|
Happy Easter Morning, my friends, and neighbors.
As I was awoke before dawn this Easter morning, I was reminded of a group of faithful women, who likewise were up before dawn. Who went to the tomb to faithfully complete the task of properly preparing the body of Jesus for burial. They found that tomb empty! I was reminded of the words of the angels, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen” (Luke 24:5 nrsv). What a gift it is to be with you as we celebrate that empty tomb and those sacred words of the angel. What a beautiful opportunity to gather this morning to remember the greatest gift ever given. It was a gift of love and peace from a Father to His children. “For God so loved the world [and so loved you] that he gave [to us] his only Son” (John 3:16 nrsv). Jesus, the Christ, was that gift to all of us. I hope today we all feel of His love and remember that gift. I want you to know and come to believe that “God is just too busy loving us to have any time left for disappointment” In fact, as Elder Gong once said, “Our Savior, Jesus Christ knows everything about us we don’t want anyone else to know, and he still loves us.” The greatest love ever shown was in the gift of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Throughout this week I have been moved by the events of the last of the Savior’s life. In particular, the love demonstrated through Christ’s sacrifice |
|
Elder Holland taught, "It is one of the most powerful paradoxes of the Crucifixion that the arms of the Savior were stretched wide open and then nailed there, unwittingly but accurately portraying that every man, woman, and child in the entire human family is not only welcome but invited into His redeeming, exalting embrace.” As my poet friend, Robbie Taggart, put it.
As Jesuit priest, Greg Boyle wrote, “We have grown accustomed to think that loving as God does is hard. We think it’s about moral strain and obligation. We presume it requires a spiritual muscularity of which we are not capable, a layering of burden on top of sacrifice, with a side order of guilt. (But it was love, after all, that made the cross salvific, not the sheer torture of it.)”
And yet, there are times when we need to know that Christ knows, intimately about depth of our pain and sorrow--our grief. I was especially moved by this woman’s experience when she encountered the wounded Christ as the captain of our souls.
Ugly tears coursed down my cheeks. Why? How could this have happened? The betrayal hit me like a gut punch. I wanted to scream it all away…, But even that wouldn’t make it better, wouldn’t erase what I was going through… I felt so alone….
…Blocking it out and staying as busy as possible only worked for so long. Then came Jesus. In the darkness, in the depths of my pain, I realized: He knew… He’d experienced the worst pain, the deepest betrayal, the hardest suffering– none of it deserved…. And it hurt Him—so very, very badly. But for some reason, I’d never before understood this.
Growing up, I’d been taught that Jesus died on the cross but His suffering seemed abstract. In paintings depicting the crucifixion, the holes from the nails had a bit of blood, and Jesus was frowning beneath His crown of thorns, but it was all rather contained– a PG version of what He’d really been through. Then His suffering was over and, whoosh! Our Savior was dressed head-to-toe in white…. Smiling like He’d never been gasping for His last breath or sobbing from the pain of being sold for thirty pieces of silver by one of His twelve best friends…”
“But when I encountered Jesus in my sorrow, it wasn’t the Sunday School, family-friendly version kneeling beside me as I collapsed before Him in a darkened room with my prayer of surrender. It was the scarred-up Jesus, the One who remembered the ragged bloodstained holes from where they’d driven the nails in…, who didn’t just quietly and stoically accept that Judas let Him down but ached over the treachery. This Jesus understood. And when I realized that, and I allowed him to meet me in my suffering. I was no longer alone…. Now I have a secret weapon: I know God is with me in the center of my pain”
I have had a beautiful week celebrating Holy Week personally and with my family. I have been so moved by this emphasis from our church. The Easter videos from each of the 12 Apostles have been so moving. I believe this week we have done more to do what Elder Stevenson asked all of us to do, “How can individuals and families model the teaching and celebration of Jesus Christ’s Resurrection — the Easter story — with the same balance, fullness and religious tradition as His birth — the Christmas story?”
