Fairhaven UMC – Page 2

Fairhaven Sermon 5-3-2026

May 4, 2026

Summary

In this week’s service, Rev. Dylan Parson explores the profound tension within John 14, a passage set during the Last Supper where Jesus prepares his disciples for his impending betrayal and death. While this scripture is a staple of funeral liturgies—offering deep comfort to those mourning recent losses in the Fairhaven community—Rev. Parson notes that the text is much more than a promise of a heavenly destination. Rather than presenting a static end-point, the sermon highlights that Jesus’ words describe a dynamic way of being and a continuous, unfolding journey of faith.

Moving beyond the traditional imagery of “many mansions” as grand, permanent estates, Rev. Parson delves into the Greek concept of monē, suggesting that these dwelling places are more akin to “base camps” for an ongoing adventure. He introduces the theological concept of epictasis, or the “stretching forward” toward God, illustrating that eternity is not a state of idle rest, but an endless exploration of God’s greatness. Using the metaphor of climbing a mountain, Rev. Parson concludes that as we follow Jesus—the Way, the Truth, and the Life—we discover that the view only grows more breathtaking the further we ascend, inviting us to find rest in Him even as we continue our upward climb.

Transcript

This morning’s gospel text, we’re in John now, puts us in this disorienting position. We’re reading John 14 here in the Easter season, so we’re celebrating Jesus’ triumphant resurrection. We’re celebrating these 50 days where he’s among the disciples again, but this passage is comes from what is known by biblical scholars as Jesus’ farewell discourse. And he’s not saying farewell because he’s about to ascend victoriously into heaven. He’s saying farewell because what is being spoken here in John 14, he’s sharing with them at the Last Supper. This, again, is not a “Hey, don’t worry guys, I’m going to heaven” message. This is an “I am about to be betrayed and killed” message. This is kind of a rewind here. We’re in the season of white cloth and daffodils, but this is taking us back to purple. We’re flinching, we’re confused as he’s hours away from being led away in chains. This is actually right exactly where our reading left off on Maundy Thursday. This is a Holy Week text. So whenever you hear what John is $\text{is}$ saying to us today, this is the context.

As Jesus speaks, he is preparing the disciples for the very worst days of their lives, which are barreling down the tracks at them. It’s Good Friday the next day after this is spoken. And so it’s no surprise that this John 14, excerpts from it at least, has become the standard reading for funerals. The same way that you always hear, almost always, 1 Corinthians 13, love is patient, love is kind at weddings. This is the funeral text. Whenever I open up the book of worship and start to pray at the beginning of a funeral service, two pages later comes John 14, the passage we’ve just heard. Flo read from the NRSV, and I find myself, I can pretty much recite that now. And it’s only one of a few possible gospel readings, but it’s also the $\text{only}$ one that’s printed in its entirety in the book. So it’s kind of expected that you’re going to use it. And if I’m the pastor presiding and the person has not requested a different passage, this is almost certainly what you’re going to get as a funeral passage.

message. And it’s been a very hard month for Fairhaven and for Spencer. We’ve had a number of deaths. And so this month, I have probably already preached on John 14 four or five times. And maybe some of you have been there, as I have. We had Robin’s memorial service last Sunday. And it’s perfect for the occasion. It really is the perfect funeral text. Jesus is speaking of the promise of hope in the midst of gathering darkness. Death is looming. It’s weighing heavily on everyone in the room. The betrayal is on the way. And he is about to be the lost loved one for whom a funeral is mourning while he’s also seemingly speaking to those who die. Bye.

And Jesus promises, in the way the CEB puts it, “…my father’s house has room to spare.” Or as we just heard, in my father’s house there are many dwelling places. Or even older, the King James that you might be familiar with, in my father’s house there are many mansions. And he has gone to prepare a place for those who will be joining him. And we find a lot of comfort in this promise, don’t we? This is a great thing to hear in the midst of death. It means so much to know that our beloved friends, our family members, our spouses, others who have died are going to the place where Jesus has gone, living in the Father’s own house in a home prepared especially for them. And the way Jesus tells it, this is not some big generic place. But he prepares a special place for us, something that is ours in a special way. And we need to and hear that those who are gone from our sight are not truly gone. They’re just away from us for the time being.

