Resurrection Ripple | 4/5/26
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The sermon describes the resurrection as a "question mark" that asks what happens next in our own lives—if you were to "practice resurrection" in your daily routine tomorrow, what is one specific thing that would look different?
Resurrection ripples" are described as starting with one life and spreading to a whole community. Where have you seen a small act of kindness from someone else create a much larger impact on the people around them
We are invited to "clothe ourselves" with things like compassion, humility, and patience; which of those "garments" feels the most uncomfortable or difficult for you to wear right now?
The sermon highlights how a small investment can lead to "generational change."How does the idea that your life is a "story still unfolding" change the way you view the value of your daily choices?
Transcript:
Will you pray with me? Come, Holy Spirit, and breathe life into the words that I speak, that they might carry a word from you into our hearts and lives on this day. Amen.
The grave clothes could not hold Jesus down. The stone rolled across the front of the tomb like the stony hearts of those who wanted him dead, was no match for the power of God's love. Here is the good news that brings us to this place, to this moment, today: the soul-stirring, mind-blowing, chest-grasping, heart-throbbing, breathtaking, even knee-slapping news. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
But what does that news really mean for you? Why does it matter for any of us? You know, we could come and listen to the story again today and sing the songs and eat the food and be fat and happy and say, “It's been a great day.
There's a big question mark that looms at the end of each of the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. All tell the story of Jesus' life and death and resurrection. And at the end of each of those gospels, there is this question that is hanging in the air because Jesus is risen…so what happens now?
The disciples could have said, "You know, we had a good run for three years with him." Imagine what if they had just high-fived each other after the resurrection and went back to the lives that they had before?
I'm so glad that the story doesn't end that way. Aren't you? We wouldn't be here, friends. Thank goodness the story doesn't end that way. And so, beginning with the book of Acts and then continuing through the rest of the New Testament, the writers of those different letters and books help tell the story— or at least the first part of it, the part that's captured in the first century. And then for 20 centuries, that story has just kept on going, and it is still unfolding even today, with us. It's a story of lives forever changed.
Early on, it became clear that the evidence of faith in a resurrected Lord would be seen in people practicing resurrection in their everyday, ordinary lives. The sign that you were ready to begin this new life was baptism. Down beneath the surface of the water—and back in those days, it was one of the rivers or ponds or whatever they could find —the whole body went down underneath the water. There you went, drowning out an old way of life. And then up from the water you came, making a resurrection ripple, as your grace-soaked body resurfaced and you stepped into something brand new.
In his letter to the Colossians, Paul puts it this way:
So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died —that old way of life that went under the water—and now your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.
Day by day, the movement grew as people said yes to the invitation to be raised with Christ, as Paul says, and with each changed life, the ripples spread across the communities in which they lived. Why? Because these new disciples put on life-giving habits that brought hope and healing in exchange for the death-dealing ways that were no good for anybody. Paul reminds us, a few verses later in this letter to the Colossians, of some of those characteristics that will suck the life right out of you, and not only you, but the people around you as well. "But now you must get rid of all such things," he says: "Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth." These are the things that Paul says. Let me read those one more time for you: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. Anybody notice that there seems to be a whole lot of that kind of noise in the world today?
The Apostle Paul says, if you have said yes to following Jesus—and it's a big "if"—but if you have said yes to following Jesus, you're going to have to let that way of living go. There is no place in the life that has been raised with Christ for those characteristics. They are the signs of the old life, the habits that we strip off like old grave clothes when we join Jesus in the life that has been raised from the grave. Instead, Paul says, choose the resurrection wardrobe that God has picked out for you. And then he describes that for us: "Therefore, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience."
Think with me for a moment of some time when somebody showed you compassion, a time when somebody extended kindness toward you. Somebody that you've interacted with that didn't need to jostle for position or power or say something to prove that they were better than you or somebody else, but was comfortable living in a humble way and being part of a community together. When somebody was meek—or another word for that is gentle—when somebody was gentle with you, maybe at a time when in your own mind, you didn't deserve to be handled gently. Or when somebody showed you patience. It makes a difference, doesn't it? When people show up in the world with compassion and kindness and humility and gentleness and patience, it does something to your heart and to your head. It makes a difference when people care about you in those ways.
And Paul goes on to add a couple of other key ones that serve as the foundation for all of the others. A little bit later in this passage: "Bear with one another, and if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other. And above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony."
So why is this the wardrobe that Paul says we should put on if we have been raised with Christ? Why? Because these are the very characteristics that we see in the life of Jesus when we watch his ministry. When we listen to the stories in the gospels of how he interacted with people, of how he met people right where they were and offered them the good news of God's grace, we see every one of these characteristics show up.
And they are the characteristics still today that the world— and by the way, your neighbor and your coworker and your family members—still need. When these are the clothes that we put on, the impact of Jesus' resurrection continues to ripple out into the world through us.
Quite some years ago, on the evening before our son Sid's first day of kindergarten, we were preparing for that monumental day. Sid is our youngest, and so this was the last kid that we would send to kindergarten, and we had been all kind of hanging out together, doing some things. And suddenly Kathryn and I noticed that Sid had disappeared, and it had been quiet for a little bit. And so we called out, "Sid!" "Yep." "What are you doing?" "Getting ready." And so we wandered back to Sid's room, and there on his bed, he had laid out not only the outfit that he wanted to wear for the first day of school; he had laid out the outfits that he was going to wear for the whole first week of school. That boy was ready. And he knew exactly what he wanted to wear.
I bet some of you took some time to think about what you wanted to wear this morning. In fact, I'm quite sure of it. And some of y'all went shopping, and you look good. I got called out earlier this morning because somebody saw me coming out of a department store this week with Catharine, with a bag in my hand. They were like, "I saw you!” You thought about what you were going to wear today, though."
Did you know that in the historical records of the early church, one of the things that we learn is that in the days leading up to Easter, those persons who were ready to make a first-time profession in Christ and be baptized would experience that baptism just after midnight in the Easter Vigil service? And after they had come up out of the water, the church, as a gift to these new Christians, would present them with new garments to put on as a sign of the new life that they were taking on as followers of Jesus.
Every day, every single day when we wake up, you and I get to choose what we will wear— the attitudes, the habits, the words, the actions, the reactions. If we have been raised with Christ, then friends, the perfect wardrobe has already been picked out for us. Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, love. When those are the clothes we choose to put on every morning, we look a lot like Jesus. So go ahead, try them on this week. You'll look great in them, I promise.
Will you pray with me? Wonder-working God, we thank you for the good news of the resurrection of Christ. And I pray that it might not just be a story we celebrate today, but an invitation to a way of life we choose for all of our tomorrows, so that your goodness and mercy might ripple out through our lives to a world in need. Amen.
