This morning has been a busy morning. I’ve secured Sierra Leone-made face-masks, worship with the UMC of Sierra Leone on TV, heard a beautiful Easter Sermon from Bishop John K. Yambasu dedicated to every Christian across the globe, and preached for the first time from home over zoom. I thought I’d share that sermon with you below. Happy Easter friends, and God’s bless you in this time.

Easter Sermon 2020

It was Easter 2014 in Round Rock, Texas. I was one of the pastors at the First UMC. The church was at the time building a Columbarium, which is a room or outdoor space with niches where people place the ashes of loved one who had passed on. So it’s a memorial space. It’s like a graveyard space…a cemetery of sorts.

It was big project for us and the south parking lot of the church had been torn up for months. But there was a promise that this Columbarium would come with a beautiful garden space, benches for sitting. It was supposed to be a peaceful, holy place.

So coming up on Easter, the staff decided to hold an Easter Sunrise Service there in the Columbarium. In the garden space. And I remember thinking that was kinda weird. Like does anybody else think it’s strange to have Easter morning worship in a graveyard? Doesn’t that kinda send like the opposite message that Easter is supposed to send? Isn’t this supposed to be about the resurrection, y’all? What are we doing?

If I’m being cynical, I might say that the only reason we were doing it was so that the Senior Pastor could tell all the contractors that it had to be done by Easter morning. And it almost wasn’t done. We had planned a few ceremonies to places ashes in a few of the niches, but that never was able to happen. It was only because the contractors worked overtime and into the night that Easter weekend that it was finished. And just barely finished.

So that Easter morning I got up and showed up for the service a little apprehensive about how it was going to go. It was a breezy, spring morning. People trickled in under cover of nightfall. They sat on the newly finished benches, brought their own chairs. We are all in a big semi-circle facing the new columbarium. I looked around at the unused niches in the Columbarium and thought, this is weird.

Then my colleague Rev. Lee Trigg got up, greeted us, celebrated the risen Christ as the sun was coming up and then opened the service with these words: “I hope that it is not lost on any of you that this will probably be the first and only time that any of us have the ability to worship on Easter morning in an empty tomb.”

And in that moment looking at those empty burial spaces, Easter took on new meaning and I realized that this one was a special resurrection day…that I would never forget.

Well fast forward six years to Sierra Leone in the time of COVID-19. I’ll be honest with you, my attitude about this year is just that Easter’s canceled. We’re not doing Easter this year. When I went to bed yesterday, I checked the numbers again. Over six thousand people died yesterday. Just yesterday. How are we supposed to celebrate Easter with this?

Diana Butler-Bass, an American public theologian, yesterday wrote, “Every day is Holy Saturday now.” We are in mourning. We are in mourning. We’re not ready to move forward. We’re not going to move on. And there is no Easter Sunday that’s going to take us out of that. Tomorrow the numbers will continue to grow. We are not yet finished with death.

But Resurrection Sunday has come. So what do with do with it? We know it can’t be like any other Easter that we ourselves have been through before. I keep thinking of all those empty churches. No lilies adorning the front altar, no children in their Easter best running to find their seats, no men shaking hands, no women greeting with a kiss commenting on their new outfits. Not a soul. Just empty pews. Have you ever been in an empty sanctuary before? I keep thinking of those empty churches. Empty. Empty. Empty.

But you know I’m starting to see that maybe, like no other Easter in our lifetimes, maybe this Easter has something special to teach us. I’m starting to see that those empty churches may be something like the empty tomb. And we who are holed up at home behind closed doors might be something like the disciples who do not yet know of the good news that is on its way.

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After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

I have this friend who is a pastor and also used to work at a yoga studio on the side. And one year around Easter, he stopped by the yoga studio to make sure that he wasn’t scheduled to do a class during any of the Holy Week services. His boss, the studio owner, ensure him that he wasn’t scheduled. She had a good relationship with him and he is the kind of person who’s open to receiving any kind of question about his faith. So she stopped and looked at him and said, “Do you actually believe that? Like literally believe that there was a man who was dead and then three days later he just rose from the dead. Just like that?”