And Jesus says that we know the way to the place that they are going. And so we’re reassured. But, we don’t get a lot of opportunity, I know I don’t, to think about what Jesus’ farewell discourse here in John 14 means for us, the living. Those of us who are not imminently expecting to arrive at the place Jesus has prepared for us. And I went back, I went and looked over my sermons from the past ten years, and I’m fairly sure that I’ve never gotten to preach this half of John 14 without a casket or an urn in the room. So, what does it mean to us here, on a Sunday morning, when we still have air in our lungs, when we’ve got years of life ahead of us? What does John 14 mean in this context? There’s just so much here. What does John 14 mean in this context?

Jesus’ words of promise in John 14 are hope not just for the destination of where we’re going to dwell in the end, but I think that Jesus is talking equally, if not more so, about a journey. Jesus is describing a way of being, a way of living for his disciples, which includes us as well as Philip and Thomas and all of them. He’s describing this way of being that’s dynamic, that’s filled with power, that’s endlessly unfolding into something new. And Thomas, in his doubt, reflects the way that we are so prone to limit what Jesus is promising. Thomas asks, “Lord, we don’t know where you’re going.” How can we know the way? He is doubting himself. He’s doubting the message that Jesus has given him. Thomas is able, but he doesn’t know. And he’s asking for the exact coordinates. Jesus, where are you going? Where exactly are you headed on the other side of the cross? And Thomas wants to step-by-step map quest instructions. He wants turn-by-turn directions. Go here, then go left, then do this, and then continue on, and you’ll finally be there. The journey is over. That’s what Thomas wants. And without this kind of map quest, triptych thing, how could we possibly get to where we’re supposed to $\text{go?}$ Thomas doesn’t believe that he can get there without Jesus telling him how. But that’s not the kind of destination that Jesus is describing here. Right?

And that is where his gentle response from Thomas comes from. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. So sit with that for a minute here. Jesus makes clear that he’s not the one who gives us directions. He himself is the direction. He is the way. He’s not the one who tells us, explains to us what’s true and what’s false. He is himself the truth. And he’s not the one who tells us how to live our lives. He is the life that we’re supposed to live. Do you see the difference there? There’s no possible step-by-step directions to be a disciple of Jesus, to journey with him toward the Father. The only option that he’s giving here is to trust in him. Follow Him to be the way that He was and is. That’s the direction. There’s not some street address at the end that we can point our compasses toward. There’s only the way there. And it unfolds in front of us as we get closer and closer and closer.

There is no clear map. There’s no timeline. And this can feel so frustrating, but is so typical of how Jesus is constantly teaching and leading and pastoring in the Gospels. We are never given rules for living in black and white. Do this. Don’t do this. Go this way. Don’t go this way. And instead, we’re constantly invited by Jesus to follow, to figure it out on the way. And what’s crucial here is that indeed what Jesus is describing is a path. And it’s a unique kind of path. Again, not this simple line from point A to point B, start here, end up here. There was a great Christian civil rights leader named Miles Horton, and he famously said, “…we make the road by walking.” And that thought he himself translated from a Spanish poet named Antonio Machado. And Machado wrote, this is the poem, Wanderer, your footsteps are the road and nothing more. Wanderer, there is no road. The road is made by walking. By walking, one makes the road, and upon glancing behind, one sees the path that never will be trod again. Wanderer, there is no road, only wakes upon the sea. And I imagine… that this is not very satisfying to Thomas.

Thomas wants an answer. And this is frustrating to us as well, because a route that we make by walking, I don’t know how often you’ve walked in the woods. I was a big woods hiker as a kid, spent my days plowing through the thorns and the trees. That takes a lot more trust in where you’re going than following some asphalt pavement. But it’s a promise of something deeper. It’s a deep life with and in God who is beyond our understanding, this invitation to keep coming closer and closer. Right?

