On this Day
Psalm 118:24[1]
On this day we come together to
celebrate the heart of our faith: that Jesus lives! It is something that may be
difficult for us to wrap our heads around. We can understand sacrificing
oneself for the sake of others. Most of us have been called upon to do just
that for the sake of the people in our lives we love and care about. But none
of us has any first-hand experience with resurrection—at least not literally.
We may have known someone who has had a “near-death” experience. But there is
simply nothing in our experience of this world that gives us a basis for
grasping the idea that a person who was dead—not for minutes, but for over 36
hours—somehow came back to life.
That doesn’t bother me too much,
though, because I know that there are some elements of our faith that we may
never understand. But while I may never be able to explain the resurrection of
Jesus from death to life, I can experience the risen Lord in and through my
life. I can sense the presence of the Spirit, I can feel Jesus’ impulse to
compassion, and I can enjoy the freedom of faith and hope in the God who is
always here. At the end of the day, I think that’s what Easter is about. When
we experience the presence and power of God in our lives, it is the same Spirit
that the disciples encountered in Jesus of Nazareth. And the reason we
celebrate the resurrection on Easter Sunday is because that same Spirit of the
risen Christ lives in you and in me and in all who have the experience of his
continuing presence.
The Psalmist celebrated a kind of
death-to-life renewal. He spoke of being in distress, of being surrounded on
every side (Ps. 118:5, 10-11). The Psalmist spoke of being “pushed hard” to the
point of falling (Ps. 118:13). The language suggests the setting of battle, but
I’m not sure we should take that literally. Whether he was at the crucial point
of a battle, at the point where it could have gone either way, or simply at a
critical turning point in his life, he felt as if he could have been defeated.
It’s in that setting that the Psalmist affirms, “The LORD is my strength and my
might; he has become my salvation” (Ps. 118:14). Like a piece of stone that had
been cast aside as worthless, only to be retrieved later as the most important
building block that holds the rest of the structure together, the Psalmist
rejoices that he has been delivered from whatever it was that threatened him.
And so he rejoices that “This is
the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps. 118:24).
That’s the way most translations put it. But if we pay attention to the
sequence, it seems like there’s more to this verse than just celebrating God’s
hand in each day. This is a special day. The rejected one has been raised to
the place of highest honor. In response the Psalmist says, “This is the Lord's
doing; it is marvelous in our eyes” (Ps. 118:23). One of the features of the
Psalms is that verses are parallel with each other. Sometimes to point out a
contrast. Here, I think it is for emphasis. And so that familiar verse probably
shouldn’t be read as “this is the day the Lord has made,” but rather “on this
day the Lord has done it; let us rejoice and be glad in what he has done.” It’s
a celebration of an act so unexpected, so unique, and so “marvelous” that all
we can do is to celebrate what God has done with joy and gladness.
I think that’s what Easter is
about. It’s a celebration that on this day, all those years ago, God acted
decisively to break the break the power of everything that threatens to enslave
or oppress or distort or destroy our humanity. It’s a celebration that, on this
day, God took all our pain and sorrow and suffering and sadness and loss and
death and turned it all into new life. Easter is a celebration of the new life
that came into being on this day and that it will one day transform everything
and everyone. It is a celebration that, on this day, God acted in a
decisive way to demonstrate that he is constantly working to restore the whole
creation to the place where it is once again “very good.”
Simply put, because the Spirit of
Easter is alive and well in this community of faith, I believe in a God who is
working to bring grace and peace and mercy and love and joy and life into every
life. And we experience that
“marvelous” work of God in our own lives as we know the continuing
presence of Jesus in all our lives. It means that for us, “Jesus is the light
in our darkness, the bread that satisfies our hunger, the vine that is the
source of our life, the healer who makes us whole … .”[2]
Not “Jesus was,” but “Jesus is.” Easter
is like a promise that points toward a future filled with hope and joy and love
and life. But it is a promise that we
can all begin to experience right here and right now because Jesus is alive and
well in us all. Although we may never
understand all that Easter means, because Jesus is alive and well in us, on
this day, we can celebrate what God is doing in and through us.
[1] ©2020 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan
Brehm on 4/12/2020 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
[2] Borg, Heart of Christianity, 88.
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