Easter: "Written In Red"

Narration One
Every story needs a beginning.
The trouble is,
no one knows when that is.
Because this story begins with God:
“In the beginning, God...”
Before any action took place,
there was God.
First God,
then the world.
First God,
then God’s creative love
fashioned into the world.
First God,
then God’s love affair
with what God made.
First God,
then the world
now inseparably intertwined;
God can exist without the world,
but who is God
without the world?
So, when the world went bad
when the world went off
without God
God started a new story,
a story in which God would not make a new world
but woo the world back
to that relationship of love
that God
nor the world
can exist without.
God’s wooing
called for a Messiah--
and that’s where we start our story:
when God woos
when the Messiah arrives.

Narration Two
Everyone has to have a name.
A name describes
who you are
where you came from
from whom you came
your history
your heritage
your uniqueness.
Our names.
They carry so much.
Our names carry us.
You can make a “good name” for yourself.
Or you can disgrace your family name.
You can make fun of a person
by making fun of their name.
Jesus Christ.
Jesus,
a name that means:
“God is help.”
To speak of Jesus
is to, at the same time,
recognize
and affirm
the help of God.
To say the name of Jesus
is to recognize
and affirm
that God is in Jesus.
Sad,
that this name is used by many
so flip,
so casually,
so cruelly,
as a cuss word.
What if your name became a cuss word?
Jesus Christ.
Christ, of course,
is not Jesus’ last name.
It is a title.
It means:  “the anointed one.”
The chosen one.
Chosen by God.
It means, Messiah.
That’s what we call him:
Jesus Christ,
God’s help,
the Messiah of God.
We call him, Messiah.


Narration Three
Extra!  Extra!
Read all about it!
Back in the good old days,
the news boys would stand on the street corners
shouting the headlines
holding up the newspapers
displaying the banner
trying to get your attention
so you’d spend a dime
and buy a paper.
The news boys are gone.
The newspaper,
is now tossed silently
from the window of a passing car
in the wee hours of the morning
while you are still sleeping,
on to your lawn
or driveway;
wrapped in a plastic bag
so you can’t even see the banner headlines.
No more,
are the headlines shouted out to us
as if it is crucial
that everyone know.
It is amazing how calmly
the anchors on the evening news
can tell us what's happening in the world.
Is nothing worth shouting about anymore?
Extra! Extra!
Read all about it!
Jesus has Risen from the dead!
Jesus has conquered death!
There’s a banner
that needs to be shouted across our land!

Narration Four
There are a lot of people
who don’t like to be told what to do.
They would like to be their own boss
the captain of their own ship
the master of their own domain.
But how many really are?
Everyone takes orders
from somebody.
So, let’s not fool ourselves.
All of us come to the point
of succumbing to the wishes
of someone else.
If everyone got their own way,
no one would get their way.
Life would be hell.
There would be no peace.
So, if we are going to kneel to another’s will
whose will
will that be?
That is our only free choice:
whose will
will be done?
Even Jesus comes to that point
on his knees
in the Garden of Gethsemane
when he says to God:
“Not my will, but Thine be done.”
In that statement
is the only hope for us all.

Narration Five
Isn’t it amazing
that the Cross
has become a piece of jewelry?
The cross is a form of execution.
It is an execution
of immeasurable pain
and humiliation.
The one who is pinned to the cross
is first stripped naked.
Put on degrading display
for anyone to stand and stare.
All the paintings
of this awful event
choose modesty
over reality
draping Jesus with a loin cloth.
A person,
dies on the cross
by suffocation.
Chest muscles give out
trying to hold themselves up;
the lungs collapse;
they can’t breathe anymore,
gasping for air;
they die.
On a cross.
A form of horrible
and humiliating execution.
A cross.
That we wear around our necks,
transformed by one such execution
of Jesus
into a symbol
not of death,
but of love.
Because it wasn’t the nails that held Jesus to the Cross,
it was his love for us all.

Narration Six
Peter Marshall,
the once Chaplain of the Senate
said
that the stone was not rolled away from the tomb
to let the Savior out,
but to let the disciples in.
Someone had to see.
Someone had to find out
that Jesus’ body was not there.
Someone had to see,
that the burial cloths
were not pulled off
and rumpled on the floor,
but still lay
as if Jesus had just vaporized
through them.
Someone had to see
that this was no prank
nor trick.
Someone had to see
that a dead man
a dead man
had been brought
not back to life,
not had death reversed
only to die again.
Someone had to see
that Jesus had been brought forward
to a new life
a different form of life
a life that only has to do with God
and only what God can do.
Someone had to go in and see,
that even death
can be transformed.
Someone had to go in and see,
Resurrection!

Narration Seven
How do you say,
“I love you?”
So many articles
and so many books
written about love
and what it is:
The Five Love Languages
Lessons in Love
Love Yourself and Let the Other Person Have It Your Way
Eat, Pray, Love
Love and Respect
Getting the Love You Want
The Four Loves
How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You
to name a few
of the current bestsellers
on the subject.
But Jesus said,
“This is the best way to love.
Put your life on the line for your friends.”  (John 15:13)
And that’s what Jesus did.
Jesus put his life on the line
sacrificed it
so that we could live.
Forever.
Love,
written in red.

Narration Eight
Christ the Lord is risen today
All creation join to say,
Raise your joys and triumphs high,
Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply.

Lives again our glorious King,
Where, O death, is now thy sting?
Once he died our souls to save,
Where thy victory, O grave?

Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!