And to push this a little bit further even still… I think that Jesus is offering us the promise that this is eternal, that God’s greatness will continue unfolding in front of us, will continue exploring all that God has for us forever. And again, as we consider this passage from John in the context of a funeral, we hear it a little bit different. You know, we tend to think of the spare room, of the dwelling places Jesus describes preparing for us as something like a hotel room. It sounds like something that we arrive at after this long, grueling road trip. We’re exhausted. We drop our bags at the door and we flop onto the bed. That’s what that dwelling place must be like when we hear this at a funeral. We’re finally there. That’s that. End of the road. We’ve got there.

But our imagination is a little bit limited, I think, thinking about it that $\text{way.}$ And part of that problem, I think, is that we’ve heard it forever as, in my father’s house there are many mansions. We each picture this big, beautiful house that’s been prepared for us with towers and a big lawn and gardens. But mansions in King James English just meant kind of lodging. It meant a room. A mansion back then was not a mansion now. And the Greek word that’s used here, monē, definitely did not mean anything like we think about a mansion. The room that Jesus is describing, the dwelling place that he’s preparing for us, carries this connotation, in Greek, of a place where a traveler rests or abides along a road in a journey. It’s not this sedentary life of living in some castle-like mansion by ourselves. Right? It’s not the temporary rest of a motel. It’s almost like a base camp is what’s being described. This place from which we continue our journey with Jesus.

We have this place to dwell, but we’re still continuing our $\text{journey with Jesus.}$ Something that always scared me when I was younger, when I would think about heaven, when I’d think about dying, was the prospect of just sort of being there forever. You kind of get an existential crisis when you think about that. It’s like looking out at the ocean and realizing that it just goes on. And the concept of eternity is really scary, especially if we start imagining cabin fever just on an eternal scale, millions of years of cabin fever in heaven. But Jesus is not describing something like that. He’s describing this just ongoing life and the places he prepares for us as dwelling places along a journey that keeps going from which we continue on the way, the truth, the life. We get closer and closer to Jesus and God forever. There’s always more to do. These are words here, way, truth, life, that describe motion and movement and evolution and adventure. And again, we’re not following Jesus to our room in some big old retirement condo in the sky. That’s not what’s happening here, but to a place where we continue to live and grow alongside him with each other.

And we use, again, Psalm 84, another funeral text here. Psalm 84 describes us as going from strength to strength until we see the supreme God in Zion. We’re not headed to a heaven that’s boring, where every day is exactly the same for the rest of eternity, but a resurrection into a new heaven, into a new earth where every day is new. The end of one discovery that we make in God is the beginning of the next one. We just have this endless frontier before us. The word for this idea, this concept of what eternity is like, was first described by some of the earliest Christian writers, the first couple hundred years of the church. One of those was St. Gregory of Nyssa. And he called this epictasis, epictasis. And that means straining forward or stretching out. Think of heaven as stretching out, as spreading your wings. This constant reaching closer and closer to everything that God is. And it’s a process that we live into on either side of death. We start on the way as we follow Jesus now. We stretch out, we strain forward as we get to know Jesus now, as we continue to follow him now and into eternity. It’s this never-ending climb into the heart of God, like loving somebody you get to know better and better and better every day.

And Jesus says no one gets to the Father except through him, right? And this then is what going through him looks like, the way, the truth, the life. When this earthly life ends, we arrive at home in what Jesus calls the place where I am going. Not because we’ve reached an end point, this place where we stop moving, but because we finally fully end up next to Jesus, abiding in Jesus on the way that continues. We leave behind sin, we leave behind weakness, disease, doubt, and we move in pure love with Him. All the stuff that’s held us back is left behind and we’re free to walk with Him. John Wesley called this “moving onward to perfection.” And so, Methodists have always insisted that this journey begins for us. Amen. The moment that we decide to follow Jesus, we are entering into the path to the place where He has gone. And the specific coordinates of the destination, they’re not important, we can’t even figure them out. The important part is that we’re following Jesus on the way there.

