Gordon E. Ellis
Easter Sunday
April 8, 2007
THE GOOD NEWS OF EASTER
Have you ever heard of Charles Wesley? Well, he was the younger brother of JOHN Wesley, the founder of the METHODIST Church. And Charles Wesley is BEST known for his hymn-writing. If you don’t know HIM, I’ll BET you’ve heard some of his MUSIC. He wrote Hark, the Herald Angels Sing and Love Divine, All Loves Excelling and 4500 OTHER hymns, MANY of which we still sing TODAY! And I’m always IMPRESSED by that NUMBER: 4500 hymns! Do you realize that’s an AVERAGE of 2 hymns a week for 45 years? I mean: I struggle to write 1 sermon per week, so I just stand in AWE of someone who could write THAT many hymns MONTH after month and YEAR after year. And Wesley wrote HYMNS while riding in STAGECOACHES and EVEN on horseback. And he never STOPPED writing them until JUST about the day he DIED. I just find his story AMAZING!
Well, ONE of Wesley’s hymns is one of my FAVORITE hymns. It’s a WONDERFUL Easter hymn called, Christ the Lord Is Risen Today. We just SANG it! You know: there are SOME hymns that just PERFECTLY capture the SPIRIT of their SEASON, and this is ONE of them. The hymn tune has a strong, driving rhythm that makes us just want to RAISE the RAFTERS and SING the roof off! And I LOVE how the FIRST line announces WHAT we’re celebrating: Christ the Lord is risen today! And then, the THIRD line tells us HOW to celebrate: Raise your joys and triumphs high! And THROUGHOUT the hymn, the alleluias just SOAR! Oh, it’s such a GLORIOUS hymn! I just LOVE it!
But there’s an interesting STORY about this hymn. You see: the WAY we sing it TODAY is NOT the way it was WRITTEN. Charles Wesley’s hymn was sung to an entirely different TUNE, a tune with NO alleluias. And I believe that the hand of GOD directed what came NEXT, AFTER Wesley WROTE it. You see: somebody ELSE – and we DON’T know WHO – wrote the TUNE that we use TODAY. And then a THIRD person – and AGAIN, we DON’T know who – decided to sing Wesley’s VERSES to the NEW tune, only the words didn’t FIT the tune. SO, he ADDED the ALLELUIAS in order to make the words FIT. So, you see: this absolutely PERFECT Easter HYMN that most love SO much came into being through the work of 3 different PEOPLE, people who probably never even MET each other, and people who had ONLY their FAITH in common. And I suspect that NONE of them had any CLUE just how much THEIR work would add to OUR celebration of Easter 200 years LATER.
Well, when I FIRST learned HOW this hymn DEVELOPED, I WISHED that WESLEY could have heard it SUNG as WE sing it TODAY. I WISH he could have heard it SUNG by a HUGE congregation with organ and trumpets, because it’s an absolute WOW! Well, I don’t know about YOU, but I am STRUCK by the fact that God inspired ONE person to write the poetry, ANOTHER person to write the music, and still ANOTHER person to put them together and ADD the alleluias. THINK about it: the JOURNEY from the FIRST stroke of Wesley’s PEN to the completed HYMN as we know it TODAY, was a journey full of FITS and STARTS and DETOURS. BUT, the hymn that resulted FROM those fits and starts and detours has been a HUGE blessing to countless generations of Christians for TWO centuries. And the STORY of the hymn’s creation REMINDS me of the life of JESUS. HIS journey, TOO, was FULL of fits and starts and detours. It started out very HUMBLY, when He was born an ILLEGITIMATE child to a YOUNG teenage girl. And He was born AWAY from home – in a STABLE – hardly what you’d EXPECT for the BIRTH of the King of Kings. THEN, his family was forced to flee to EGYPT to ESCAPE the wrath of King HEROD, a jealous MADMAN, who had murdered his own WIFE and SONS, and would SOON kill ALL the INFANTS and