Last Sunday night I mentioned to my daughter and son-in-law that I needed to write my Easter sermon, and how I always find it hard. They were surprised and said, “Don’t you just use the same one every year?”  Ha ha, right!  But I suppose they have a point.  It’s not like the Easter story changes from year to year!  And for me, the main lesson from Easter doesn’t change from year to year.  Love Never Ends.  That is the most important take away from Easter Sunday.

The events of Holy Week were violent.  They included personal betrayal and systemic evil.  Jesus was abandoned by his friends, persecuted by his enemies, stripped, beaten, mocked and crucified.  Jesus, the Alpha and Omega of the universe, experienced suffering from A to Z in the days before Easter.  It wasn’t all that long ago we sang, “Love Came Down at Christmas” and celebrated that Jesus was God’s gift of love to the world.  But on Good Friday, it looked like love was defeated.  Love was dead and buried.  God’s answer to death, though, is always resurrection.  What a joy it is on Easter to celebrate that Love Never Ends.  Even when things look grim, Jesus’ resurrection is our proof that nothing—not deliberate evil, not benign neglect, not even death—has the power to end Love.

Love Never Ends.  Last week I taught this verse in American Sign Language to our pre-schoolers in chapel.  The sign for love is easy—you cross your arms over your chest and give yourself a hug.  Never—take your right hand, touch your left shoulder, and then push it down forcefully back to your right side.   Ends—make two fists, stick out your pinkies, and strike the tips of your pinkies against each other like you’re striking a match.  The signs show how decisive and emphatic this verse is.  Love Never Ends.  This is our most basic affirmation of faith.  God Is Love, and Love Never Ends.  We were created in love.  We were built to live in love.  And because Love Never Ends, we can live in love forever.  What a beautiful statement of faith.

Not that we’ve always felt confident in our faith over the last couple years.  We have wondered, if love is so strong, how could almost a million people die from a virus too small to see?  If love is so strong, how come so many people suffer?  If love is so strong, why is watching the nightly news so distressing?  These last two years have made us weary, and when we are weary, our faith can grow weary, too.

Which is why taking time to celebrate is so important.  We need to be reminded that, even though we get tired, Love Never Ends!  Even though we struggle, Love Never Ends!  Love doesn’t faint, or grow weary, or fall asleep.  It doesn’t get mesmerized by the tragedies of this life, it isn’t vulnerable to apathy or numbness.  Love is alive and well!  Even when we feel defeated, love is still at work, behind the scenes, orchestrating something good on our behalf.  This might not be readily apparent in the moment.  I don’t think the words, “Give it time” are in the Bible, per se.  But isn’t that the point of Jesus rising on the third day?  To help us remember that there will be times we suffer.  There will be times when it feels like our rescue is not coming quickly enough.  But that doesn’t mean love has died.  We can have faith that love is still at work for good, even in our darkest days.

God’s answer to death is always resurrection.  And God’s answer to struggle is God’s Spirit within us.  Shortly before he died, Jesus called this Spirit, “Peace.”  This month we have been using John 14:27 as our memory verse.  Jesus gave these instructions to his disciples right before his arrest.  He knew it was going to be very upsetting for his disciples, to witness such evil, to feel so powerless, to undergo the testing of Holy Week.  So Jesus gave his disciples the answer before they took the test.  He said, “Peace I leave with you.  My peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”  Jesus wanted his disciples to know that, no matter what life dishes out to us, God is with us.  We can have confidence in every situation!  We do not need to be afraid.  We do not need to stay stuck in our fears.  We can have peace.

Over the last few months, I have had several people ask me if I think we are in the end times.  This is how you know I am not using an Easter sermon from previous years!  It’s never happened to me before, so many people asking if we are nearing the end of the world.  But I can see why they are asking.  Never in my lifetime has there been such a confluence of evil, destruction, and illness.  Never in my lifetime has there been such a sense of urgency:  about how we treat each other, how we treat creation, how we treat ourselves.  People from Lima church and people from no church have asked me, do you think the world is ending?

I don’t know.  But what I do know is that Jesus named the truth:  that in this life we will suffer, and that we will have God’s Spirit with us in the suffering.  Jesus gives us peace.  And Jesus gives us perspective.  Just because there’s disruption, doesn’t mean all is lost.  I am sure it felt like the end of the world to Jesus’ mother, disciples, and friends when he was killed.  I am sure it felt like the end of the world on that first Easter, when, Matthew tells us, there was an earthquake!  I’m sure it felt like the end of the world to the people who saw the angel at the tomb.  The guards were so afraid they shook and became like dead men.  Talk about upheaval!  Talk about upsetting!  It was indeed the end of the world as they knew it.

