While taking part in the Tri-Syndical conference in Waco this month, Pastor Ray and I were given the wonderful opportunity to listen to scholars and preachers from all different backgrounds. Their preaching was powerful and innovative while their lectures were thought provoking and challenging. There was however, one sermon which stood out in my mind from the rest. The speaker’s context was an Easter service and the text was the resurrection account in the Gospel of Mark (16:1-8).

If you do not know this story, Mary the mother of James, and Salome were taking spices to Jesus’ tomb so that they might anoint his body. When they arrived they found no body, but a young man in white robes sitting in the tomb. This man proclaimed to them that Jesus had been raised and then told them to go and tell the other disciples this amazing news. However, despite the command, they fled in terror and amazement and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

The sermon used this concept of fear and compared it to the Church and our fear within the ELCA. He talked about the fear of smaller budgets, the fear of shrinking church membership, the fear becoming irrelevant within the culture and society in which we live. These fears have become even more prevalent with the response by some people and churches to the Church wide decision, which was only compounded by the bad economic situation of the United States. These two factors have paralyzed many with fear and uncertainty for the future of Christ’s Holy Church.

Then he posed a question which silenced every person, even to a breath. “What if Christ’s life itself is a model for resurrection?” What if, in the midst of so much trouble and chaos within the Church and in life, Christ’s life itself is a model for resurrection? In Christ’s life we find a life which is unafraid to speak truth, in Christ’s life we find a life which is unafraid to love and act recklessly for God and his people, and in Christ’s life, death and resurrection we find new life. What if you and I lived as a model for resurrection and embraced this new life we have in Jesus Christ? What if…

God’s Peace.