The Promise of New Life
Isaiah 65:17–25 John 20:1–18
April 4,2010  Easter Sunday
Preached by the Reverend Kathy Peters

There is lots of good news on this Easter morning and in fact the promise of new beginnings, new life, and new possibility  began long before that first resurrection day. Did you hear Dom reading from Isaiah?
For I am about to create new heavens
   and a new earth;
 the former things shall not be remembered
   or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
  in what I am creating;
 for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
   and its people as a delight.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
   and delight in my people;  (Isaiah 65:17-19)
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
They shall not hurt or destroy
  on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.  (Isaiah 65;24a and 25)
New ways of justice and peace, gladness and delight have been God’s dream for a long, long time.  Can we dare to open our eyes and see the signs even today?
And then Mary went to the tomb and found it empty. Supposing that she is talking to the gardener, she inquires of the man that she meets….”do you know where they have taken him” and in the gentle speaking of her name “Mary” she knows that she is in the presence of the risen Jesus.  Can you believe it?  What can it mean?  Mary opens her eyes and believes with joy and runs to declare the good news. 
And it is good news for us as well my friends because the spirit, the presence that Jesus’ followers knew in him when he lived so long ago continues to be made known to us. In the raising of Jesus from the dead God says yes to new life, new possibilities, a new creation. In the book the Last Week ( Harper One 2006) by Marcus Borg and John Crossan that our Monday noon Bible study has been reading we heard  “God has said 'yes' to Jesus and 'no' to the powers who killed him." God says yes to the world of justice that Jesus was passionate about… Jesus came to tell us about  “the kingdom of God, what life would be like on earth if God were king, and the rulers, domination systems, and empires of this world were not. It is the world the prophets dreamed of – a world of distributive justice in which everyone has enough and systems are fair. “Easter”, Borg and Crossan declare, “means God's Great Cleanup of the world has begun – but it will not happen without us."
And there it is…… no less than good news, fantastic news of new possibility.  God has a dream for how this world might be. Jesus came to share that dream with us and the powers of the world said…no way. But the good news is that their no was not the final word, Jesus death was not the final word…….God’s new creation…already begun that first Easter morn is the last word. It is the word that gives us hope that with God all things are possible……..while this is no pie in the sky dream Crossan and Borg remind us ..it will not be an “instantaneous flash of divine light” This is “an interactive process between divinity and humanity, a joint operation between God and ourselves. It is not that we wait for God, but that God waits for us.”
So what are we waiting for? What are we passionate about? What possibilities for new life will surprise us? What new life will we say yes to on this day of alleluias? What acts of love and forgiveness, mercy and justice is God waiting for us to do?
Ted Loder in his prayer Resurrection Madness (from Guerrillas of Grace Innisfree Press 1984) offers the final good news this Easter Morn: 
          Lord of such amazing surprises
                   as put a catch in my breath
                             and wings on my heart,
          I praise you for this joy,
                   too great for words,
                             but not for tears and song and sharing;
          for this mercy
                   that blots out my betrayals
                   and bids me to begin again,
                             to limp on,
                                      to hop-skip-and-jump on,
          to mend what is broken
                   in and around me and to forgive the breakers;
          for this YES
                   to life and laughter
                             to love and lovers
                                      and to my unwinding self;
          for this kingdom
                   unleashed in me and I in it forever,
                             and no dead ends to growing,
                                      to choices
                                                to chances,
                                                          to calls to be just;
          no dead ends to living,
                   to making peace,
                             to dreaming dreams,
                                      to being glad of heart;
          for this resurrection madness
                   which is wiser than I
                             and in which I see
                                      how great you are
                                                how full of grace.
                                                          Alleluia!