Sermon: The Love of Easter

The basic message of Christianity is that God is love. Love all the way down. And that love is the most powerful force in the universe. Love is stronger than even death and hell.

We all know that Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss in the darkness of the garden of Gethsemene. Then, devastated by the realization of what he had done, Judas took his own life. According to Frederick Buechner, "There is a tradition in the early church, however, that [Judas'] suicide was based not on despair but on hope. If God was just, then [Judas] knew there was no question where he would be heading as soon as he'd breathed his last. Furthermore, if God was also merciful, he knew there was no question either that in a last-ditch effort to save the souls of the damned as God's son, Jesus would be down there too. Thus the way Judas figured it, Hell might be the last chance he'd have of making it to Heaven, so to get there as soon as possible, he tied the rope around his neck and kicked away the stool. Who knows?

"In any case, it's a scene to conjure with. Once again they meet in the shadows, the two old friends, both of them a little worse for wear after all that had happened, only this time it was Jesus who was the one to give the kiss, and this time it wasn't the kiss of death that was given." Love, all the way down. One commentator speculated what Jesus' words to Judas might have been. "Judas, my old friend. We couldn't start the party without you." The embrace. The healing kiss. Then, with Hell emptied, Jesus waited for the dawn of Easter to begin the work of embracing the entire earth.

Here's our message. God's all embracing love overcomes all evil and death with the power of resurrection into new life. Love overcomes all. Love all the way down. That's the core of our life in the Church.

I know a church that operates a group home for women recovering from addiction and homelessness. The first thing these women hear as they enter the program, "even while still nauseated, dizzy and aching from head to toe from withdrawal, [they] hear the radical news that they are loved unconditionally... [They learn] that what is most true about each of them-- about all of us -- is that we are loved and that God's love abides in us. What they hear is that just as surely as a peach pit is at the core of every peach, love is at the core of every human being."

Everything we do at this church is intended to energize love in one direction or another. There is the love we receive -- through communion, through the message of scripture and teaching, through forgiveness, through our friendships, and music and prayer. We receive the gift through word and symbol and action: "You are loved and accepted." That's the love we receive.

There is also the love we give away -- through service and outreach, through nurture and friendship, through advocacy and care -- saying to all humanity, indeed all to creation, "We love and care for you," through word and symbol and action. We are a gathered group who is in the business of receiving and giving love. We are convinced that love overcomes all. Love heals and saves. Jesus is our model. We have received unconditional love from him. It is the unconditional love of God. What we have received, we give away.

The story of Easter tells us that when you face evil and death and hell with nothing but love, resurrection happens. Love triumphs over evil through death into the wonder of new life.

I'd like to share with you an Easter story from Patricia Livingson. She has a dear friend Sr. Therese who now conducts a Roman Catholic sabbatical program at Berkeley. "Nearly twenty years ago Sr. Therese was a counselor on the faculty of the international school that her community runs in Rome. There was a student ...Carmen who was very dear to Therese. Sometimes Carmen came to school with strange bruises and welts, and one day she confied to Therese that her stepfather was abusing her.

"Therese spoke to the mother who was outraged and called the daughter a filthy liar. The stepfather was a very wealthy man, who Therese always suspected was connected with the Italian underworld. He was constantly seen with powerful people of all kinds in the worlds of film, politics, and business.

"Not long after this, Carmen ran away, and the father stormed the school demanding that they find her and return her to him. Therese had no idea where Carmen was. Eventually, she heard that the girl had been seen in the company of a man called Il Lupa, the Wolf, a drug dealer. Then some time later, that she had been seen along one of the Roman bridges where prostitutes solicited. Therese tried to find her but was never able to do so.

"A week before Therese was leaving Rome permanently for the United States, she received a call from a nursing sister that the girl was in the ward of her hospital. Therese went right away, and the sister met her saying, 'Carmen is dying. There is no place left in her veins to put a needle.' The girl's poor arms were like sticks, filled with marks from shooting up herion.

"When Carmen opened her eyes and saw Therese, she turned her face to the wall, saying, 'Oh, Sister, you should not have come. I am evil. You must hate me.'

"Therese held her and said, 'Dear one, dear one, dear one, don't say that. You are precious and beautiful. I will always love you.' She held Carmen until she fell asleep.

"Decades have passed since then. Therese, long back in this country, had always been sure that Carmen had died soon after this last visit. It was several years ago that Therese first told [Patricia] the tragic story, tearing up as she remembered.

"[Last] summer she called with a different kind of tears to tell [Patricia] she had gotten an e-mail from an address she did not recognize, from a doctor... It was from the girl, now long a woman!

"She had somehow recovered, escaped from her father and her life in Rome, come to New York where her mother's family lived, and gone back to school. She is now a psychiatrist who works full-time with troubled girls. She had just managed to track down Therese's e-mail address.

"Therese read ...the closing message from Carmen: 'Sister, I have always longed to tell you: it was your love that saved me. Because of you, I could somehow trust God's love. Now I'm trying to pass that love on."

That's our work. To pass along love so that people will live. It's the way everyone will know that God is love. Researchers have found that the one thing that makes the greatest difference in shaping the potential for a child to thrive is if at least one adult will show they believe in that child, one adult will give caring, attentive love to that vulnerable youth. It makes all the difference. Love always begets life.

Easter reminds us of the depths of God's love for us. Through Jesus God gives us unconditional love that telling us that God believes in us and in our potential. Like Sr. Therese, Jesus gladly holds each of us in his arms and says, "Dear one, dear one, dear one. You are precious and beautiful. I will always love you." That is the love that can overcome all that threatens us and our planet. We receive that love today, in word and sacrament and prayer. Then we go out into the world to give away what we have received.

Sister Joan Chittister has said, "We are each called to go through life reclaiming the planet an inch at a time until the Garden of Eden grows green again." On Easter Day long ago, Jesus reclaimed the first inch. Now he is with each of us to help us reclaim our inch. Easter is the encouraging reminder, through love, we too can rise to the occasion.