I don’t know how many of you have ever climbed a mountain, not in a car, but on foot, like actually walked up a mountain. But every single time I’ve done that, whether it’s been in the North Carolina Blue Ridge, the Green Mountains of Vermont, the Alleghenies in West Virginia, every time I’ve climbed a mountain, there’s always been some breathtaking view long before you hit the top, sometimes only halfway up, even less. And every time I stop for a few minutes, I sit on a rock, look out, you can see the hawks circling below you, you can see the mountain ridges going off onto the horizon. And so every time you get to this first vista, breathing hard with my knees already aching, there’s always this temptation there to say, ah, this is good enough, and turn around.

But something else happens almost every single time. And, you know, I’m going to go to the next step. It’s amazing because I think it does happen every time. While I’m sitting there, someone who’s already been to the summit, passing by as they make their way back to the parking lot, will stop and say that the view at the peak is so much better still. That is what Jesus is talking about here. Still. When he assures them that they know the way to the place where he is going, “Follow my footsteps. Keep walking up this great mountain. We’re making this road by walking it together.” And those who have gone ahead of us, those who have died, not to mention Jesus himself, have seen a view beyond what we can imagine. One that awaits us as we move closer to the top. So do not let your hearts be $\text{troubled, he says.}$ Jesus is the way. And we can find complete rest in him even as we keep climbing into eternity. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Fairhaven Sermon 4-26-2026

April 29, 2026

Summary

In this week’s service, Rev. Peg Bowman reflects on the fourth week of Easter, moving from the recent celebrations of the risen Jesus to a deeper contemplation of the continuity of God’s presence in our lives. By examining the interconnectedness of Psalms 22, 23, and 24, Rev. Bowman illustrates a divine narrative: the prophecy of the crucifixion in Psalm 22, the present care of the Good Shepherd in Psalm 23, and the future glory of Christ’s return in Psalm 24. Through the lens of David’s prophecies, the sermon highlights how Jesus entered into human suffering on the cross and promises a day when we will witness His eternal, unclouded glory.

Focusing on the “in-between” nature of Psalm 23, Rev. Bowman reminds the congregation that we live in the space between the cross and the crown. Using the evocative imagery of sheep that “nibble themselves lost,” the message warns against the subtle ways we wander from God’s path, emphasizing our profound need for an intimate friendship with the Good Shepherd. Ultimately, Rev. Bowman offers profound comfort, noting that even in our darkest valleys, the Shepherd’s rod and staff provide necessary guidance and protection. The sermon concludes with the powerful promise that God’s goodness and mercy do not merely follow us, but actively pursue us, preparing us for a future of beauty in His eternal house.

Transcript

So, today is the fourth week of Easter, and we are still celebrating Jesus’ resurrection, but this Sunday is a little bit different. From Easter up until now, we’ve been reading and talking about the encounters that the disciples had with the risen Jesus, some of the things that they said, some of the things that they shared with each other. This week, for the first time since Easter, we have the opportunity to kind of step back for a moment and reflect on what has happened over these past few weeks and what it means to us and our friends and our families and our world.

And our readings today start with a short passage from Acts that talks about how the followers of Jesus lived together, sharing everything in common, and how they were truly joyful in God, and their joy was infectious. And so people noticed, and more and more people became Jesus followers every day. And then in the passage from John, we step back into the past momentarily to hear Jesus say that he alone is the good shepherd, that he knows each sheep by name, and that his people follow him and will not follow another. In calling Himself our Good Shepherd, Jesus’ words remind us of the words of one of our favorite psalms, Psalm 23, which we just read a few moments ago. Amen.

