Easter (C-)
April 17, 2022
Fr. John C. Garrett
The Lord is Risen! He is truly alive! Happy Easter.
Today we are beginning a brand new message series called Brand New. As a parish this is something we do. We take a topic and over the course of four or five weeks we look at the topic in detail. This series will be a five-week series. So, if you’re coming back to Church for the first time in a long time, or the first time ever, because you’re completely new to Church this is the perfect weekend to join us.
Almost all of us love new things. It can be small and simple things like a new can of tennis balls or a pack of freshly sharpened pencils. It can be smart and stylish like a new pair of shoes or your Easter Sunday outfit. Or big and bold….and expensive, like a new kitchen or car. The brand new you love depends, of course, upon your unique interests and personality.
Bottom line, the brand new excites us because big or small, simple or expensive brand new fills us with a sense of hope for a better future, even if it’s only the immediate short term future.
Which brings us to the premise or the argument for this whole series that we’re kicking off today: the longing you and I have for new stuff is placed in our hearts by God…and for a reason.
To briefly take a closer look at this we’re going to turn to Scripture and a passage from a book called the Acts of the Apostles. Acts of the Apostles tells the story of the early church.
In this passage we’re introduced to a Roman centurion named Cornelius. Centurions were professional officers in the Roman Army sometimes commanding hundreds of soldiers. Cornelius is described as a successful professional, and an honorable man too, who gave generously to help the poor and prayed daily, though he was not religious in a traditional sense, and he was not a Christ follower.
As we learn in the course of the story despite his accomplishments and success, he felt that there had to be more to life. He wanted something new in his life. Cornelius prayed to God, asking to find whatever it was that he was looking for, and one day God answered his prayer.
He is led to seek out the Apostle Peter, who was the head of the church. They meet, “Then Peter proceeded to speak and said, ‘In truth, I see that God shows no partiality. Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him’” (Acts 10:34-35). In meeting Cornelius, Peter suddenly understands that God wants a relationship with every single person.
A lot of insider church people assume that God only wants a relationship with Church people, but that’s not the case. He wants a relationship with you no matter who you are.
Peter continues, “You know what has happened all over Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. He went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil for God was with him. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree” (Acts 10:36-38).
This wasn’t new news to Cornelius. At that point, in that area of the world, everyone at least knew about Jesus. They knew about him because he was incredibly popular with the crowds. People who were nothing like him liked him. People were drawn to Jesus’ preaching and teaching. He taught as having authority. In other words he knew how life worked. His preaching revealed intelligence and wisdom. People were drawn to his magnetic personality and care and concern for others, especially the poor.
Cornelius probably thought, like most people that Jesus was a great prophet and pastor
perhaps he was sad to hear of his death. But as a Roman, it didn’t really have anything to do with him.
If Jesus Christ is just a good person or even a great prophet than that attitude makes a great deal of sense. Jesus’ death doesn’t really have anything to do with us.
That’s why the next two verse are so important. Peter says something completely and utterly shocking that surely would have shocked Cornelius. “This man God raised on the third day and granted that he be visible, not to all people, but to us, the witnesses chosen by God in advance, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts 10:40-41).
In the ancient world, in Greek and Roman philosophy, people were understood as a composite of body and soul. At death, the soul was released from the body and traveled to the land of the dead. All agreed that death destroys the body and death is final, it has the final say,
and that was understood as a good thing, since their philosophies considered the body bad…prone to sin, corruption, and decay.
Jewish theology was simply inconsistent regarding what happens after death, it was, in fact, a source of deep debate. Then Jesus astounds and amazes. The Gospels describe three separate occasions when Jesus raised the dead, the final one being the raising of his friend Lazarus.
Now, Peter describes to Cornelius an even more sensational and even more spectacular event. Jesus himself has been raised from the dead.
An event unexpected, unprecedented, unparalleled. An event that simply absolutely introduces a new era in human history. Before the Resurrection death is the ultimate and final reality. After the Resurrection Christ is the ultimate and final reality.
What God did with his Son, God wants to do in you. But, here’s the difference. God raised his Son from the dead beginning with a bodily resurrection. God begins differently with you and me. God begins by changing us from the inside out. God starts by changing our mind and our thoughts, our hearts and our habits, our soul and spirit. Christ is the ultimate and final reality.
When we feel that longing for the new it is a feeling placed on our hearts by God. Whatever new thing we’re longing for whether we know it or not, what we’re really longing for is Christ. We’re longing for a relationship with Jesus Christ who alone can renew us.
Elsewhere, the Bible tells us: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). God makes us new in Christ.
Whoever you are, however old you are, whatever your stage or state of life, whatever you’ve done. God can make us new in Christ. It is his gift to us.
That does not mean we do not have a part to play in being made new. If someone gives you a gift that does not mean you have no responsibility for it or you do nothing with it. Just the opposite. How you use that gift determines how much you benefit from it. God gives us the gift of new life in Christ, but it’s up to us how we use that gift.
The story of Cornelius and Peter ends with Cornelius and his household being baptized. It ends in the waters of baptism. He embraces the good news of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. He is baptized a public sign of his new life, joining his life to Jesus Christ. It’s a whole new start for him.
Every Easter Sunday we return to a very ancient tradition. Those baptized are invited to renew the promises of their baptism and then we sprinkle you with water. But not just any water…we’re going to use the water that was blessed in the Easter Vigil last night, it is the water of Baptism. It’s a way of recommitting, or even committing for the very first time to a loving relationship with the living Lord. It is a way to connect to Jesus and his power to live a new kind of life. It celebrates the Brand New.