This morning at Advent Lutheran Church (ELCA) we kicked off the Easter Hope series, which will run until Penetecost.
Sermon
My message, “Easter Expectations” is based on the narrative lectionary passage: Luke 24:1-12.
You can watch below or read the manuscript.
Excerpt
I wonder about your Easter expectations. Throughout the season of Lent as we drew closer to this day, what were you preparing for? Did you have specific expectations for spending time with family or friends, for Easter baskets filled with special treats, or for continuing family traditions? Or were your expectations focused on matters of faith, including this worship service?
Some folks got up very early today to attend sunrise services. While Advent hasn’t offered a sunrise service in recent years, I think nearly everyone knows what to expect and that many here have attended at least one.
Amy Butler, a minister who often inspires me and who was the first woman to serve as the Senior Pastor of Riverside Church in New York City, tells a story about the tradition of an ecumenical sunrise service in the small town of Swift Creek, South Carolina.[1]
Year after year, on Easter Sunday, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists and more come together for a service at the cemetery. The service starts in the darkness of the early morning hours and everything transitions as the sun begins rising over the surrounding hills.
This year, attendance was higher than usual, and the energy from what felt like nearly every Christian in the area was unmistakable. Everyone was eager to join their voices in the familiar song, “Christ the Lord is Risen Today,” as the sun came up, casting a beautiful reminder of the resurrection across the morning sky.
The Lutherans led the first hymn, the Baptist preacher offered the opening prayer, and all went according to plan until it was time for the sermon, which had been assigned to the Methodists that particular year.
Since it was still rather dark, the Methodist pastor found a flashlight and tried to juggle it along with her sermon notes. Following the sermon someone else prayed, they sang a closing hymn, and yet another preacher offered the benediction.
When the service ended it was just as dark as when it had begun. It turned out that Easter fell early enough in March that year that daylight savings time had not yet arrived. No one had checked.
The good people of Swift Creek had come to celebrate the resurrection in the dark and now they headed back to their vehicles and their homes in the dark.
This memorable service left one of their Easter expectations unmet.
Easter expectations abound. Theirs and ours.
Perhaps some of your best Easter memories are from times when Easter unfolded in ways that defied or perhaps even demolished your expectations.
Maybe in some small ways this service of worship is not meeting your expectations. A service that began in darkness. A choir that is robed. A preacher that isn’t Lutheran.
But these are small shifts from what you have long expected to what is actually happening. Imagine the experience of the women on the first Easter morning . . .
[1] Amy Butler. “Can I Welcome New Life?” – https://www.patheos.com/blogs/talkwiththepreacher/2016/03/27/can-i-welcome-new-life/