But Easter is our proof that Love Never Ends.  Even if earth passes away, love endures.  Even if your marriage dissolves, or your kids don’t talk to you, or your best friend moves away, or your church closes, or the career you had your heart set on never materializes, love never ends.  The world as we knew it, the world as you were used to it, may end.  But say it with me:  Love Never Ends.  Show it to me:  Love—cross your hands over your chest; Never—touch your right hand to your left shoulder, and then push it back down to your right side; Ends—strike the tips of your pinkies against each other.   Will you remember that?  Love Never Ends!  What an important verse to memorize!

We know how to say, “love never ends.”  We know how to show it. (silently do signs) But how do we live it?  This week we had six trees removed from the Lima Church property.  All ash trees, killed by the emerald ash borer.  It was fascinating to watch the tree cutting crew at work, how skillfully they maneuvered those huge trees!  But it was also sad.  Years and years of growth, cut down in a matter of minutes.  The tree man told me, though, that nothing will get wasted. The large parts of the trees will be milled for lumber, the chippings will be turned into mulch, and the knottiest stuff will become pulp for paper mills.  Death will give way to resurrection.  Our dead trees will have new life as boards for buildings, mulch for gardens, or paper for people.

It turns out that the emerald ash borers themselves are really not much of a problem.  They are bright emerald green insects that eat ash tree leaves but don’t do much damage.  It’s the larvae that are the problem.  The larvae (the immature stage) feed on the inner bark of ash trees, disrupting the tree’s ability to transport water and nutrients.  If caught early, treatment can be effective.  But often by the time the emerald ash borer are detectable, it’s too late.  The only safe alternative then is to cut down the trees so they don’t drop limbs and cause injury to someone or something on the ground.

The emerald ash borer strikes me as a great metaphor for how it is with us.  It’s not usually the suffering we can see on the outside that does the most damage to our spirits.  It’s the suffering within.  The way death, injustice, sorrow, hatred, loneliness, anger—it’s the way all these things eat away at us, that’s what ultimately destroys our spiritual well-being.  This year more than any other, I fear many people are in the “danger zone” in terms of their faith.  So much sadness, frustration, and fear have accumulated within them, that they don’t know what to do.  We know how to say, “Love never ends.”  We know how to show others that love never ends.  Lima Church excels at that!  What a generous and caring congregation this is.  But, like Christians everywhere these days, we’re not sure how to live it deep within ourselves.

That is why I asked Frank to record, “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” for our special music this morning.  It is the most famous of Easter hymns, and usually we sing it with gusto, and the organ opens all the stops, and we belt that baby out.  Praising God in ways everyone can see and hear is good for our souls!  But we also need to praise God inwardly.  Like the treatment for the emerald ash borer. We need to get God’s Spirit moving deep inside of us, to treat us against the diseases that threaten our souls.  So many of us are reeling from the last two years, that I was afraid a boisterous version of Christ the Lord is Risen today would just bounce right off of us.  So I asked Frank to find a version with less gusto, something quieter and more contemplative, so we could really absorb the powerful message of the hymn deep within us.  When he couldn’t find a version like that, he wrote one himself.  Isn’t that amazing?  Thank you, Frank!

On this Easter morning, we remember that death never has the final word.  That’s why we sing alleluia.  We celebrate that God’s answer to death is always resurrection, and God’s answer to suffering is God’s Spirit within us.  We celebrate that, before we took the test, Jesus gave us the answer.  If we can do that in loud voice, great.  But if this is a year when we need to do that more gently, we can do that, too.  Slow down, quiet down, let God’s presence tenderly infiltrate your soul.  THAT is how we live out, “Love never ends.”

My favorite line from “Christ the Lord is risen today” is in verse 4.  “Made like him, like him we rise.”  Like Jesus, we were made in love.  Each of us is a gift of God’s love to the world.  And like Jesus, we rise.  Ours the cross, the grave the skies.  Yes, we will suffer.  Yes, we will even die.  But God’s answer to death is always resurrection.  And God’s answer to suffering is God’s very Spirit, alive and well within us, because Love Never Ends.  Amen.

 

Benediction:  Christ is risen.  Christ is risen, indeed!  The risen Christ is proof that Love Never Ends.  Go in peace, and serve your Lord.  Amen.