Elder Stevenson, in that same talk, quoted New Testament scholar and theologian, N.T. Wright when he said, “We should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts. … This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity.”
One of the most hope-filled truths of Easter is that “Nothing. Bad. Is. Permanent.” Let me repeat that, because of Good Friday and the Savior’s infinite love given on the cross and his triumphant victory over the grave, “Nothing. Bad. Is. Permanent.” Now, what I am not saying is that the “bad” doesn’t hurt. That the “bad” isn’t real. In fact, I look out over this congregation, and I am reminded of the “bad” that does happen in our lives. I know of the realities of death, pain, sickness, divorce, and grief. What the message of Easter isn’t, is that a life with God is pain free. Just ask Jesus! Pain comes, hurts are real, but,… the message of Easter is “Nothing. Bad. Is. Permanent!” In other words, “Friday’s good because Sunday is coming!” The Friday’s of our lives, the moments of abandonment and fear can and will be swallowed up in the hope of Sunday.
Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin taught us, “Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays. But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come. No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come.”
I testify, Brothers and Sisters, Sunday. Will. Come. This is the message of resurrection. Whatever hurts now will not always hurt. Whatever is broken will be mended. Whatever is dark will some day break forth into breathtaking light.
In a coming day fear will die
In a coming day pain will die
Loneliness with die
Despair will die
In a coming day sadness will die
Sickness will die
Disability, deformity, darkness, anxiety will die
War will die, hatred will die
In a coming day
Death will die
And we all will live again…
Because of Him
Brothers and Sisters, Happy Holy Week! Happy Easter! What I want you to know is, and Elder Patrick Kearon put it this way, that “Jesus specializes in the seemingly impossible. He came here to make the impossible possible, the irredeemable redeemable, to heal the unhealable, to right the unrightable, to promise the unpromisable. And He’s really good at it. In fact, He’s perfect at it.”
I testify of a God who loves us too much to spend any time being disappointed in us. I testify that it was this love that motivated Jesus to enter the garden of Gethsemane where he began to take upon himself our pains, sorrows, and sin. It was this same love that brought him to the cross. With arms outstretched he moves toward us all-- the shape of his love. I know that pain isn’t evidence of divine disapproval; rather, it is where we find Christ in the center of our pain. I testify that those painful Fridays are good because Sunday is coming and that because of Jesus Christ, Nothing. Bad. Is. Permanent. I conclude with the words of fictional Mary Magdalene, when she asked how she had changed so completely. Her response was, “Here is what I can tell you. I was one way and now I am completely different, and the thing in between was him…”
In the name of Jesus Christ, our Master. Amen
Talk and testimony given by Michael Preece 3/31/2024 at the American Fork sacrament meeting
Sunday Will Come
As Jesuit priest, Greg Boyle wrote, “We have grown accustomed to think that loving as God does is hard. We think it’s about moral strain and obligation. We presume it requires a spiritual muscularity of which we are not capable, a layering of burden on top of sacrifice, with a side order of guilt. (But it was love, after all, that made the cross salvific, not the sheer torture of it.)”
And yet, there are times when we need to know that Christ knows, intimately about depth of our pain and sorrow--our grief. I was especially moved by this woman’s experience when she encountered the wounded Christ as the captain of our souls.
Ugly tears coursed down my cheeks. Why? How could this have happened? The betrayal hit me like a gut punch. I wanted to scream it all away…, But even that wouldn’t make it better, wouldn’t erase what I was going through… I felt so alone….
…Blocking it out and staying as busy as possible only worked for so long. Then came Jesus. In the darkness, in the depths of my pain, I realized: He knew… He’d experienced the worst pain, the deepest betrayal, the hardest suffering– none of it deserved…. And it hurt Him—so very, very badly. But for some reason, I’d never before understood this.