And that’s where I’d like to focus our attention this morning. This psalm that we all know so well is, we almost take it for granted. And for those of us who are raised in the church, I mean, Psalm 23 has been part of our lives since we were knee-high to grasshoppers, and rightly so. I mean, this psalm is essential to understanding who Jesus is and who we are in relationship to Him. But I should also mention, I learned early on in ministry that when I started doing visitations in hospitals and nursing homes, I was a pastor to be careful about where and when I read Psalm 23 because it’s so often associated with funerals. People in nursing homes get nervous when they hear somebody reading this, but they’ll relax. First, if I say, do you mind if I read this Psalm? Can you say it with me? And then they’re okay with that. Psalm 23 is one of those touchstones of faith, like the Lord’s Prayer, that even people with memory issues will remember this Psalm and will be able to say it. And I think maybe God planned it that way. It’s a shame that Psalm 23, though, is so associated with the end of life, because it’s meant for all of life, every day from beginning to end.

Now, one other thing before we dig into Psalm 23, and I wanted to point out that Psalm 23 is found in our Bibles between Psalm 22 and Psalm 24. I know you all figured that out. But the numbering of the Psalms is basically random. It’s like the hymn numbers in our hymnals. But I have a feeling that somebody put these three Psalms together for a reason. And here’s the thing. In this particular case, the order of Psalms 22, 23, and 24 actually tell the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection, of Jesus’ presence in our lives, and of Jesus’ coming again. All three of these Psalms were written by David, who was a/a prophet as well as a king, and when we think of David, we often think of him as a warrior, the one who defeated Goliath, the one who united Israel into one kingdom. But David, like I said, was also a prophet, and to prophesy means to speak God’s truth into a given situation. And sometimes it might mean receiving a vision from God, and sometimes prophecy just means speaking God’s truth in a way that’s relevant. So, Psalms 22, 23, 24 were all written by David, and their meanings are connected, so and, again, we’re going to read this. I’d like to look at all three.

Psalm 22 is a prophecy of the crucifixion, and it describes in detail a form of execution that would not be invented for another 500 years. Crucifixion was a Roman form of execution. Though other nations had experimented with it, the Romans perfected it to a hideous degree. It’s a prophecy of the crucifixion. Listen to the way David describes it. Verse 1, “‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Jesus spoke these words from the cross. And for centuries, theologians have debated about whether Jesus was actually God-forsaken in that moment or just felt like He was, and I’m not going to enter into that discussion. One thing I know, in that moment, Jesus felt what people often feel when tragedy strikes, when a loved and when a loved one has died, when we receive the news that there’s no cure for an illness, when an earthquake happens, when life puts us so far down that we can’t see daylight. In that moment on the cross, Jesus entered into our pain and our loss, and he sanctified it to God.

David then continues a few verses later, speaking in the voice of Jesus, “‘All who see me mock me. They sneer at me. They shake their heads. Commit your cause to the Lord. Let him deliver. Let him rescue the one in whom he delights.’” These words are exactly what the people watching Jesus said as he was on the cross. The Pharisees said it, the Sadducees said it, the religious and Roman authorities said it. Amen. David continues in verses 14 through 18, giving words to what Jesus was experiencing. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within my breast. My mouth is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue sticks to my jaws. You lay me in the dust of death. “‘For dogs are all around me, a company of evildoers encircles me. ‘They bound my hands and feet. ‘I can count all my bones. ‘They stare and gloat over me. ‘They divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.’” So King David is describing that terrible day a thousand years before it happened.

Next, I want to turn over to Psalm 24 for a moment. He says, that’s the good news. David describes the future glory of our King Jesus as he returns. This is a window into eternity in God’s kingdom. Verses 9 through 10, Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the King of glory. Amen. David is describing a day that we can only begin to imagine, a promised day when Jesus will be crowned King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and we will see his glory and find ourselves lost in his beauty. It’s a day we can hardly imagine.

