Living the Word

Acts 5: 27-32
Revelation 1: 4-8

What is the truth about why we are here today? There are less of us than there were the week before and part of that is because the family that has come to visit you for the holidays has left, but it is also because on Christmas and Easter, people we do not see for most of the year are suddenly walking through the church doors.

Why is that and why is it a week after Christmas and Easter those same people are nowhere to be found?

Now we all have theories about it, but the truth of the matter is we can never know the full reasoning behind it until we have experienced it ourselves. Each one of us has probably had a time in our lives when coming to church has taken a backseat to whatever else was going on in our lives. When we leave for college; when we have our first child who keeps us up at night with feedings and diaper changes every two hours; when we pray for a loved one not to die and they still do; when we lose our job or when something else traumatic happens; when we find that church no longer gives us peace and comfort.

You see, there’s a reason you’re here in this sanctuary today. The truth is that some of you want to be here and others are here out of obligation and still others would rather be sleeping in or eating brunch than be here. I know, because there are days when I wake up and think, “God, does today have to be Sunday because I need more sleep!?”

It is very easy to judge the people that only come once or twice a year if you come almost every Sunday. It is very easy to say there is something wrong with those people and nothing wrong with us. It is very easy to say if our pastor visited more, or if our committees offered more programs or if our greeters were more welcoming then this church would be packed. These are excuses that hold no water to the church we see depicted in the Book of Acts and of Revelation.

In these two passages we read today we are given a strong idea of what the growing church focused on in their work to bring people through the doors. They concentrated on Jesus. Jesus who is firstborn of the dead, Jesus who is God’s Son and was crucified for our sakes but did not stay dead. There are some that come on Easter to here the great, glorious news that Jesus Christ is Risen because we need to remember those promises, but then the church forgets to remember that Jesus is risen for the rest of the year too.

During Holy Week I was speaking to the other two pastors and I made the joking comment, “I need to go write the Easter sermon and make sure that Christ is raised!” and one of the pastors looked at me and said, “Remember, Jesus is risen already and your job is to make sure everyone knows it” which if you remember last week’s sermon you know directly influenced the message proclaimed.

What I’m trying to say is that if people are not coming to church every Sunday they have reasons, whether they are good or bad, but they are reasons. Some of those reasons have to do with what is going on in their own lives and some of those reasons are because the church, OUR church forgets too quickly the miraculous news that Jesus Christ is Risen and what that means for us. We move too quickly from Alleluias to “What time will we have summer service?” “Who will be at Grange Fair this year?” “What vacations do you plan on taking when the kids get out of school this year?”

Sometimes we just need to revel in the moment. We need to embrace the beauty and grace of the Lord; our God who loved us so much that he gave his only begotten Son so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. That is the Good News we too quickly brush aside for those “more important” matters. And yet, there is nothing more important than that we are forgiven because the blood of Christ has washed us clean. There is nothing more important than that because Jesus died and is Risen that we too will escape the punishment of death and know eternal life with God the Father, with Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit. There is nothing more important than those things.

The people that come a couple times of year have not heard this enough. Not from me and not from you. And it is not said just with words, but with the things we do in our lives. How we act and speak and treat others tells them everything they need to know about what it means to be a Christian. What we should be proclaiming with our actions is the joy we should surely be living with when we have such reassurances; the happiness that should shine out of our souls; the peace that should reflect in our eyes even in the greatest of trials; the love that should radiate out of us because we know we are loved and forgiven even though we are not perfect, and therefore we know how to love others in the same way.

Perhaps if we did those things a little more, perhaps if we acted more like the Christians we proclaim ourselves to be the people around us would be asking, “How do I get the peace you have when your life is so hard? How do I forgive people as easily as you seem to do? Why is it I never find you gossiping about people?” People SHOULD be asking us those things. They asked them about Jesus. The very same Jesus who as he lay gasping on the cross, bloody and in pain, found enough breath to breathe out a prayer asking God to forgive us for we have no idea what we are doing.

This year let us remember and proclaim the good news of the Gospel not just on Easter Sunday, but every day of our lives. Let us live the life of a Christian who knows that no matter what happens to this flesh and bone body, that our soul is saved because of Christ Jesus – the first born of the dead, who is the Alpha and the Omega, the one who is and who was and who is to come – our Salvation, Our Redeemer and Our Peace. Let us remember we are saved and live life like we are saved.

If we make this our goal for the year, I can promise new people in these pews come next Easter – ones that will stay because they are hearing what they need to hear. They will stay because they are seeing people live a saved life. They will come because they are witnessing the miracle that Jesus Christ is to a person’s life. YOU will bring them in by the life you live. When we start proclaiming the Gospel every day of our lives, the world will sit up and take notice. It happened when the church first began and it can happen now – 2000 years later.

Amen.