Being Coloured In

This sermon can be listened to here

 Gate Pa: Easter Sunday 2022.

Readings:
First Reading:          Acts 10:34-43                      Bible Page 895
Second Reading:     1 Cor 15:19-26                    Bible Page 936
Gospel:                      Luke 24:1-12                       Bible Page 860

What I want to say:

    *        watch the holy moly movie on resurrection
*        What does it mean to be coloured in?
*        ancient church – all about cleaving to God as those loved by God as mother “cleaves” to her mother.
*        How do we respond to that?
o   with where are we in this story?
*        Reaffirm our Baptism – statement that our self identity and self worth is found in the God who is love, who loves us as something of great worth and dignity by an act of such self giving, and who through this gives us the grace to love God in like fashion

The Sermon:

1.     Introduction:

How are you going this Easter?
It has been a tiring couple of years, especially last 7 months
-         Covid lockdowns and restrictions – which we support; and all the reactions to that
-         the war in Ukraine , which seems much closer to home than other wars
-         and the impact climate change making itself known
All of this invites us to join those traumatised disciples on that first Easter
-         the men hiding away in their grief and fear
-         the women acting out their grief and loss by attending to the body, as they had so many times before with other deaths. Although none of those had been as traumatic is this one
So where are you in this story this Easter?
What does Easter have to offer us in all this?

2.     Being coloured in

One of the ways Easter is described is in terms of salvation. But I wonder what might we mean by that?
In church of first thousand years, and in the eastern church today, salvation is  often described using the image of child snuggling into her mother. Salvation is cleaving/snuggling close to God
To be saved is to know that we are created in image God, and to know that we are loved by God. And because we are loved we are able to cleave  to God as a child snuggles to a mother
But we forget  who God is and who we are
The original sin is that we forgot
o   that God is love
o   that God created us in love
o   and that God invites us to live in that love
The whole story of Jesus reminds us that we are held in this profound love. The birth, life, ministry and teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, especially the death and resurrection  – Easter – teaches us of the God who holds us in such high regard that God gave all so that we could be freed from the results of our forgetfulness, our sin. In Jesus we are reminded that we are made in image of God of love, and that we are of the utmost importance to God
That’s what it means to be saved - to know that we are held in love by God as a child is held by her parent
we are coloured in with the life of God
-         knowing that our sin of forgetfulness is always forgiven
Easter is all about seeing how important we are to God, how important we ALL are to God, and hearing the invitation to live our lives so that all are reminded we are all made in image God of love, and all might know how important they are to God

3.     I wonder how you respond to all of that?

So I wonder how you respond to all of that?
However you respond I think we can find ourselves in today’s gospel reading from Luke.
-         some of us will be like the male disciples – and simply find this as nonsense
-         some will be like those first preachers of the gospel,  the women who went to the tomb, and who told what they saw without really understanding. And they lived it out anyway
-         some will be like Peter who really didn’t believe the women, but wanted to know more and was left wondering

4.     Response

Where are you in this story?
What is your response to that
 

5.     Baptism

We are about to reaffirm our baptismal vows. When we do that we are doing two things. Firstly, we are declaring Gods profound love for us and deep commitment to us. And we are also declaring our desire that the most important thing in our lives is the great worth and love God holds us in, and our desire to cleave or snuggle into God so that we will base our identity in that above all else
Then let us declare The God of Easter and the love of our lives and baptism.