And in between the cross in Psalm 22 and the glory in Psalm 24 is this little psalm, sung by Jesus’ followers, the sheep of his pasture. And David, having been a shepherd for a good bit of his life, knows exactly what this would look like and how it would feel. Psalm 23 tells our story, how God cares for us, how God is always with us. In fact, Jesus’ name, Emmanuel, means God with us. And just like Psalm 23 lives in between the prophecy of the cross and the prophecy of the crown, we also live in between the cross and the crown. As we listen to our Good Shepherd being described in Psalm 23, we hear good news. Verse 1, we will lack for nothing. I shall not want means that everything we need is ours.

Many years ago, I read a quote that said, the reason that sheep need a shepherd is because sheep like to nibble themselves lost. Leave a sheep without a shepherd, and the sheep will nibble a little bit of grass over here, I don’t, and then wander over here and nibble some grass over here, and then go over here and nibble some grass over here, and they see a patch just beyond those rocks. And before you know it, the sheep is lost or has fallen into a ravine or has been devoured by a wolf. Nibbling ourselves lost. It’s a great word picture. And isn’t that just how it works? We go off course just a tiny bit at a time. It’s a great word picture. Very few people walk away from God in a hurry. Most of the time it’s just a little bit here and a little bit here, and all of a sudden we’re not sure where we are.

So what really matters to us today? More than anything, what we need is an intimate friendship with the Good Shepherd. We need to know that Jesus is with us. We need to know that our home is with Jesus in this world and the next world. And in Psalm 23, the Good Shepherd provides green pasture, good food, still waters, peaceful places to drink. Jesus restores our souls. He removes from us the grime and corruption of the world so that we can shine in intimate relationship with God throughout our lives. Jesus leads us in right paths. And this is important to know because when we look back over our lives, we can start to second-guess ourselves. Would my life have been different if I had chosen a different school or a different career or a different neighborhood? And the answer to these questions, of course, is yes, it would have been different. There are so many questions, though, so many possible roads a person can follow. The what-ifs can become overwhelming, but we can be confident that our Good Shepherd leads us in right paths for His name’s sake. Yes. The paths we walk may not be the easiest we could have chosen, but we can be confident that Jesus leads us on each path, in each decision, to get to where we need to be and who we need to be in God’s kingdom.

And even when we go through dark times, as we walk through the darkest valley, when we pass through places where we can’t see the future and where danger may lie ahead, we don’t need to be afraid, because the shepherd’s rod and staff are there, the rod to defend us against attackers and the staff to gently guide us, and both of these things give us comfort. Our Good Shepherd has prepared a feast for us, right where our enemies can see it. Our Good and Shepherd anoints our heads with oil. And there are two meanings to this. First, putting literal oil on literal sheep actually protects the sheep against parasites. I did not know that until recently. And second, for us human sheep, oil anoints us as children of the king. Back in the ancient days, putting oil on someone’s head was a way of saying, this is our next king, or this is our next queen. Oil makes us members of God’s family.

So with Jesus as our shepherd, we are safe. We will find goodness and mercy even in the darkest places. And we will be with Jesus in the house of God forever. The second to last phrase in that psalm, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,” is actually better translated, “Surely goodness and mercy shall pursue me.” Goodness and mercy will chase us down. The word is the same word used to describe how the Egyptians chased the Israelites when they were leaving Egypt. God will chase after us with goodness and mercy. And it may take us a little bit of time to get to the kingdom. We may wander our way in, but God will be there like a shepherd, feeding us, guiding us, protecting us, and preparing us for a future of beauty beyond our imagining. King David says all of this is for all the people of God. This is our destiny. Amen.
Fairhaven Sermon 4-19-2026

April 22, 2026

Summary

In this week’s service, Rev. Dylan Parson uses a personal anecdote about a beloved childhood restaurant in Slippery Rock to explore the profound theme of recognition and context. Reflecting on a time when he failed to recognize a familiar waitress in a grocery store because she was “out of context,” Parson transitions into the biblical narrative of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. He describes how Cleopas and his companion, blinded by the weight of grief and the unexpected nature of the resurrection, initially failed to recognize the risen Christ even as He walked alongside them and explained the Scriptures. The sermon highlights the pivotal moment when the disciples’ eyes are finally opened through the simple, sacred act of Jesus breaking bread.