Growing up, I’d been taught that Jesus died on the cross but His suffering seemed abstract. In paintings depicting the crucifixion, the holes from the nails had a bit of blood, and Jesus was frowning beneath His crown of thorns, but it was all rather contained– a PG version of what He’d really been through. Then His suffering was over and, whoosh! Our Savior was dressed head-to-toe in white…. Smiling like He’d never been gasping for His last breath or sobbing from the pain of being sold for thirty pieces of silver by one of His twelve best friends…”
“But when I encountered Jesus in my sorrow, it wasn’t the Sunday School, family-friendly version kneeling beside me as I collapsed before Him in a darkened room with my prayer of surrender. It was the scarred-up Jesus, the One who remembered the ragged bloodstained holes from where they’d driven the nails in…, who didn’t just quietly and stoically accept that Judas let Him down but ached over the treachery. This Jesus understood. And when I realized that, and I allowed him to meet me in my suffering. I was no longer alone…. Now I have a secret weapon: I know God is with me in the center of my pain”
I have had a beautiful week celebrating Holy Week personally and with my family. I have been so moved by this emphasis from our church. The Easter videos from each of the 12 Apostles have been so moving. I believe this week we have done more to do what Elder Stevenson asked all of us to do, “How can individuals and families model the teaching and celebration of Jesus Christ’s Resurrection — the Easter story — with the same balance, fullness and religious tradition as His birth — the Christmas story?”
Elder Stevenson, in that same talk, quoted New Testament scholar and theologian, N.T. Wright when he said, “We should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts. … This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity.”
One of the most hope-filled truths of Easter is that “Nothing. Bad. Is. Permanent.” Let me repeat that, because of Good Friday and the Savior’s infinite love given on the cross and his triumphant victory over the grave, “Nothing. Bad. Is. Permanent.” Now, what I am not saying is that the “bad” doesn’t hurt. That the “bad” isn’t real. In fact, I look out over this congregation, and I am reminded of the “bad” that does happen in our lives. I know of the realities of death, pain, sickness, divorce, and grief. What the message of Easter isn’t, is that a life with God is pain free. Just ask Jesus! Pain comes, hurts are real, but,… the message of Easter is “Nothing. Bad. Is. Permanent!” In other words, “Friday’s good because Sunday is coming!” The Friday’s of our lives, the moments of abandonment and fear can and will be swallowed up in the hope of Sunday.
Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin taught us, “Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays. But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come. No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come.”
I testify, Brothers and Sisters, Sunday. Will. Come. This is the message of resurrection. Whatever hurts now will not always hurt. Whatever is broken will be mended. Whatever is dark will some day break forth into breathtaking light.
In a coming day fear will die
In a coming day pain will die
Loneliness with die
Despair will die
In a coming day sadness will die
Sickness will die
Disability, deformity, darkness, anxiety will die
War will die, hatred will die
In a coming day
Death will die
And we all will live again…
Because of Him
Brothers and Sisters, Happy Holy Week! Happy Easter! What I want you to know is, and Elder Patrick Kearon put it this way, that “Jesus specializes in the seemingly impossible. He came here to make the impossible possible, the irredeemable redeemable, to heal the unhealable, to right the unrightable, to promise the unpromisable. And He’s really good at it. In fact, He’s perfect at it.”
I testify of a God who loves us too much to spend any time being disappointed in us. I testify that it was this love that motivated Jesus to enter the garden of Gethsemane where he began to take upon himself our pains, sorrows, and sin. It was this same love that brought him to the cross. With arms outstretched he moves toward us all-- the shape of his love. I know that pain isn’t evidence of divine disapproval; rather, it is where we find Christ in the center of our pain. I testify that those painful Fridays are good because Sunday is coming and that because of Jesus Christ, Nothing. Bad. Is. Permanent. I conclude with the words of fictional Mary Magdalene, when she asked how she had changed so completely. Her response was, “Here is what I can tell you. I was one way and now I am completely different, and the thing in between was him…”
In the name of Jesus Christ, our Master. Amen
Talk and testimony given by Michael Preece 3/31/2024 at the American Fork sacrament meeting
Sunday Will Come
