Tag Archives: worthy

Preaching, Sermons

Worthy of Wonder, a sermon for Easter – Mark 16:1-8

**The Empty Tomb by Julia Stankova (2003) painting on wooden panel

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on March 31, 2024

[sermon begins after Bible reading]

Mark 16:1-8  When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint [Jesus’ body]. 2And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

[sermon begins]

There is classic question asked by Christians over the centuries. We regularly ask, “What does this mean?” The question invites wonder. We wonder about faith, scripture, Jesus, life, love, enemies, and more. Not only do we wonder, but sometimes we disagree. The disagreement isn’t always pretty – note that there are multiple flavors of Christians. But at its best, the question opens us to curiosity and wonder – “What does this mean?” The question is quite Biblical. In our Bible story this morning, Mary Magdalene, Salome, and Mary the mother of James, were in a whole heap of wonderment, reacting to the unknown and uncontrollable, and trying to make sense of a mystery. Because that’s what humans do. That’s what we do when we’ve been through the ringer like those women. It’s good to wonder.

The events leading up to Jesus’ death were shocking. He entered Jerusalem at the top of his game, his followers lined the parade route and waved palm branches, celebrating Jesus’ entrance into the city as if nothing could stop him. But he was stopped in dramatic fashion – betrayed, arrested, charged, tortured, denied, and nailed to a cross. Not just stopped. Stopped dead. Small wonder that the women at the empty tomb couldn’t wrap their heads around it, they had watched their teacher and friend die three days before.[1] Jesus wasn’t surprised. He’d been predicting his death. His death was the inevitable end to his ministry of unconditional love and grace. Hate’s last gasp, if you will, because God’s love is that powerful. Hate will always try to do away with reckless love because it’s just too threatening to the powers that be. Love is unpredictable. Love is a wonder.

Wondering about Jesus’ death before he left behind an empty tomb helps us remember that it was not the violence of his death that redeems us. Nor was his death planned to appease an angry God or a hungry devil. Jesus’ execution was unavoidable.

While it’s hard enough to believe that there’s a God who loves you, it’s downright offensive that God loves your enemies as much as God loves you. This is what riled up the people who killed him. Even so, Jesus’ death reminds us that God will not raise a hand in violence against us, even when we try to kill God. Jesus is the incarnation of God, taking violence into himself on the cross, transforming death through SELF-sacrifice, and revealing a divine love powerful enough to leave behind an empty tomb.

Those women at the tomb, what chance did they have describing such an unexplainable, wild thing after everything they’d just gone through. It’s no surprise that they fled the tomb in terror and wonder, silenced by their own fear. On Easter, we gather in wonder alongside those women. We are not so different from them, really. Making sense of an empty tomb? What does it mean? What could it mean? The empty tomb is a wonder.

The empty tomb was so full of wonder that it silenced the women. “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” Fear and silence were their starting point, but we must assume that one of them finally broke. In the weeks, months, and years after Jesus’ birth, ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection, Jesus’ followers told the story bit by bit, sharing it with each other and then more people, and finally writing it down. Theirs was a similar process to ours. Shaky with doubt or trusting and celebratory this Easter, we seek to understand the promises of the cross and resurrection by asking what they mean. Slowly, a piece of evidence here, an observant comment there, a Bible story now aligning with a random story you heard but can’t remember where, finally an experience in your life that ties the pieces together. Our stories are a wonder.

There is a story for each of us. Of course there is, even if we don’t think of it that way. In fact, I’d guess that if I were to ask you whether your story is worthy, you may say, “yes,” but also silently wonder about whether it is truly worthy or whether you yourself are worthy. There are many messages out there that other people’s stories are more important than our own – at school, at work, on the medias, in the movies. Those messages that elevate others at the expense of our own story are lies.

Each of our stories is about a life that God so loves. If, as the Bible says, God so loves the world, and you’re in the world, your life is worthy of God’s love, and worthy of love period. There’s no Venn diagram. Just one big circle, well, more like a planet…or actually, no, bigger than a planet…let’s go with universe, yeah, that’s it, universe! You, your life, your story, no matter how beautiful or messy or messed up it may be, is worthy of the love of God. You are a wonder.

Sometimes that seems to be the hardest thing to believe – that you are worthy of love – deep down in the darkness, in whatever tomb you’ve enclosed yourself in, shrouded in the illusion of safety. The wonder of it all is that God loves you first. Before you wake up in the morning. Before you make your first move. When you make your first move. You are beloved. We make it all kinds of complicated, but it really is that simple. We cannot screw it up or alter God’s love in any way. People will try to tell you that you can. That there’s a limit to how much even God can love. But the message of the cross and the empty tomb is that there is no limit to how much God loves you. That is the Easter promise worth the wonder. Alleluia. And amen.

