Grace Lutheran Church

A Time to Dance – Easter Sermon March 23, 2008

+ In Nomine Jesu +
Festival of the Resurrection of our Lord
The Rev. Evan P. Gaertner
March 23, 2008
Jeremiah 31:1-6
“A Time to Dance”Jeremiah 31:1-6 (ESV) “At that time, declares the LORD, I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they shall be my people.” Thus says the LORD: “The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest, the LORD appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. Again I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin Israel! Again you shall adorn yourself with tambourines and shall go forth in the dance of the merrymakers. Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant and shall enjoy the fruit. For there shall be a day when watchmen will call in the hill country of Ephraim: ‘Arise, and let us go up to Zion, to the LORD our God.’”

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Easter is a wonderful celebration of life and victory. Not just any life and not just any victory. This is the day that the Lord has made. Today we celebrate that the one that was dead for our transgressions is alive. Today we are gathered by the victory of the one that to all appeared defeated by sin, death, and the devil.

This day would be empty and powerless without the resurrected life and victory of Jesus Christ. Without Jesus we would have no reason to dance and celebrate.

Without Jesus who are you?

We would be people lost in the wilderness of division, paralyzed by fear and stuck in despair. The Old Testament Prophet was told by the Lord, “Write in a book all the words that I have spoke to you. For behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will restore the fortunes of my people, Israel and Judah, says the Lord, and I will bring them back to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall take possession of it.” (Jer. 30:3)

“The days are coming” were the words of promise that Jeremiah shared with the people that had become divided and displaced by the Babylonian army. 600 years before the before of Christ the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem and destroyed it. In Jeremiah’s day the people that had survived the sword were separated from Jerusalem. The phrase “survived the sword” describes those who lived beyond the initial invasion of the foreign Babylonian army.

Consider the time after invasion that Jeremiah and his countrymen were experiencing. Families were torn apart, houses were ruined, and fields and businesses were given to others. Terror and panic filled the men as they found themselves powerless to provide for and protect their families.

Today people share this feeling of powerlessness. We see what happens in the financial markets and know that this is not just an article in the business section of the newspaper. We see what happens in Iraq and Afghanistan and we know that this is not just a video game that we can restart. We see families divided by drugs, gambling, infidelity, and divorce and we know that this is not just a grocery store novel that we can put down.

We may be surviving the sword, but we are in a time when people are feeling and living despair.

The people to whom the prophet Jeremiah spoke to were doubtful of God’s promises. Did God love them anymore? Did God even know what they were going through? Today in America people doubt God’s promises. They look at what happens in their families, their communities, our nation, and our world and wonder if God will be faithful to his promises.

We are increasingly a country that is becoming too comfortable with doubt and resigned to despair. If we have our doubts and reservations about God, take a moment and think even more so how he should have doubts and reservations about us? Who are we as a people? Have we lived up to God’s commands? As much as people doubt in God, even more so we should expect God to doubt in who we are and what we do?

Much of the book of Jeremiah is explaining to the people that the reason that God allowed the Babylonians to destroy Jerusalem was because the people had become attracted to false gods and chased after these false promises. Instead of trusting in the Lord God to deliver them the people left God for empty hopes.

By nature, it is painfully true, we do not trust the promises of God. We are all born sinful and in need of forgiveness. The Lord God who has known you since before you were in your mother’s womb, knows the shadows of your thoughts and the despair of your heart.

On the cross on Good Friday Jesus Christ experienced the doubt and disappointment of the world. He suffered the scorn of the people. Our guilt is great. Our sins are many. Our despair is deserved. There is no innocence on our hands on Good Friday. The only innocence of Good Friday is found in the one on the cross.

!GOOD NEWS!

We are not gathered this day by the power of that guilt and worry. Certainly we have just cause to be guilty and to despair in our sins. But as dark and bloody as Good Friday was we have been gathered by the Holy Spirit who has been at work through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Today we celebrate life and victory. The Holy Spirit has worked to bring you here so that you can celebrate life and victory.

In the wilderness of our lives of sin and scorn God’s grace is found. Our God is faithful to his promises. Our Lord has steadfast love that endures forever. From the cross, to the tomb, from the grave he rose. From the wilderness hope emerges for us to hold on to. Hold onto this hope of life that is in Jesus Christ. The Word of the Lord in Jeremiah proclaims, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.”

It is only by God’s grace that our Lord is attracted to us. We all may be looking very good dressed up for Easter today, but the Lord is not attracted to you because of how good you got your hair looking today. While we find ourselves continually attracted to that which is contrary to the commands of our Lord, he nevertheless remains faithful and attracted to you.

From death to life Jesus broke out of the tomb. There is nothing better than to know the one that loves us has returned to us. The promise of life that was found in the first words of Genesis, “And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light” (Genesis 1:3) has happened again. Where there was darkness and chaos, the word of God has brought light.

Darkness surrounded the cross of Jesus from the sixth hour to the ninth hour. Darkness followed the body of Jesus as Joseph of Arimathea placed that body into the tomb and rolled the stone closed. The light of the empty tomb replaces that darkness. Again the light of God shines.

Jeremiah promised, “Again you shall adorn yourself with tambourines and shall go forth in the dance of the merrymakers.” The time to dance is now. Have no doubt! You need not despair; God does not treat you with the darkness of your sin. God treats you with the resurrection.

Jesus turns us from people that are simply surviving and marching to death, into gracious lovers that have been reunited with God. In him there is no death. Do not just cling for survival in this world. You do not need to just scrape by. Hold on to the hope of the resurrection. It is a wild party.

If you wonder what God has planned for you? If you want to know how your life is going to work out? Look to that empty tomb. Walk with the living Jesus and he loves you. Nothing can ever separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Nothing.

So we give the kids a bunch of bells today. We want to stomp and dance and celebrate. On top of the cries of the worn out, the fighting, the fear-mongering of our time let your life be a message of love, life, and victory. Dance and celebrate.

He who dead is alive! Alleluia! Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia.

Soli Deo Gloria