and then seek to bless His children.
And the good news is that joining in the work of resurrection means that we can be optimistic because our efforts will in the end be successful. Our efforts to help others, to love, include, build faith, will in the end be raised up and redeemed, they will “live” and be effective though they appear to die in failure today.
We are part of the work of the resurrection. And I’m suggesting that we are to understand that work broadly. But, lest you think I’m overreaching, remember that Mormon doctrine includes hints that this is literally true and not just a metaphor. Prophets have taught that resurrection is an ordinance and power that will be delegated and, like all other ordinances, will performed for other people.1
Sunday
[Rough] A third way to follow Jesus is to remember and honor the Sabbath day. The Sabbath is a weekly opportunity to remember and reenact resurrection: he rose on Sunday. Emphasizing the connection between resurrection and God’s power to save us from the pain, disaster and death that awaits us, the early church took the enormous step of changing the day of the week to honor as that Sabbath day – one of the 10 commandments given to Moses – to Sunday rather than Saturday. This was an enormous change.
Rabbi Abraham Heschel says that some religions build great cathedrals or temples, but Judaism constructs the Sabbath as an architecture of time. "The Sabbaths are our great cathedrals." (The Sabbath, p. 8.) As we enter the Sabbath day as a temple of time, we are not to seek only quiet solitude, but to spend time as he did on the day He arose. We do that by participating in the work of Christ, which was “to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?”
1 Spencer W. Kimball, Our Great Potential, April Conference, 1977.
On Sunday we remember the death and resurrection of Christ by taking the sacrament and remembering our own baptism, which points us to our own death and resurrection. In Paul’s words:
4 ... we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
6 Knowing this, that our old man [former self] is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. . . .
11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
And this is what I think the Sabbath is all about. It, like the sacrament and baptism, is a commemoration, a reenactment, of a key moment in Christ's life, His resurrection. It is a weekly invitation to relive His resurrection morn, the most important day in the history of the world. But it’s a day that was preceded by suffering. We cannot live Christ's life all day, every day of the week. We have to go to work and do those things necessary to survive in a fallen world. But on Sunday we are invited to spend the day to continue the work of the resurrection, blessing, healing, feeding, visiting and blessing the ill and marginalized.
Conclusion
Easter is about new life as disciples. But it’s a sober message. He absolutely positive does come in the end to bring life. But don’t be surprised if, even as a disciple, trying to be faithful, you feel abandoned and your hopes collapse. That’s part of the Easter story. It’s just not the end of the Easter story. There is Easter mourning before there is Easter morning. The Good News is so good in part because at some time, we all get such bad news.
Moreover, though life as a disciple will be more demanding than we expect, we will find new faith and life when, like the disciples in Acts, we get to work and join the resurrected Christ in his work, serving and trying to bring life to others.
I’ll end with an image. At the end of John’s gospel, Christ says “Follow me” and then disappears. Where did he go? John doesn’t say. It’s not quite like a divine game of hide and seek, but I like to imagine that he said follow me, perhaps gestured, and then turns and leaves.
But where? Well, John doesn’t say – he is inviting you to figure it out. Where is Christ inviting you to follow? Where will he take you? Go find out. Seek and ye shall find.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
This year on Easter we also celebrated April Fool's, which is perhaps appropriate since being a Christian in Silicon Valley really is considered foolish – if not borderline illegal.
But even here in SV we know that Easter celebrates new life. Ask Google what Easter’s about. Google (or perhaps Palantir) is the Seer Stone Silicon Valley can get behind. Google “Easter” and its awash in pastels: it’s all babies and bunnies and brunch. The imagery of Easter is a bunny and bushels of eggs (symbols of new life).
And this is the religious message of Easter as well. On Easter morning we celebrate the happy story about new life and how things will end up after we die.
Or is it?
New Life
Let me tell you my own experience with new life.
I was in my second year of law school when we learned Ruthie was pregnant. I was something of a reluctant expectant father ‐ I worried about the cost. We were financially strapped and to save money, we had gone out to eat only one time that whole year. My kids cannot imagine that level of deprivation. Barbaric! To save money, we had a goal (or at least I had a goal) to not turn on the heat in our apartment until January (although we lived in Connecticut when average low was 26 degrees; think thick blankets!).