Moving from the biblical text to contemporary life, Rev. Parson encourages the congregation to remain vigilant to Christ’s presence in the unexpected moments of everyday existence. He notes that while we may struggle with spiritual blindness caused by despair or the chaos of life, Jesus often reveals Himself in the faces of the marginalized and the “least of these,” as described in the parable of the sheep and the goats. Ultimately, the message serves as a call to keep our hearts soft and open, resisting the temptation to let familiarity or hopelessness prevent us from seeing how Jesus is actively working both within the church and throughout the wider world.

Transcript

There’s a little restaurant in Slippery Rock, which is where I’m from originally, that’s been there for pretty much ever. I think it was there whenever my mom was growing up, whenever my grandmother first moved there in the ’60s. Camelot is the place. And it is a restaurant, little diner kind of thing that is loved by just about everybody around. Everybody goes there. It used to be one of the only places you could go. That’s expanded a little bit since. Let’s consider it something like the Frank and Shirley’s of Slippery Rock, if you will.

You got college students there. You got the old farmers who get there before sunrise every weekday. And it’s right on the corner of Main Street. So it’s this little stone building, a landmark wedged between Quick Fill and the bank. And the place is styled like kind of a raggedy old English pub in the countryside. It’s got some dark floral wallpaper all through the place. It’s got this miniature suit of armor beside the cash register. And they were long known for their 99-cent breakfast. Yeah. As of about 10 years ago, that’s now the $1.99 breakfast, which is still nothing to complain about, but doubling. And now you’ve got to get a cup of coffee with it. But they remain famous for their cinnamon rolls, homemade every morning, about this big, the size of your head.

And last time I went, about a year ago, my cousin was in town. I went up to meet her. These cinnamon rolls were still, I want to say, 240, an economic miracle. But through high school, I’d go to this place to Camelot with my youth group friends every Sunday after church. It’s the only place in my life where I’m going to go. I’m getting close at Breakfast at Shelley’s, but the only place in my and my life where I’ve ever had a waitress come over to me every Sunday and remember my usual, which was a breakfast A with the eggs scrambled and a cinnamon roll and a coffee. And so you can say I knew the place quite well. It knew me very well. And the faces that I’d see there every week were deeply familiar to me. And lots of them, staff included, are still there every Sunday.

But one day in those years, I remember being in Giant Eagle in the bakery section, saying hello and having this brief kind of casual conversation with a late middle-aged woman that I recognized. I knew I’d met her before lots of times, but I had no idea who she was. And it drove me crazy for days. I could not think of the woman’s name. I could not think of where I knew her from, just that I knew her. And so I racked my brain for the week trying to remember until Sunday came again and I went to breakfast and I saw her face before me and she was one of the three waitresses at Camelot, a person that I’d spoken to and seen dozens and dozens of times. Out of context, half a mile away, my brain had just been completely unable to identify her. I had no idea who she was. But standing there with a pencil and the pad in her hand and an enough apron and that little knight’s suit of armor behind her, the pieces snapped together. I knew who she was. And I was wondering how I possibly could have forgotten that. I was confused and completely moved to recognition.

And it’s amazing how circumstances and location can change our experience of other people. I mean, I find this happens sometimes whenever I’m in the grocery store or something in shorts and a t-shirt, and I think people take a minute to recognize because they see me like this or in a robe all the time. And there’s that classic example of a kid seeing their teacher outside school during summer vacation. It feels almost scandalous. Like, you’re not supposed to be here. You’re supposed to be in school. In August and June, teachers are supposed to go into hibernation or just disappear for a little while. And encountering one is just like Twilight Zone kind of stuff.

