St. Paul’s United Church Easter Sunday, April 16, 2006

The Christmas/Easter Story – Rev. David Mundy

Luke 2:1-20 Luke 23, 24 selected verses

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I have discovered during my time here at St. Paul’s that we have very smart and observant children in our congregation! Our kids notice things in the sanctuary that adults don’t always see, and they often give answers to my questions before I have finished asking them.

So I wonder if any of the children have already figured out that there are some things – including some living things – that we wouldn’t normally see at the front of the church today?

Along with the cross draped in white as a symbol of Easter, we dug out the Nativity scene which we usually have on the grand piano during Advent and Christmas.

And then there are the flowers. We expect to see lilies on Easter morning, and the ones we have here are beautiful. But it looks as though we got confused because there are also some poinsettias beside them. One is very impressive. The other we borrowed from Charlie Brown – it’s looking rather bedraggled, but it’s trying its best.

Why would we have Christmas symbols alongside the images of Easter today? It’s because I got thinking a couple of weeks ago after a colleague in ministry complained about the “C & E” Christians. In case you haven’t heard that phrase before it is an abbreviation of Christmas and Easter Christians. They are also referred to as “P & L” Christians – Poinsettia and Lily.

My friend in ministry was a bit annoyed that his church would be full this morning because of the people who choose to come when the poinsettias and lilies are decorating the front of the church: “they only come for the big celebrations.” Grumble, grumble, grumble. It occurred to me that he was being a bit harsh. I’m not saying that the same thought never crossed my mind! We might be missing the point though.

It’s wonderful that we are here together this morning. After all, we have family gatherings where the occasion is so important, a birth or a death or an anniversary, where everyone tries to come together even though it may not happen often. Christmas and Easter are our anniversary celebrations of a birth and a death and a rebirth, and while we tend to come and go as Christ’s family during the rest of the year these are the times when we want to be in one place to remember and to celebrate. It’s been said that every Sunday is a little Easter, but today is the Biggie, the day of resurrection which draws us together.

But why Christmas and Easter at the same time? Dennis Dewey is a wonderful biblical story teller who has noticed the parallels between the beginning of Christ’s life with us, and the end, as well as the surprising and glorious new beginning of the resurrection. We are going to hear that story this morning, as we find it in Luke’s gospel. Listen and take a look as our readers share this story with us.

PART 2

It’s important to hear our story of birth and rebirth in Christ once again. There are many religions in our world and nearly all of them offer a message of compassion and love. Rather than pointing out their deficiencies and faults we should affirm that those who seek God understand the central, life-affirming message of love.

At the same time we are reminded that our Christian faith is extra-ordinary because God chose to be so marvellously ordinary. God has come to us first of all in that baby of Bethlehem who was as vulnerable and precious as any other human baby.

When a child is safely born into our midst, we breathe a sigh of relief and then we celebrate this wondrous new arrival. I can tell you that while I am delighted when babies are here in the sanctuary, I have no trouble telling where they are, even when they are quiet. The goofy looks and the loving smiles on the faces of those sitting around them are always a giveaway!

This is the way it is meant to be, but as much as we love newborns we wouldn’t want them to stay that way, in a state of perpetual arrested development. If we think about it, Christmas with all it’s wonder and joy would mean nothing to us as Christians if Jesus didn’t grow up. What we are aware of is that there are no guarantees about this life and how it will turn out, as so many of us have discovered. Sorrow is as much a part of the human condition as joy.

Still, we take that risk over and over again because that is what it means to be human. That’s what it means to love.

God took that risk as well and while angels sang and shepherds bowed at the manger when Jesus was born, from the first moments of his life there were danger and uncertainty and eventually sadness and pain. With all of that, Jesus grew up to teach and to heal and to model love in ways that attracted people and made them want to follow him.

That wasn’t the end though, and that’s why we are here this morning. There is the story of the empty tomb which sent the first ones there racing to share the good news with others in the way those shepherds shouted the good news thirty-odd years before. Jesus is alive!

We tend not to speak about being “born again” in our United Church because that phrase tends to become trite and formulaic. Today though we celebrate that God was born and reborn into this often troubling world of ours and because Christ rose from the dead we too can move beyond fear and sadness .

This morning you may be here looking forward to the birth of a child or celebrating a recent birth. You may be here aware that you are well into the second half of life. I think that so many of us come on Christmas Eve and Easter morning because we want the assurance that there is something more to life than in the brief time we are here on earth.

Whatever our reasons for coming, the God of the nativity and the God of the resurrection is with us in this moment. There is a poem by Madeleine L’Engle that I have used at Christmas, but it fits for Easter as well.

"That was no time for a Child to be born, In a land in the crushing grip of Rome, Honour and truth were trampled by scorn -- Yet here did the Saviour make His home. When is the time for love to be born? The inn is full on the planet earth, And by greed and pride the sky is torn-- Yet love still takes the risk of birth. If God has been willing to say “yes” to us in Jesus the baby of Bethlehem, we can say “yes” to the Risen Christ for our lives today and everyday.

We are all Poinsettia and Lily Christians! We are Christians at Christmas and Easter and all the days in between! The good news is that there will be church next Sunday and the week after and the week . . . well, you get the picture!

Every Sunday we declare that Christ is alive! We are alive in Christ! Thanks be to God for resurrection life!