Archived Sermons

Introductory Words

A Better Resurrection by Sylvia Plath.

I have no wit, I have no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
A lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is like the falling leaf;
O Jesus, quicken me.

Then they took him out to crucify him.
They brought Jesus to the Place of a Skull. They offered him drugged wine, but he would not take it.
They crucified him and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take. It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him.
Those who passed by derided him, saying, “Aha!, you would pull down the temple, would you, and build it in three days? Come down from the cross and save yourself.”
Those who were crucified with him also taunted him.
When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land.
At three o’clock Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”
Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.
At the end of the day, on the eve of the Sabbath, Joseph brought a linen sheet, took him down from the cross, and wrapped him in the sheet. Then he laid him in a tomb cut out of the rock, and rolled a stone against the entrance.

When the Sabbath was over, on the first day of the week, at early dawn they came to the tomb to anoint his body with oils. They were wondering who would roll away the stone from the entrance to the tomb.
When they arrived they saw that the stone had already been rolled back, and on the right they saw a young man. They were alarmed. But the man said to them:

Why do you seek the living among the dead? He, who was crucified, has risen.

Mark 15 & 16

God of Easter and infrequent Spring:
Drive the sweet sap through our parched veins,
Lure us to fresh schemes of life.
Rouse us from tiredness, self-pity,
Whet us for use;
Fire us with good passion.
Restore in us the love of living;
Bind us to hope again.

-Clark Dewey WELLS

Sermon
There is life. There is hope. There is joy. There is love. There is compassion, and generosity, and goodwill, and energy, and passion.
And there is death. And there is hopelessness. And there is despair, and depression, and indifference, and incredible suffering.  
All this is woven into our lives—all this is right here in this world—right here in this moment—and each and everyone of us faces the challenge of coming to terms with this awesome mixture we call life.

And so there is Easter. There is this holiday; ancient in its many forms that takes on the awesome task of addressing these themes. There is this holy day that arose out of our human struggle with the realities of life and death. There is this day created to help us find meaning and understanding and comfort in light of the baffling complexity of existence.

From my perspective it all begins with death—death is central to our Easter. Death is the great terror that drives our lives. Our ancient ancestors told stories of the physical death. We have heard many of these stories—stories about the death of Jesus, the death of Attis, the death of Osiris, the death of Dionysus. These stories told of painful and horrifying deaths. In each the central character was overcome, defeated and mutilated. In each the death brought incredible suffering and created an atmosphere of hopelessness.

But the stories do not end there. In all these stories the death and the hopelessness were overcome. In these Easter stories each of the central characters arose from the dead, each was resurrected, each overcame death. And many people over thousands of years have found comfort in these stories because they heard in them the promise of the possibility of death overcome—the possibility of life beyond a death—the possibility of hope beyond the pain and despair.

Now some hear these stories and believe that indeed physical death has been over come—that indeed there is eternal life.  And this is glorious news whether you are a modern day Christian, or an ancient Roman, Greek or Egyptian. This is their Easter message—celebrated each year around the time of the spring equinox. Biological death can be transcended. No longer must we fear death.

Others, though, hear the stories differently. Others understand that the stories are not about physical/biological death, but spiritual, psychological and emotional death. They understand these stories to be metaphors. And they understand that Easter is about resurrection from hopelessness, despair, indifference, and depression. Easter is about facing the hard things in life (the spiritual and emotional deaths), working through them, and emerging into the daylight once again. The “Easter possibility” says that there is hope even in the darkest of times—that there is more life even in the midst of such death—that the spirit can be resurrected.

As you have probably already noted, the first understanding of the Easter message is based on certain theological beliefs about the nature of god and what happens after one dies. Since Unitarian Universalists hold no theological beliefs in common—we have no shared conception of what happens after we die, or of the nature of god. For this reason we tend not to focus on physical resurrection on Easter Sunday. Instead we focus on the second understanding of the Easter possibility—the possibility that the spirit can be resurrected. The Easter message that most Unitarian Universalists understand and share is the one centered on the here and now—the one we all have experience with—the one that has to do with the darkness into which our soul can descend—the darkness of depression, unhappiness, hopelessness, heartbreak, and despair. For many UUs Easter is about the possibility of the death and resurrection of the human spirit.

You might be noticing that I use the phrase “Easter possibility” as opposed to the more traditional “Easter promise”. When I began writing these words I used the word “promise”, as many do. But as this sermon evolved I changed “promise” to “possibility” because unfortunately the resurrection of the human spirit is not promised—it is not guaranteed. This is painfully evident in the stories we know of people trapped in their despair and pain—people who died before they were able to experience the resurrection—before they were able to find their way out of the shadow. What we are offered is not a promise but a possibility of moving through despair and pain given time, effort, circumstances, and perhaps grace. And it is that possibility which we must keep in mind as we journey through life.

So there is Easter—Easter is here to remind us of those possibilities. These reminders come to us in a variety of ways like the spring flowers, the symbol of the egg, and the tradition of dressing up on Easter day. But perhaps most clearly of all such reminders are found in the stories and poetry of Easter. Some of these directly speak of the holiday; others speak of the possibilities.