Then there were Ruthies’ extravagant desires – she wanted to buy a crib! A crib? Are you serious? Needless luxury – I knew perfectly well that a spare laundry basket would do the job. But no, Ruthie was set on the model 10K10 from ToyLand – I still know the name and approximate price. She spoke of that great crib reverently and in hushed tones and we made weekly pilgrimages to its Toyland Temple on the Post Road.
I was also worried about the demands that a baby would make on my time.
And then, one morning, a red‐headed baby boy arrived – my wife became a mother and suddenly, nothing else mattered. I was satisfied beyond words. I felt I had won the game. The years of anxiety about what to do and who I should become and how to save money just evaporated.
Here’s a quote from my journal that month:
" I have never been happier, more content ... each day is song and dance and laughter. I feel like I've finally crossed the finished line...... no more "if onlys", no more struggle to get things right or straight ... I've feel as if I just cracked the safe – as if my life has been spent twisting the dial and struggling and yearning to hear the tumblers, not quite sure what to listen for and not sure if I’ve already heard it – when suddenly, the right number came up – the tumblers slipped softly into place, the door opened and we are in milk and honey."
Now. I’m not sure now that imagery works (safes and milk and honey) but you get the point. New life arrived and so had the end of my troubles.
You can also guess what came next. Surprise! New life was the end of my troubles – but only in the way that my father’s best friend told me on my wedding day: “Congratulations, you’ve have reached the end of your troubles, but I won’t tell you which end.”
My son has brought me enormous happiness – he’s grown into a wonderful loving young man and I’m enormously proud of him – but fatherhood proved painful. It wasn’t the end of my troubles I thought it was: I suffered when that little boy suffered – when he skinned his knee, or worse when he felt lonely or doubted himself. More than the cost of the fancy crib we of course ended up buying, fatherhood was costly – it made personal demands on me far beyond what I’d expected.
So, let’s get back to Easter.
We celebrate Easter as new life – and it is and it’s wonderful, but Easter and Christ’s atonement are not a happy story about how things turn out at the end. For me, the message of Easter is not “Hooray, we get to live again and go live with Jesus when it’s all over.”
Easter is a story about where we are headed as disciples – but it isn’t all bunnies and brunch. It's joyful, but it is also sobering and makes enormous demands on us.
In John’s gospel, the very first words Christ speaks are an invitation to come, to follow him. Jesus extends this invitation twice in John chapter 1 just to make sure we get the point: we should follow Christ. (John 1:39, 43)
So today I want to make two points – (1) we are to follow him into Gethsemane and (2) we are to follow him on into the Resurrection. I want to say a little about what each of those means.
The First Easter
Let’s start with the tough part: We are to follow Christ into Gethsemane.
The point of Easter is that Christ defeated death. He came back for the disciples full of life and He will come back for you and me. I believe that with my whole soul.
But the Easter story also tells us that, if you follow Christ, there will be times you feel only pain and darkness and abandoned. The Easter story has joy, but it assumes – no, it's built on – a foundation of real pain – faith‐shaking, startling, confusing, disorienting sadness and personal anguish, defeat and loss. Easter is serious business.
You might think I exaggerate. Ruthie tells me I do sometimes. But I don’t think I do here. One way to see this is to ask what Easter meant for Christ’s first followers. What was Easter like for Christ’s disciples? Put yourself in their shoes (or sandals).
They had followed him from the beginning. They left home, jobs, families, and financial security. Why? Because they heard his voice and trusted in him and in the Kingdom of Heaven that He promised was at hand. They trusted in the prophecies and believed God was keeping his ancient promise to send a Messiah. They said their prayers, they’d gone on missions, and stayed true when His teachings were difficult or publicly embarrassing.
They did all this all because they had faith that Jesus was the promised Messiah who would rescue them from pagan rule.
And then it all came crashing down. The life the disciples had hoped for and planned on, sacrificed for and left home for, all vanished. Their life and future and hope were shattered because, in the most shameful, humiliating, horrible, painful and public way possible, Jesus was murdered by the pagans the Messiah was supposed to defeat. Jesus’ death meant for them that he wasn’t the Messiah after all.
And, as Jesus himself said on the cross, let us say this reverently, he’d been forsaken by God at the end and was killed.
They had seen with their own eyes that God’s power had failed them in the key moment. You have to see that. God was gone and they were alone and afraid. And so they scatter and hide. Find me in the story the disciple who says at this point: hang in there, it’s going to work out, it’ll all be ok. It isn’t there!
The disciples felt betrayed and with good cause – they had been!