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[1] Mark 15:40-41

Sermons

An Ash Wednesday sermon from the Hebrew Bible in Isaiah 58:1-12

A Sermon for Ash Wednesday from the Hebrew Bible in Isaiah 58:1-12

Pastor Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on February 18, 2015

 

[sermon begins after the Bible reading from Isaiah]

Isaiah 58:1-12 Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. 2 Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God. 3 “Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. 4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. 5 Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? 6 Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? 8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. 9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, 10 if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. 11 The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. 12 Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

[sermon begins]

In the Bible reading this past Sunday, Jesus’ disciples asked each other the question, “What could this rising from the dead mean?”[1]  They asked this amongst themselves after Jesus told them that he was going to be killed and that he was going to rise again.  The question for us today on Ash Wednesday, and for the next 40 days of Lent, isn’t so much about rising from the dead – although certainly the end of the story is reassuring.  We will get to the resurrection soon enough in the Easter season.  The question for us today on Ash Wednesday, and for the next 40 days of Lent, is much more about the first part of Jesus’ teaching to his disciples about him being killed.  The question for us becomes, “What could this Jesus dying on a cross mean?”  Lent opens up space and time to ask that question.  Ash Wednesday is a moment when we begin to ask it in earnest.

Rabbi Harold Kushner talks about the desire to be taken seriously and how that plays out in our lives.  He writes, “We want to be judged because to be judged is to be taken seriously, and not to be judged is to be ignored…But at the same time we are afraid of being judged and found flawed, less than perfect, because our minds translate ‘imperfect’ to mean ‘unacceptable, not worth loving’.”[2]

The language of judgment has fallen out of favor.  You might read in an article or hear someone say, “I’m just describing that situation for now without putting a judgment on it.”  Or, after you get done telling someone about something you’ve done, the person listening to you might say, “Just sit with it for a while without judging it.”  These are often wise words that create some room around a volatile situation, ramping it down a notch or two so that necessary decisions can be made or so that a relationship might be salvaged.

However, being brought back around to something you have done or are still doing that hurts other people or yourself is exactly the kind of judgment that’s about being taken seriously.  Not taken seriously by just anyone, but taken seriously by God.  So that when you encounter sin from which you finally can’t escape, there is the hope of being taken seriously by God.

The Bible reading from Isaiah teases us with our seeming desire for God’s righteous judgment and delighting in drawing near to God.  Then Isaiah flags the ways we play this out as self-serving, losing sight of God in the process.  Isaiah begs the question, “If you’re wondering where God is in your life, is it possible that you’re pursuing the wrong things?”[3]   Ash Wednesday and Lent offer us a time when we’re able to ask this question together, accompanying each other as our flawed priorities and our very selves are marked with ash and called out as flimsy and fragile.

As you and your priorities are marked with ash, consider beginning a Lenten practice that signals a different priority.  Isaiah gives us some things to choose from including letting the oppressed go free… sharing bread with the hungry, cover the naked, not hiding yourself from your own family…removing the yoke from among you by not pointing fingers or speaking evil and meeting the needs of the afflicted.  Other options to add as a Lenten practice could include praying for others at Chapel Prayer here on Mondays mornings or Tuesdays evenings; praying for other people as a link on the Prayer Chain who receive the weekly prayer requests by e-mail; or showing up for the Making Sense of Scripture class on Tuesday mornings or Thursday evenings.  There are many more practices across the Christian tradition that could serve as a reordering of priorities during Lent.

In the meantime, like the flawed people to whom Isaiah is writing, we come together before the God who says, “Here I am.”[4]  In God’s presence there is a holy judgment.  A holy judgment that takes you seriously because you are so worth loving even, and maybe especially, when you least believe you are worth loving.  You are so worth loving that God steps into the mix to show you just how much you are worth loving.  God’s love frees us to ask the question in love, “What could this Jesus dying on a cross mean?”  Let’s spend some time over the next few weeks asking it together.


[1] Mark 9:10 – So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.

[2] Harold Kushner.  How Good Do We Have To Be? A New Understanding of Love and Forgiveness. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1996).  http://www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/howgood.html

[3] Matt Skinner on Sermon Brainwave for Ash Wednesday on February 18, 2015 at workingpreacher.org. http://www.workingpreacher.org/brainwave.aspx?podcast_id=594

[4] Isaiah 58:9 “…you shall cry for help, and [God] will say, Here I am.”