TODDLERS in and around BETHLEHEM. In EGYPT, the FAMILY of Jesus lived as REFUGEES for at LEAST a couple of YEARS. And THEN, it was back to NAZARETH, where Jesus would grow up in a SMALL town where not much happened, a SMALL town FAR from Jerusalem and FAR from the Temple. THEN, as an adult, He would travel around GALILEE, on FOOT, teaching and healing. His work EXCITED people, mostly POOR people, but it didn’t have much of an IMPACT beyond the borders of Israel. And THEN, Jesus went to JERUSALEM. We talk about Jerusalem as The HOLY City, and it WAS. It was the HOME of the TEMPLE, the CENTER of their religious LIFE. And it’s where the HOLY men lived: the chief priests, the scribes and the Pharisees. But for JESUS, the HOLY city would be a place of DEATH. If you read the Gospels very carefully, you’ll note that things turn OMINOUS as Jesus nears JERUSALEM. The scribes and Pharisees begin to CHALLENGE Him, trying to TRAP Him in His words. And FINALLY, they decide to KILL Him, and SUCCEED! They get the CROWD to support them, and together, they force the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, to NAIL Jesus to a cross, the most AGONIZING way to DIE. And by the END of the day, JESUS is DEAD and buried. His enemies are RID of Him FOREVER, or so they THINK.
HOWEVER, 3 days later, the tomb is EMPTY and Jesus is BACK! He’s ALIVE again, appearing to Mary Magdalene and the disciples and Thomas. You see: in the MIDST of all the fits, starts and DETOURS of His LIFE, God was at WORK, creating PURPOSE out of CHAOS and MEANING out of MADNESS! If WE had been there, WE would have thought His life to be just HAPHAZARD, and leading NOWHERE. We would have tried to SMOOTHE His pathway and make His life EASIER. But AS with the HYMN, GOD was at WORK in the MIDST of it, and EVERY fit and start and detour was WOVEN into God’s grand design, God’s PLAN of salvation! Of COURSE, it would have been WONDERFUL if the world had EMBRACED Jesus, rather than CRUCIFYING Him, but we COULDN’T. So, God had to WEAVE it IN to the design, and FROM it, create NEW life! You see: God’s SAVING grace was at WORK! And THAT’S why the world is CELEBRATING today!
Well, friends, God ALSO works in the midst of the fits and starts and detours in YOUR life and MINE! We, TOO, have successes and failures, wins and losses, ups and downs. But REGARDLESS of WHERE life takes us, or what TROUBLES may befall us, EVEN those we’ve created by our OWN sinful behavior, we can TRUST that GOD is at WORK in the MIDST of it ALL, and that God will weave ALL of it into God’s grand DESIGN, creating JOY out of sadness, LIFE out of death, and HOPE out of despair. Yes, friends, God is WITH us, EVEN when our pathway becomes EXTREMELY tough to travel. God is ALWAYS with us, SHEPHERDING us, to NUDGING us, and to ILLUMINATING the PATH that leads us to life.
Friends, EASTER is a WONDERFUL day! It’s a day to decorate the church with lilies; a day to sing grand Easter HYMNS and SONGS; a day for children to hunt for EASTER eggs, the egg being a symbol of life and resurrection; a day for families to eat a special MEAL together! Yes, it’s the BEST day of the YEAR! But MOST of all, it’s a day to REMEMBER that when WE are faced with fits and starts and detours in our lives, and when LIFE gets TOUGH for us, God is WITH us! GOD is at WORK behind the scenes, redeeming our broken lives, and SHOWING us the WAY to LIFE. And WE simply need to TRUST God to be DOING it! And we CAN, because we’ve WITNESSED it in the life and ministry, DEATH and resurrection, of Jesus Christ. Friends, THAT is the good news of Easter and the GREAT news of our FAITH! SO, let’s CELEBRATE it with everything IN us on this GLORIOUS Easter morning! Amen.