Easter sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, April 20, 2025.
On Easter Sunday 20 years ago I woke up on a couch at the First Parish in Lincoln, Mass.; it was the church where I did my internship. They do an Easter sunrise service there, which I’d offered to lead—because when was I ever going to get that chance again? That chilly morning maybe 20 of us, and a number of dogs, gathered at the top of a gentle hill just around the corner from the church.
It had been a cold winter and a reluctant spring, so there were still traces of snow in the shadowy places. There we were, standing on the frosty ground, hearing the old story of the empty tomb. As as the sun rose over the tree line, it illuminated and warmed our faces.
And this for me is an enduring image of Easter, and of our lives. We live, at least part of the time, in the cold and struggle and shadows. And yet, we have these companions that gather ‘round and help get us through. And the sun keeps rising, and we keep turning our faces toward that light. Isn’t this what it means to be alive? And what it means to be a person of faith? Oscar Wilde said, “We’re all on the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
In a world of pain and suffering and betrayal, you might ask, “Is this the whole story?” And Easter emphatically answers, “No.”
As you go through life, it’s easy to lower your expectations, to wall off and harden your heart, in order to protect it from pain and disappointment. Don’t we all do some of that? But if you are here this morning, wondering if there’s any room inside for hope and joy, then I am so glad you’re come. Here on this Easter morning, I am inviting you and imploring you to take the risk of love again. To open your heart to the promise and the pain, and to the fragile beauty of this life, knowing that it will, sometimes, be broken. I’m asking you to trust that this is the way of life.
I love Gretchen Haley’s articulation of the invitation of this day: “roll away the stone of your hesitant heart, turn away from fear to the promise of love, let this new life begin.” I know, this is easier said than done. But this is the call of Easter. And who among us doesn’t need this invitation? Isn’t it why we are here—to take part in this ritual of renewal on this day of light and gladness?
I wonder how you hear the old story, the several versions that has been passed down for two thousand years. The story of Jesus’ last days that some of us heard here on Friday; that very human story of persecution and betrayal, of power and cruelty, of death and mourning. We know something about this too, don’t we? We have suffered and lost loved ones and been worn down by life. To say nothing of the challenges of living in the empire in of these days, with its state-sponsored injustice and imprisonment. A kind of modern-day crucifixion, designed to intimidate the troublemakers and keep the subjects in line.
I love the tender humanity in John’s telling of the story; where Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb where Jesus’ body had been laid after he was brutally killed. She’s crying, a natural thing to do at a grave, and those watching over ask her why,
“They have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they have put him.”
Can you imagine yourself in this scene, at the grave of one you love? Of course you can.
Mary hears another voice, asking, “Why are you crying? Who is it you’re looking for?”
Thinking he’s the gardener, she says, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
And Jesus says to her, “Mary,” and she responds, “Teacher. It’s you.”
It’s like a scene from a movie, but because this story is from the Bible we have to ask, “How is this possible? What does it mean?”
Most years I would try to make some sense of the story. That’s kind of the preacher’s job on Easter— to unpack the mystery of the resurrection. Which can lead to deconstructing the story, defusing the mystery. And this year, I just don’t have the heart to do that. I want us to be in the story, to embrace the tender humanity of it, because it is our story too. Can we just say it’s a good story, proclaiming the good news that with God, death does not have the last word. Can we just abide in that holy mystery?
John O’Donohue has a beautiful reflection on what happens when we die, and the soul leaves the body. He says the eternal world is not out there somewhere, but right here. “The dead are our nearest neighbors; they are all around us… You cannot see them with the human eye. But you can sense the presence of those you love who have died… You feel that they are near.”
It’s all a mystery; this life and death, the spirit world; our wondering about what waits beyond. Isn’t the invitation, rather than trying to figure it all out, to live more deeply into the questions, and make a practice of wonder? The Book of Common prayers says, “we are mortal, formed of the earth, and to earth shall we return…All of us go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia.”
The invitation of this day, and of these lives, is to inhabit our days with an expansive view, to imagine and lean into what is possible, despite any discouraging evidence to the contrary. To bring an open heart and an open spirit to the living of these days. To be Easter people in a Good Friday world.
People who don’t turn away from the pain and the suffering, but who still know how to open our hearts to joy. People who can look around and see there is so much good work to be done. Helping and healing, practicing resurrection; doing our own small part to renew the face of the Earth.
The prophet Ezekiel, speaking on behalf of the Holy One, put it this way: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). This season of Easter, this time of year when the earth awakes again, is made for the kind of heart replacement that Ezekiel called for so long ago.
So let us, dear companions, let go of our hearts of stone, and embrace life as best we can, in its light and its shadow. We who have traveled through the valley of the shadow of death, we who know enough about grief and loss, how about we make a practice, in this season, of, as Gretchen Haley says, rolling away the stone from our hesitant hearts, turning away from fear, and embracing the life that lies all around us.
And as we do this, as we lean into “life and love and wings” (T.S. Eliot), won’t we find that we have a new song to sing? A song of love and care, of liberation and gladness. And as you sing your song, and as it brings you into deeper connection with others and our world, how high can you dare to go? How much joy and hope can you stand? How much goodness can you allow yourself, and how much can you share with others?
Whatever the tune, whatever the words your heart will sing, let it be a song of thanks and praise. Let it be a song worthy of your soul, a song of heartfelt gladness, a full-throated alleluia, a prayer for hope and goodness and life everlasting,
in this world without end, Amen.