How Do I Sleep Now? -Easter Sunset Service-

How Do I Sleep Now?

A Sermon on John 20:1-18 
by Griff Martin

For the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith

On  Easter Sunday

Sunset Service at Still Waters

April 1,  2018

Incarnate and Resurrected God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing new reality we can all together experience. Be present here in this space and in these words God for if you are present here then nothing else will matter, but if you are not present here then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ, and the Comforter.  Amen.

It happens to all of us…. Something in life happens and suddenly we have to face the dreaded new normal…

We face a death and we have to figure out what life looks like without that person,

A relationship ends and we have to figure out who we are again and what went wrong,

A job ends and suddenly we exit in a state of survival and calling,

A parent dies and we find ourselves suddenly on the top of the family tree,

A child dies and we find ourselves without a future…

And it can go the opposite way just as often…

We met someone and suddenly our life goes topsy-turvy in the best way,

A child is born and joy fills our world,

An unexpected phone call and job offer opens up a new horizon, 

We come into money we did not expect and our debt is gone and we have money to spare….

And both ways… the good and the bad means adjusting to a new normal, to change…. And in all of those cases, you go to bed that first night struggling to sleep because you know that tomorrow already looks different.

This week as I have listened to the Easter story, I have been trying to figure out how the disciples and the followers felt that first night, that group of men and women who had spent perhaps as much as three years for some of them like Mary and Peter and some of them like Bartimaeus as short as a week. I am trying to figure out what they felt that first night.

The last few days had been unreal…. The confusion over the final meal together, the tension over some of it….The fear the night that Jesus was arrested and they all went into hiding…. The horror of watching Jesus die…. The grief over the loss of a friend…. The grief over the loss of a future… The uncertainty and self-doubt they must have felt…. 

And then this news this morning…. The night before they finally had all fallen asleep, maybe it would be better to say they had all finally surrendered to being numb and unconscious and their bodies had collapsed…. And then these women come running in with news that Jesus’ body was missing and then what seemed like minutes later the disciples come back with news that Jesus was resurrected.

They must have felt dizzy. 

And reading the text, I think that’s how they stayed all the day.

Struggling to understand where his body had gone, struggling to make sense of the disciple’s reactions… an empty tomb that made them believe, Mary hearing her name spoken by a gardener who was Jesus….. was this the talk of sleep deprived and overly emotional folks or could this be the truth?

And remember here we are talking about the loss of a friend, so we are dealing with very real and tangible grief. But we are also talking about the loss of God incarnate, the one they had given up everything to follow, this was their very being. This is not just about their life, this is about the bigger story they had started to see that was all of life.

And suddenly the God they have followed, had died, had been hung up on a cross… as theologian Paul Hessert and his incredible book Christ and the End of Meaning, he states this changes everything if God can die and if God can come back to life, then all the rules are gone and everything they knew is now changed.

And in the midst of all that, John’s words: “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”  After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.”

According to John most of these followers don’t have a Sunrise service and celebration, they have a sunset service and celebration. 

And the question I have been sitting with all week is how did they go to sleep that first night? Suddenly filled with a hope they did not know was possible? 

Overwhelmed with joy?

How did they sleep knowing that God had just broken all the rules and that everything was different now? There were new possibilities, hope was the only foundation, and love the only way.

And probably the same question needs to be asked of each of us…. Because this day we have gotten the same news….. so how will we go to bed tonight?

I hope we go to bed tonight filled with a hope that we had forgotten was ever possible, with a joy that is overwhelming and a smile on our face, with a determination that tomorrow looks different because we have hope, we have new possibilities (because resurrection reminds us that anything is possible) and knowing that love is the only way.

And may we rest in that. 

Because tomorrow is a new day and we have a new truth to share and a new way to live…. Tomorrow we live into our new normal, although it’s probably worth stating this new normal is what God has always intended for us.

Amen and Amen.