They’re so crushed that, when glimmers of hope and light appear, the disciples snuff them out. They are told by Mary that He is alive – but they reject it and don’t believe her. It’s not just Thomas who doubts, all of the disciples doubt when told He’s alive. All of them refuse to believe unless they see for themselves. And then even when they see him on the road or on the shore in Galilee, they don’t recognize Him. They’d lost hope.
Why this matters
Now, why am I going on like this about their loss and confusion and the apparent failure of God’s promises?
Because we need to understand the whole Easter story. We are called to follow Christ into Gethsemane. And that involves surprising pain and sometimes you will feel alone and abandoned. Christ did – and so did his disciples. We should not expect anything different for ourselves.
In fact, that’s how it worked for the disciples on both continents. We don’t have time, but sometime later go back and take a look at 3rd Nephi in the Book of Mormon if you want an account for how Christ comes – he arrives with healing in his wings to embrace every person, one by one – but he comes only after days of destruction, death, and absolute, complete and total darkness; after everything the Nephites have built collapses and lies in ruins at their feet.
Of course there is Easter Morning – the empty Tomb, and the risen Lord. Jesus will come. He absolutely will come. But he may not come until you’ve gone through real pain and disappointment, when you look around and see, it seems, that God has let you down and your faith begins to fail you.
There will be Easter morning – but first there will be Easter mourning.
There will be sadness and weeping and real darkness. So, yes, Easter is about new life and our new life as Christ’s disciples. But new life is painful. And are called to follow Christ, including into Gethsemane. And that involves surprising pain and sometimes you will feel alone and abandoned. Christ did – and so did his disciples and we should not expect anything different for ourselves.
So here’s the point: if life isn’t turning out like you wanted, if you feel disappointed by God, surprised by pain and your faith is failing, if things aren’t turning out like you thought the scriptures promised they would – don’t throw it all away. Don’t decide that Easter story is wrong or not your story and seek solace in the bosom of a lesser god.
It may be that, like Mary in her sorrow and darkness, you just do not hear the comfort that heaven’s angels speak. You may just think yourself abandoned, when God’s own son stands beside you as He stood by disciples on the Road to Emmaus. Like them, you may not recognize the new life Christ has for you.
If you’re experiencing pain and sadness, if you think you’ve been abandoned by God or man, don’t be confused – don’t assume you’re in uncharted waters – you’re in the Easter story. This IS the Easter story. It’s just not the end of the Easter story. Hang in. You’re in the Easter story, you’re just not at the end of the Easter story.
He IS coming. He absolutely positively does come in the end.
So, let’s talk about the end of the Easter Story.
The Resurrection
How does the Easter story end in John? It’s Stanford, so let’s have a quiz: what are Christ’s last words? I told you his first words– “come see, follow me.” A double invitation. But what were his last words?
They are, and here I quote John 21: 22: “Follow thou me.” And do you know his penultimate words were? (verse 19) “Follow me.” Just to make sure we get the point – he’s repeated it.
Follow him? Where? Well, where had he been? He had been into Gethsemane and on into the Resurrection. We’ve talked about following him into Gethsemane – but how do we follow him into the Resurrection? What might that mean?
I have three possible answers and a suggestion.
Do what he did
The first possible answer is that is that we should follow him by doing what He did as a resurrected being. We don’t know exactly what he did, but we do know a fair amount. And from what we know, he didn’t retire to some distant resort in the universe, put his feet up and wait to get fitted for his throne.
What did he do?
a. He visited spirits in prison
b. He visited people who were afraid to go outside and hiding behind locked doors (the disciples) and brought them peace.
c. And he read scriptures with disappointed travelers and built their faith.
d. He made meals for and fed other people. On the shores of the Sea of Galilee, he built them a fire, caught and cooked fish for the disciples and invited them to come eat. He broke bread with disciples several other times. I count at least three different times.
e. What else? Well, we know from 3 Nephi that he visited people in America who were grieving the deaths of loved ones. We can do that.
f. He also visited the sick and lame and blind and he brought them the sacrament.
So, we can follow Jesus into the resurrection by doing the things he did after he was resurrected. Maybe you and I can’t heal them but we can darn well visit them.
Resurrection Work
A second answer is that Christ invites us to participate in the work of resurrection understood more broadly. Christ wasn’t resurrected to just sit on a throne, but to build the Kingdom of God and help bring about God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That’s the work of resurrection, to bring the Kingdom of God to earth to help people live together in love.