There are many versions of the Easter story—many more than the one found in the New Testament.  And some of these actually involve the death of the physical being. Phillip Simmons who lived with and died from ALS wrote in his book Learning to Fall an Easter message:

This book is for everyone who has lived long enough to discover that life is both more and less than we hoped for. We’ve known earth’s pleasures: sunlight on a freshly mowed lawn, leaves trembling with rain, a child’s laugh, the sight of a lover stepping from the bath. We’ve also seen marriages sour and careers crash, we’ve seen children lost to illness and accident. But beyond the dualities of feast and famine we’ve glimpsed something else: the blessings shaken out of an imperfect life like fruit from a blighted tree. We’ve known the dark woods, but also the moon. This book is for those ready to embrace this third way, the way through loss to a wholeness, richness, and depth we had never before envisioned.

We’re stubborn creatures, and it takes a shock to make us see our lives afresh. In my case the shock was the news, when I was just 35 years old, that I had the fatal condition known as ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, and would likely be dead within a few years. By now—more than seven years later—I’ve outlived those predictions and also the sense that my predicament is so unusual. Life, after all, is a terminal condition. At some point we all confront the fact that each of us, each individual soul is, as the poet William Butler Yeats says, ‘fastened to a dying animal.” We’re all engaged in the business of dying, whether consciously or not, slowly or not. For me, knowing that my days are numbered has meant the chance to ask with new urgency the sorts of questions most of us avoid: everything from “What is my life’s true purpose?” to “Should I reorganize my closets?” What I’ve learned from asking them is that a fuller consciousness of my own mortality has been my best guide to being more fully alive.

Phillip Simmons was facing his own death—he knew he would die young. He knew he would leave behind a family he loves which includes young children. I am sure that he has felt overwhelm with the sense of sadness and loss. I am sure he has suffered great pain and despair and hopelessness. He has felt all that, and he has found a way to move through that emotional darkness. In fact, he says that the reality of his approaching death has enriched his life. I am sure he wouldn’t choose to die now, but he is working with his circumstances to live as fully as he can. Phillip Simmons has experienced a resurrection—he has been able to embrace and savor life in the face of one of our greatest fears. He is lucky—he has experienced Easter.

I hear another version of the Easter possibility in a poem entitled Kindness by Naomi Nye.

Before you know what kindness really is,
you must lose things,
[you must] feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
“It is I you have been looking for”,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

I believe this to be a poem about the Easter possibility. The possibility that in the face of loss, hopelessness, pain, confusion, sorrow—in the face of the many forms of spiritual and emotional death that can drain life from us and subdue, sometimes crush, the spirit—in the face of this we may be able to emerge from the valley of the shadow of death to embrace life again.
This is something we all need to keep in mind—that regardless of how deep the pain and how terrible the circumstances there is the possibility (a very good possibility) that we will at some time know joy, hope and passion again. This is not to say we try to ignore or repress the pain and despair, only that we understand that we can pass through it to more joy. This is essential if we are to stay involved with life and be a force for love and justice. For without a doubt we will face hard-times and pain and sorrow and disappointment--some of us repeatedly —and it is what we do in the face of this pain and despair that will determine the quality of our remaining days—that will determine our impact on the world. This is something we all need to keep in mind.

A for instance. Here are some of the circumstances in the life of the person considered by some our greatest President.

• At the age of seven his family was forced out of their home, and he had to work to support them.
• At age 9 his mother died.
• At age 23 his business failed
• A year later he ran for the Illinois state legislature and lost.
• That same year he lost his job and found out he couldn’t get into law school.
• At age 25 he borrowed some money from a friend to begin a business and by the end of the year he was bankrupt. He spent the next 17 years of his life paying off this debt.
• At age 26 he ran for state legislature again and this time won.
• At age 27 he was engaged to be married but his fiancée died.
• At age 28 he had a nervous breakdown and was in bed for six months.
• At age 30 he sought to become speaker of the state legislature and was defeated.
• At age 32he sought to become elector and was defeated.
• At age 35 he ran for Congress and lost.
• At age 38 he ran for Congress again. This time he won and went to Washington and did a good job.
• At age 40 he ran for re-election to Congress and lost.
• In that same year his second son at age four died.
• At age 41 he sought the job of land officer in his home state and was rejected.
• At the age of 46 he ran for Senate of the United States and lost.
• At the age of 48 he sought the vice-presidential nomination at his party’s national convention and got less than 100 votes.
• At the age of 50 he ran for U.S. Senate again and again he lost.
• At the age of 52 he was elected president of the United States.
• At age 53 his third son died at age 11

I am don’t know a lot about Abraham Lincoln, but I would imagine that he faced some pretty dark times over the course of his lifetime. I can’t imagine facing what he did and then continuing to reach for life--continuing to pursue his dreams. But he did just that. As near as I can tell Abraham Lincoln repeatedly experienced the power of the Easter paradigm. Abraham Lincoln repeatedly rolled away the rock from the tomb of his political ambitions and his personal dreams to experienced resurrection. And because he did so he changed this nation.

It can be done—the possibility of Easter is before us all. And knowing this is the first step beyond death.

I close with the words of Max Coots:

We need a celebration that speaks the Spring-inspired word about life and death,
About us as we live and die,
Through all the cycling seasons, days, and years.
We need the sense of deity to crack our own hard, brown December husks
And push life out of inner tombs and outer pain.
Unless we move the seasons of the self, and Spring can come for us,
The Winter will go on and on.
And Easter will remain a myth, and life will never come again, despite the fact of Spring.

©2009 Rev. Daniel S. Brosier