by Rev. Terry Davis
Delivered at Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation on April 20, 2014
Well, how many of you got an Easter basket this morning? How many of you used to get Easter baskets? I imagine if you receive a basket now or used to get one years’ ago, you likely know your favorite Easter candies. Are they chocolate eggs? Red jelly beans? Or are they those yellow and pink marshmallow chicks . . . which are so eerie and bright that they look like they could glow in the dark?
My childhood Easter baskets were usually chock-full of enough chocolate, jelly beans, and other candy to keep me running on sugar for weeks afterwards. And while I enjoyed my Easter treats each year, there is one Easter basket I recall getting that stood out above the rest.
Coming downstairs from my bedroom on Easter Sunday morning in 1970, I found my basket wrapped in cellophane in its usual spot, which was sitting on the dining room table. However, instead of an enormous chocolate Easter bunny nestled in the middle of green plastic grass – which was what I was accustomed to seeing – there was instead a large record album sitting on top (for those of you too young to remember albums, they were like CDs but much bigger in size).
The album was “The Age of Aquarius,” the Grammy award-winning record produced by the African American pop musical group The 5th Dimension. I couldn’t believe that the Easter bunny was . . . well, so groovy! And, as you might imagine, I played that album constantly until I’m certain my mother was sick of hearing it.
As some of you may recall, the lyrics of the title song were based on the astrological belief that the world would soon be entering the “Age of Aquarius”, which would be a time of love, light, and humanity. It began:
When the moon is in the seventh house
and Jupiter aligns with Mars,
Then peace will guide the planets
and love will steer the stars.
The song continued to describe the way life on earth would be once these celestial bodies had these new positions in the universe. There would be, sang the 5th Dimension, “harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounding.”
Whether or not you believe that the positions of the moon, planets and stars are capable of influencing human affairs, it’s probably safe to assume that most of us here desire the kind of life and world that the Age of Aquarius promises to deliver.
And, it’s this notion of a new existence . . . an age where peace and love will be the guiding principles and harmony and understanding will abound . . . that we find inherent in the promise of Easter.
The Jewish teacher Jesus, who lived in ancient Palestine more than 2,000 years ago, spent his short life spreading the news about just such a new age to anyone who would listen.
In the Christian scriptures, we learn that Jesus taught his disciples that, in a world where harmony, understanding, sympathy and trust abound, the current order of things would be completely changed. Those who were hungry, Jesus said, would finally be satisfied. Those who wept would find laughter. Those who were kind would have their kindness returned. Those who were on the bottom rungs of society would find themselves propelled to the top.
These promises of a new life and a new way of living were thrilling to those who needed a message of hope . . . and threatening to those who were in power and wanted things to remain the same.
And while Jesus was ultimately put to death for his challenging messages and beliefs, the story of his resurrection is one that affirms for millions of Christians today that love does conquer hate and that love has the power to radically change us and the world.
It’s this message of the life-affirming power of love is found in the Easter story of the empty tomb. As many of you recall, it begins with three women who, on the third morning of the third day following Jesus’s death, go to the tomb where Jesus’s body was laid. The women were Jewish and, following their religious customs, had planned to ritually wash and prepare Jesus’s body for a proper burial.
However, when the women appeared at the tomb, they find that the large stone covering its entrance had been rolled away. And, when they went inside, Jesus’s body was gone. Instead, two men suddenly appeared out of nowhere wearing clothes so bright that they dazzled. The men said to the frightened women, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” They remind the women that, before he died, Jesus had told them that this very thing would happen – that he would rise from the dead.
Even so, when the women return home to tell Jesus’s other followers what they saw, no one believes them. Yet one of the Jesus’s apostles, Peter, decides to go to the cave anyway to see for himself – and encounters the same empty tomb as the women did. The story ends with Peter returning home, amazed at what happened.
While many Unitarian Universalists don’t believe that Jesus really rose from the dead and abandoned his tomb, Ibelieve this doesn’t make the story of the empty tomb any less our narrative. Rather, I believe this Christian story isour narrative, too. It’s our story because it gives us a glimpse into the perplexity and fear that we may likely experience when things radically change and our sense of reality is dramatically altered.
For some of us, the story of Jesus’s resurrection is a metaphor for the new life and new age we will experience if we are willing to have our old ways of thinking and acting revolutionized. If harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust are to abound, what needs to change inside of us to make that happen? What risks might we need to take to save ourselves from discouragement, apathy or despair? How might we abandon ourselves to a new experience despite our fears and allow ourselves, like Peter, to be amazed?
Perhaps part of what the Easter story teaches us is that a new life requires our willingness to take some risks. We may, on occasion, need to risk trusting our senses rather than the cold, hard facts. We may need to risk having our old ways of thinking and acting radically changed. And, we may need to risk looking foolish to others as part of our process of change.
The Jewish religious holiday of Passover, which is underway, is yet another reminder of this. In the ancient exodus story, the Israelites needed to abandon anything that might hold them back from escaping slavery and entering into a new life of freedom. They risked leaving a painful, yet familiar existence for something unknown and with no guarantees.
When we join in celebrating Easter with Christians around the world . . . and when we participate in a few moments in our Unitarian Universalist flower communion ceremony, we are affirming that we are people who believe in possibility.
And, as long as there is a willingness to change . . . a willingness to see and experience things differently . . . I believe there is the possibility of new life and a new way of life. For me, a new way of life is what the empty tomb story is all about . . . it’s the myth that points to a new reality . . . the reality that peace and love, harmony and understanding are always possible . . . and that it’s time for us to resurrect our hopes, cast aside our doubts and fears and live like we believe.
May we celebrate these timeless messages of the Easter season . . . today and every day. May it be so. Amen.