Read 4th Nephi for a description of the society the resurrection can create: it ends poverty and class division and tribalism and division of every kind; it ends racism and pride and contention and selfishness. That’s resurrection, kingdom building work and you and I can work here and now to do that and help end those divisions rather than just sitting by to watch the conflict and wait for heaven to be happy.
For early Christians, NT Wright tells us, the resurrection was about living a new life here and now, being transformed by Christ and helping others live as He did, even more than it was about going to heaven after we die.
So, if you’re through (for now) the pain and doubt of your Gethsemane – great! Follow Christ and do what He did. Go to your Father in Heaven. Worshipfully enter his holy presence – at the temple and the sacrament table and go to your Father in secret prayer. Worshipfully return, report, and then go and try to heal others. Heal wounds, emotional, spiritual and physical where you can.
You, like his disciples in Acts, then join in the work of Christ’s resurrection. Like Peter, you can say to those wounded or lame outside of the temple, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.” (Acts 3:6). Rise up. Those are resurrection words and we participate in that work when we connect with our Father in Heaven and then seek to bless His children.
And the good news is that joining in the work of resurrection means that we can be optimistic because our efforts will in the end be successful. Our efforts to help others, to love, include, build faith, will in the end be raised up and redeemed, they will “live” and be effective though they appear to die in failure today.
We are part of the work of the resurrection. And I’m suggesting that we are to understand that work broadly. But, lest you think I’m overreaching, remember that Mormon doctrine includes hints that this is literally true and not just a metaphor. Prophets have taught that resurrection is an ordinance and power that will be delegated and, like all other ordinances, will performed for other people.1
Sunday
[Rough] A third way to follow Jesus is to remember and honor the Sabbath day. The Sabbath is a weekly opportunity to remember and reenact resurrection: he rose on Sunday. Emphasizing the connection between resurrection and God’s power to save us from the pain, disaster and death that awaits us, the early church took the enormous step of changing the day of the week to honor as that Sabbath day – one of the 10 commandments given to Moses – to Sunday rather than Saturday. This was an enormous change.
Rabbi Abraham Heschel says that some religions build great cathedrals or temples, but Judaism constructs the Sabbath as an architecture of time. "The Sabbaths are our great cathedrals." (The Sabbath, p. 8.) As we enter the Sabbath day as a temple of time, we are not to seek only quiet solitude, but to spend time as he did on the day He arose. We do that by participating in the work of Christ, which was “to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?”
1 Spencer W. Kimball, Our Great Potential, April Conference, 1977.
On Sunday we remember the death and resurrection of Christ by taking the sacrament and remembering our own baptism, which points us to our own death and resurrection. In Paul’s words:
4 ... we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
6 Knowing this, that our old man [former self] is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. . . .
11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.
And this is what I think the Sabbath is all about. It, like the sacrament and baptism, is a commemoration, a reenactment, of a key moment in Christ's life, His resurrection. It is a weekly invitation to relive His resurrection morn, the most important day in the history of the world. But it’s a day that was preceded by suffering. We cannot live Christ's life all day, every day of the week. We have to go to work and do those things necessary to survive in a fallen world. But on Sunday we are invited to spend the day to continue the work of the resurrection, blessing, healing, feeding, visiting and blessing the ill and marginalized.
Conclusion
Easter is about new life as disciples. But it’s a sober message. He absolutely positive does come in the end to bring life. But don’t be surprised if, even as a disciple, trying to be faithful, you feel abandoned and your hopes collapse. That’s part of the Easter story. It’s just not the end of the Easter story. There is Easter mourning before there is Easter morning. The Good News is so good in part because at some time, we all get such bad news.
Moreover, though life as a disciple will be more demanding than we expect, we will find new faith and life when, like the disciples in Acts, we get to work and join the resurrected Christ in his work, serving and trying to bring life to others.
I’ll end with an image. At the end of John’s gospel, Christ says “Follow me” and then disappears. Where did he go? John doesn’t say. It’s not quite like a divine game of hide and seek, but I like to imagine that he said follow me, perhaps gestured, and then turns and leaves.
But where? Well, John doesn’t say – he is inviting you to figure it out. Where is Christ inviting you to follow? Where will he take you? Go find out. Seek and ye shall find.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Robert Daines
Palo Alto, California
April 10, 2018
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