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Easter Sunday
                              April 4, 2010  The Rev. William Van Oss, Rector                                 
              Readings                  

The word of the day, this Easter Day is “Transformation”

The world around us is being transformed. The snow has melted, the grass greened and the trees bud. The tulips are poking through thawing ground. Animals are preparing to give birth. And people are thinking about sailing, golf and gardens. It is spring.

Our church has been transformed. It’s filled with beautiful fragrant flowers after the starkness of Lent. Our music is transformed, joyful “Alleluias” now ring out. The color is festive white and the Easter candle is burning bright. At the 10:30 service the cross, cold and stark, has burst into flowers and colors bright. This church is filled with joyful people in their Easter best.

Transformation. The children have been learning about Jesus’ transformation each Sunday during Lent in Sunday School and their crafts have adorned this tree near the baptismal font. The tree is covered with beautiful butterflies this Easter morning. But they began as tiny eggs the first Sunday of Lent. In one tiny egg everything is contained to make a beautiful butterfly. That egg became a caterpillar which grew and shed its skin and grew some more. Then it attached to the stem of a leaf and hung upside down in the shape of a “J”, it formed a chrysalis and finally, a butterfly.

Transformation. Mirroring Jesus’ transformation from a man alone in the desert for 40 days, like a single egg, to a man who called disciples around him to help him carry God’s message of love to the world so it would grow, to a man who called people to shed old ways of living, to shed sin, the way a caterpillar sheds and molts as it grows. To the one who said “I am the vine” attach yourself to me, the life source, the way the monarch caterpillar attaches to the stem of a leaf. To one who calls us to mature in our faith, and then goes through the ordeal of suffering and death before being transformed into something beautiful and precious – new life.

The children learned all about the transformation of Jesus by learning about how a butterfly came to be. The egg grows and changes and becomes something else, something graceful, new, beautiful and inspiring. And so the question we ask ourselves, this Easter Day, when we are surrounded by so much transformation is are we transformed? Are you and I transformed, changed, by the wonder and beauty of the new life Christ came to bring: the hope, the joy, the peace, the love of Christ.

The resurrection story we just heard, for the Gospel of Luke, contains a great question, it’s a question we need to ask ourselves this Easter Day. In Luke’s resurrection account, the women come to the tomb where Jesus’ body was laid. They came looking for Jesus, to perform the requirements for burial. And “two men in dazzling cloths,” the Gospel tells us, ask the women this question: “Why do you look for the living one among the dead?” Jesus was not where those who die are supposed to be. He was not in the tomb. The two men in dazzling cloths seem almost as startled to see the women as the women are to see them. “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” The question suggests they are surprised to see the women in this place of emptiness.

Why do you look for life where you will not find it? Why do you seek happiness and fulfillment in empty places? If we are going to be transformed in the risen life of Jesus Christ, if we are going to be made new, made in His image, if we are going to be vessels of his love and grace, why do we look for it where we will not find it? Why do we look for new life in possessions or popularity or fleeting pleasures, or the things of this world instead of the things of God? Why do we seek new life through old ways of living?

Carrying around grudges, being angry and resentful, being selfish and self-centered and judgmental and cynical, refusing to forgive and move on, giving up on things that need to change in our lives. Why do you look for the living one among the dead? Why do you keep relying on old ways of living? Why do you seek life in empty tombs? The butterfly doesn’t go back to the empty cocoon looking for life.

This Easter Day is all about transformation – in the world around us, in our church, in eggs that turn into butterflies; and in us, in our minds and hearts and souls. The new life that we celebrate this Easter Day enables us to leave old, dead ways behind and embrace new ways of living, embrace compassion, love and forgiveness. Christ gave it all to show us the way.

Alleluia. May we be transformed in the love of Christ, into the people that God has created us to be, this Easter Day and forever.

Let us pray:
God of limitless love and unfathomable goodness, let the good news of the angels at the empty tomb resound in our everyday lives. May our struggle to live your Son’s Spirit of humility and compassion enable us to break out of our own tombs of fear, despair and self-centeredness. Let the Alleluia we sing this Easter ring out in every day and season as we await the fulfillment of your Easter promise in our lives. We ask this in Jesus’ name.