CELC The Second Sunday of Easter

The Second Sunday of Easter – April 3, 2005

1 Peter 1:3-9

Have you had days that have been so bad that you have felt like you were beyond the grasp of God’s grace? I don’t mean the days where you get up and for an April fool’s joke the kids have switched the sugar and salt in their respective containers so that when you add a teaspoon of what you think is sugar to your morning coffee you actually add salt. Then, as you take that first good gulp of coffee you choke on the salty concoction that insults your palate and you remember it is April fools day.

No, I am talking about the really bad days: The days when your phone rings and your spouse, brother or sister, mother or father, or even child has been in a terrible car accident and they are not expected to live. The bad days I am talking about are the ones that present you with news that makes you feel you cannot recover from the grief that awaits you.

On those kinds of days do you feel you are beyond the grasp of God’s grace?

If you do, then there is good news for you in second lesson today. There you hear of God that, “By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…”

That is great news. Nothing you have done gives you a new birth. Birth is not something we control. You know that in your earthly birth you did not control what happened. It is all a gift to you.

So is the birth God gives you in the resurrection of Jesus. The living hope God gives you in the resurrection of Jesus is the hope of Easter. It is a new life in Christ, where we have been forgiven and are reconciled to God and one another.

And we don’t have control of things. It is a birth. By its very nature a birth is something beyond our control.

We would prefer though, that it be something in our control. As we move ever closer to the final game of the college basketball season tomorrow evening, you know that the final four teams have made their own future. They have worked hard. They have learned what it means to become teams where they play well as individuals and as a group. They have earned their place in the final four, and even in the great game we expect to see tomorrow evening.

We would like to be masters of our own destiny in same way. God, however, works a different way. God decided that through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus you would be given a new birth, a new life in Christ. In Christ you are forgiven recipients of God’s eternal grace. In the birth God gives, you are never beyond the grace of God. No matter how bad your bad days are, you are never beyond the grasp of God’s grace.

This birth that God gives you in the resurrection of Jesus is “an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading…” Here is your hope, here is the power of God’s grace transforming your life, making you new, birthing you once again.

The resurrected life is imperishable: it is a life that begins now and lasts forever. Often we look only to “heaven” and forget what a blessed life we live here on earth. The resurrected life is yours now and forever…it is a “both/and” because it is an imperishable life.

The resurrected life is undefiled: it is not a life soiled by sin because it is the life obtained by our Lord who was sinless. This life, pure and undefiled, is a gift. It is that gift which makes possible all the good and loving and graceful and forgiving acts we do. It is this love which John Paul II said made it possible for him to forgive the enemy who shot him, trying to assassinate him. John Paul admitted it was difficult to forgive the assassin. Only through the undefiled resurrected life are we able to do such forgiving.

The resurrected life is also unfading: it does not go away. We struggle with our sin that bogs us down and distracts us away from the gift of the resurrected life. As we struggle, we do not struggle alone. God is always graciously present, giving us new hope through our new birth in the resurrected Christ.

It is a life we are given in the waters of Holy Baptism. As we baptize Persephone Rose this morning, it is a second birth for her. It is the gift of the resurrected life. What a grand and glorious day this is for Persephone. She is claimed by God as all of us are through the waters of Holy Baptism and given new birth through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

You see, your bad days are never so bad that you are beyond the grasp of God’s grace. Equally so, your good days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace. On this day of Holy Baptism remember that even at the best moments we still need and are given by God the grace that grants us a living hope through Jesus Christ, our resurrected Lord. Amen.

Pastor Robert F. Holley