Dare to be Found

Ok this was so fun last night during the Easter Vigil that I want to try it again. Now I want to hear you during this opening call and response, so I’m going to invite you to go ahead and unmute yourself.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia

Alright! Let me check that off my sermon to-do list! Let’s see here, number one: Don’t forget to open by saying “Alleluia! Christ is risen!”...Check!

Number two: Say it a second time… Check!

Annnd Number three: Say it a third time…Check, check, and check.

With that, it looks like I’m off to a good start with my sermon to do list. And I have this list because this is my first ever Easter Sunday sermon, so I just want to make sure I dot all my “I”s and cross all my “T”s. And while I am excited and definitely a bit nervous to be preaching my first ever Easter Sunday sermon, it is surreal to be doing it here, sitting alone in the guest bedroom of our apartment preaching to you through the camera on my computer. Never in a million years would I have guessed that this is how my first Easter Sunday sermon would be preached, but here we are, and I can say this: “It’s definitely a sermon I will never forget preaching.”

And wow, what strange times we find ourselves in. Our churches this Easter morning find themselves as empty as the tomb of Jesus, and while we’d normally find ourselves together in those light-filled sanctuaries, dressed in our Easter best, we’re tuned-in safely from afar in our light-filled apartments and homes, some of us still dressed in our PJs.

And I’m not sure if you are joining our Easter service livestream this morning because you found it or because it found you by way of invitation, social media, or our eNews, but no matter what way you find yourself here and in what state of mind, or state of dress you find yourself today, you are so, so welcomed here in this sacred virtual space. And especially on this Easter Sunday morning, the morning we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, I want you to know that you didn't just find our livestream today, but you have been found this Easter Sunday by God’s divine love. On this morning of all mornings, after the Lentiest Lent that we ever Lented, we can pause and rest in that divine love that has sought us out and found us through Christ's resurrection.

And being found, this is one of the major themes of today’s Easter story. If we look back at the Gospel story we just heard from Matthew, it’s not actually about what Mary Magdalene and the other Mary find when they arrive at the empty tomb, but on this Easter morning, it's about them being found by a divine love in the form of the resurrected Jesus, who meets them as they were running to tell the other disciples about the empty tomb.

And it’s this part in the story where we just have to laugh. Jesus, after being crucified, dying, and being buried, just shows up, and the first words he says to the women is, “Greetings!” Like what? These women are feeling a mixture of fear and joy and they are running with such vigor to share this miraculous news of the empty tomb with their friends, they’re all out of breath and their hearts are pounding from all the excitement and running, and all of a sudden here’s Jesus, meeting them in that moment with a casual but exuberant, “Greetings!” I just can’t help but chuckle at that.

But I think Jesus’ friendly greeting speaks to something deep. Because when we, like Mary Magdalene and the other Mary are running ragged, disoriented by all that we had expected to find but didn’t, it is in moments like that when out of nowhere, God’s divine love just shows up and finds us, sometimes even with a simple friendly greeting. There are even moments like this where we might not recognize God’s divine love when it appears because it comes to us and greets us like it never left. In those moments when we are found by God’s divine love, don’t be surprised if it just shows up and says to you informally but excitedly, “Hey! What’s up! Greetings!”

Dear people, this Easter morning is a time for us to be reminded that we too have been found by God’s divine love. Wherever you are watching from, no matter when the last time was that you left your house, no matter when the last time was that you put on real pants, God’s divine love has found you just where you are, just as you are.

During the Season of Lent we read a book with our friends from Holy Family Lutheran Church called, One Coin Found, and it’s a memoir by a queer Pastor named Emmy Kegler. In her memoir, Reverend Emmy talks about how God’s love found her, and relating to the parable of the lost coin, Reverend Emmy experienced God like the woman who turns over her entire house to find her one lost coin. This image of God as a woman who is belly down to the ground desperately searching under each chair and rug, inspecting each crack in the floorboards is not one that you’ll hear in our Easter hymns today that sing of Jesus as our triumphant, victorious king, but in both the resurrection and in the desperate searching woman, God is showing us that there is no limit to the lengths or places God will go to find us and save us.

Especially in this time of pandemic when it feels like we have lost so much, or when we ourselves are lost, Reverend Emmy in her memoir reminds us that God’s divine love never stops looking for us, she says, “We have been and are and will be found in such a myriad of ways, but always, always, always, love is seeking us.” Then she ends her book with the challenge, “Dare to be found.”

Dare to be found. That’s an important aspect of our good news this Easter, because like the Marys who went to the tomb this morning, they weren’t hiding out, they dared to be found, and as a result they were found and then became the first messengers of the good news that we are all found by God’s divine love which rose from the dead and is alive in the world still today.

God’s divine love is desperately seeking us out and we can experience that love fully when we dare to be found, but that’s definitely easier said than done, the temptation is to go back into hiding. Especially once the social distancing guidelines someday soften like the ground in springtime, we might still feel safer to just stay isolated, to hide ourselves from the world that would judge us, to hide ourselves from the pain of others, to hide ourselves from the hurt that we risk experiencing when we dare to be found.

But dear people, Christ rose from the dead to liberate us from our captivity, to bring us into the fullness of God’s family, and to be found by God’s divine love over and over and over again. The Marys have shown us what it looks like to dare to be found, and they were found because the first thing that the risen Jesus does is to go find others to invite into a life of divine love — a life of love that death cannot destroy. This morning is your reminder that you have already been found by God’s Divine Love, but it’s also your invitation to live into God’s Easter liberation and to dare to be found again and again by God’s divine love!

So before I finish, let me just make sure I have completed everything on my sermon to-do list. Huh, well it looks like the only other box I had left to check off was to preach good news, so I’m going to go ahead and check that one off now because I know I’ve already said it, but I’ll say it again, the Good News this Easter is that we can stop striving to find God’s divine love for us, because that divine love has already found us. It’s a divine love that Reverend Emmy says stretches to the margins because it is invitational, it’s merciful, it heals, it comes close, it’s expansive, and it’s unconditional but yet has expectations of us. That’s the divine love that finds us. There are no margins of our existence that God’s divine love has not gone to. Not even death. So no matter where you have been, no matter where you are sheltering in place this day, and no matter where life takes you the days after this pandemic has passed, you have been found, you are found, and you will be found by God’s divine love over and over. Daring to be found by that divine love just means living as though you already are. Alleluia and Amen.