He said, “Yeah. I actually believe that.”

She pushed further, “Like you believe that a man who was dead for three days gained life again. Like he literally rose from the dead.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I believe he literally rose the dead.”

“Like you believe that that literally happened?!”

“Yes! I believe that.” With a smile. “Yes, I do.”

One of my favorite things about being a Christian, among the ranks of those I like to call an Easter People, is that we have this stubbornness about our insistence on life. We are stubborn about our hope. Stubborn about our trust in this one truth…where there is death, life is waiting on the other side.

I like to say that we’re a people who dig in our heels and refuse to despair. And maybe I’m crazy. But I will not be taken in by the despair of death…even when it’s knocking on my door telling me that this time death is the winner. No, sir. NO, thank you. That’s not my story. That’s not our story.

Our story is the Risen Christ. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

Notice we don’t say Christ has risen. We say Christ is risen. Why? Because that is our continuous reality. Christ is risen. Right now. In this moment. Even this one.

Even if we have to say it through tears…

We will proclaim the truth that we know: where there is death, life is waiting on the other side. In Jesus name.

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I got an email this week from my mentor, a woman by the name of Rev. Annette Sowell. Her husband, Dr. Sowell, was my professor in college and she was the pastor of the first church I served in professional ministry. She’s in her 80’s now and living in a retirement community. So she experienced the first of the lockdown in the US as protections were put in place for protect our more vulnerable. She shared how strange it’s been to be in a place where nobody goes in or out. She talked about how strange it is to not feel secure in almost anything…in the virus, in our knowledge of it, in the plans around it, in our politicians, in our financial future. But even with the rocky, scary, unsettled realities she conveyed, she ended her email with these words to me…

“Rest easy today - the Risen One strolls the streets of every land and holds all of us close, sustaining us and equipping us.”

There’s one more story that I want to share. And I’ve gone back and forth about sharing it because it is weird. It’s weird. But I’m going to share it anyway…

There’s a man I often see around Freetown. Maybe he’s homeless, I don’t know. He’s got kind of short dreadlocks, he’s always wearing dark brown ripped clothing, and he’s got these piercing eyes. And every time I see him it seems he locks eyes with me. And every time it feels intense.

And early on, I started to wonder in my spirit, “I wonder if that’s Jesus.” (I told you this was a weird story.) The more I see him, the more I wonder, like, “Is that Jesus?” It feels like he peers into my soul. And I don’t see him all the time, but I do see him around. Up and down Wilkinson. As far as the Youyi building in town, and down by Lumley Police. He was all the way down my street one time. And now when I see him, I think, Well there’s Jesus again in my town...on these streets.

Now my logical brain says it’s probably the Holy Spirit reminding me, “This is my body too.” But I’ve never talked to him. Because…what if he actually is Jesus. Huhmmmmmmmm. I’m not sure I’m ready for that.

Well about a year ago, I was walking along Wilkinson trying to get ahold of someone. So maybe I was on my phone talking or searching my phone in my hand. But I was stressed and trying to figure something out. And not looking and not paying attention.

Then all of the sudden, I felt a hand make contact with my collarbone and push me. Like a good shove. And I looked up. I was so startled. I looked up, and there he was right in front of my face. That man. I stared at him for a minute with an incredulous expression like, “Why did you just pushed me?!?!”

He said nothing.

We stood there staring at each other for a moment. And then I walked away, you know, for my safety. And he kept walking the other way. I turned around and looked at him. He turned around and looked at me. And then I turn back straight and kept walking.

I don’t know why that man shoved me that day, but if it was Jesus, the message is clear to me. “Pay attention. I’m here.”

Pay attention. I am here. Alive. On these streets. With you.

So the word that I have for you today is this: Rest easy - the Risen One strolls the streets of every land and holds all of us close, sustaining us, equipping us.

He is our light in these dark times. And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it.

Amen and Amen. Praise be to the living God.

Easter Sunday Sermon in the Time of COVID-19

Easter Sermon 2020