Acts 3:12-19
Ps.4
I John 3:1-7 Luke 24:36b-48

3 Easter B RCL
10:00 HE 2A

HEAVEN'S WELCOME
(First of two sermons on the Resurrection)

Source: The Living Church 4/18/93 p.8 (H. Brurnbaum)
Prev.preached Chelsea 4/25/93

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If you have ever seen any kind of stage play, you I know that at the end, everyone leaves the stage. Or if you have read the text of a play, you know that it ends with a stage direction: ALL EXIT.

For one reason or another, everyone leaves. And so it is with us. Having strutted or fretted our way around this little stage of our life for a time, each of us does of-course depart whether stripped of our senses by inches, like those who are gradually killed by disease - or with less awareness, in senility, and we enter "that undiscovered country from whose bounds no traveler returns," as Shakespeare described it.

I. But one such traveler did return, like an actor, to make a final curtain call, to announce another act in the drama. This is, after all, one of the things that Easter has to say to us, that death is not the final curtain call that we mortals had so long supposed, that there is one more act yet to come, and an astonishing one it is. For there you have it: the veil between time and eternity, between awareness and oblivion, torn away by two syllables: EAS-TER. To paraphrase St.Paul on the subject, "If Christ is not risen, then we who hold that he did, are of all people the most deluded, and so the most to be humored in our madness. But if in fact Christ did rise, then we who profess that He did, must be some of the most perceptive people around. And of course Christ did rise.

II. Still, it is only part of the Easter proclamation that death has been vanquished. What matters even more is what awaits us instead of death. Is it to be an endless round of the sorts of things that used to fill our earthly days, or is it to be as different from those earthly days were from life in the womb?

The good news that Easter offers is that we shall ever increase in the knowledge and love of God, will move from strength to strength in that life of perfect service which also is perfect human freedom. So it is NOT an endless round of what we have here.

The secular mentality has largely renounced this good news 1n favor of what it sees as a simpler plan. How would you like this? In that mentality, there are two prospects on which to place our bets - one or the other of them.

One is categorical survival: we shall survive, regardless of personal merit or personal belief, survive in a realm that looks much like a village green on a balmy afternoon. Survival by emigration to another location or species is simply a variant of categorical survival; it is called reincarnation.

The other prospect is categorical extinction: when your brain waves stop, you stop. In this glum view, tomorrow's paper will simply repeat today's; for ever, or there will be nothing to report at all.

Either prospect is a far cry from what Easter offers us. Easter offers a prospect of growth instead of sitting still: moving from strength to strength and increasing in the knowledge and love of God.

III. In any case, what matters more than where you are, is who, and among whom, you are in that new life. You will see God, not as a stranger, but as a Friend, as one whom you and I shall see fer ourselves, and our eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger, as the burial service puts it.

But let us be forewarned. Just as the eye cannot gaze upon a solar eclipse without the eye's being burned, so you and I cannot look directly at God the Father, but only as such unbearable brightness is reflected and tempered, or humanized, by the face of Jesus Christ. In that Face, we will know God as a Friend, not as a stranger.

And you will most likely find a welcoming party turned out to greet you, made up of those departed ones whom you especially loved, and you will likely discover from their joy at your reunion - that as you grieved at their departing and missed them, they had as grievously missed you in turn.

But they will be different from what you had expected - from what you remembered them to be for as you had your adventure in the meantime, so had they. The task of recognition can be challenging. And so it evidently was with our Lord Himself after the Resurrection. So transformed was He that His friends "knew Him not." Then, recognizing Him, they rejoiced. And so it will be with us.

Or again, in this day of long life spans, when it is common enough for someone having lost a spouse, to remarry later on - one wonders how those separate loves will sort themselves out hereafter. Maybe the most delectable of earthly loves will prove to be the norm, or standard fare, to be enjoyed in all relationships. To hazard a guess, even the best cf marriages provides but a foretaste of the love to come, and that as we enlarge our capacity to care, we will come to share that exquisite bond with everyone.

Someone tells of a vision of a parade going through town. In it ranks you glimpse the faces of all sorts of illustrious people, most of them already long since lost to the ages, some known to you and infinitely dear, - and at its head, the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, bearing a pennant emblazoned with a Cross. And the drums roll and the band strikes up a tune,*and the parade moves on around the corner, now out of sight, end beyond hearing as well.

* (Recall that the last book of the Bible pictures music as part of heaven.)

What happens, you wonder, around that corner? Does the band fall silent, or, out of earshot, does it play on, with music more stirring than ever?

Then something strange happens. As the tail of the parade moves past them, the spectators lining the curbs fall in behind it and swell the crowd. And so, when it has passed you by, you join in too. And you will soon need to wonder no more, but be content to follow where those you have loved, led by that Lamb of God, have gone on before.