And the disciples on the road to Emmaus existed in a kind of similar situation, much darker. They had just undergone an experience that marked a very significant threshold. Their Lord is dead. Everyone saw it happen, which was the whole point, and an era has ended. This brief electric moment of hope, you know, it peaked on Palm Sunday. It looked like the king was going to be restored in the lineage of David. The Messiah was here. He was about to make all things right. Gone, extinguished as Jesus is crucified over Jerusalem. And this man had risen and fallen like a shooting star. He was this hillbilly from out in Galilee who, over the course of three years, rose to become one of the most well-known preachers in the area and eventually to be seen as the Messiah before finding himself executed as a celebrity, a heretic, and a rebel. Jerusalem and now he’s gone.

And the situation is strange because somehow his tomb has come up empty. Cleopas and the other disciple, perhaps Cleopas and his wife in this story, talk about the women of this group who claim they’ve seen Jesus alive, but they are widely understood, as Luke puts it in the beginning of chapter 24, as telling idle tales. They’re these women who mean well, but they’re really just chatterers or wishful thinkers. They write them off. And so all of this to say, Cleopas and his friend or his wife, we don’t know who that is, when they’re on the road, they don’t expect Jesus to be there. Why would they? And so it’s no wonder that they don’t recognize him when he’s speaking. He’s not only out of place, he’s showing up on a plane of existence he’s supposed to have left. It’s not that he’s half a mile from where he’s supposed to be. He’s not supposed to be on this earth right now. If your deceased grandmother were to show up next to you on the sidewalk, you might not register it for a little bit either.

Their eyes here are clouded by death, by despair. Right? Their minds have firmly categorized Jesus as gone, and so he is. But Jesus joins them on the road. We know that, not them. And amusingly, again to us but not to them, he begins to．interact in this mischievous kind of way. He pokes and he prods at them on this long walk, this journey. He opens, “So what are you guys talking about?” And they explain to this clueless stranger all that has happened in the last week around Jesus’ great following, his persecution, his crucifixion, and now this new mystery that’s emerged around the empty grave. They don’t necessarily believe the woman that he’s alive, but they do know that the grave is empty. And Jesus now, in a move that would be really rude if he wasn’t who he was, calls them foolish and dull. They finish talking about this deep trauma they’ve had over this past week. Their lives are pretty much ruined. Their hopes are shot. And Jesus says, “You fools, your dull minds can’t understand what it says in Scripture.” And then he explains the Old Testament, talking about all these places from Moses through the prophets, through the Psalms, where they point to the Messiah having to undergo all of this suffering, this death, before rising again in glory. Right? So he comes and explains it all.

And after he has kind of patronizingly explained scripture to these grieving friends, he pretends to go leave. He’s going to keep going on his own. But amazingly, they ask this rude stranger to stay with them for dinner. And dinner is served. And Jesus offers the blessing, an honor that was given to him as a guest. He offers the blessing. He prays over the meal and he breaks the bread and hands it to them. And suddenly, these clouds of confusion burn away. They finally get recognition. In the midst of complete disappointment and grief and hopelessness, this small act of friendliness and love opens their eyes. And as he hands them the bread, they know exactly who he is now. And this is not just because he’s reenacting what happened to the Last Supper. These people weren’t there, mind you. This is just something that spoke to Jesus’ character. And the darkness is driven away, his face appears, their hearts are warmed, and then, of course, Jesus just vanishes. Mission accomplished, apparently. Cleopas and the other disciple realize they should have known all along. They remember as they were walking with him on the road the way their hearts burned as he spoke.

It’s very, very, very easy to go through our lives without any sense whatsoever that Jesus is alive. Luckier than Cleopas and the others here on the other side of the ascension, we do at least affirm and know that Jesus has risen from the dead, but do we? Do we believe that, really? The disciples meeting Jesus on the road to Emmaus and not recognizing him points us to the truth, the reality, that sometimes God has to break through the darkness, the hopelessness, the stagnation that we allow to build up around us in order to meet us face to face. Sometimes we’re just not paying attention. Sometimes we’re not open to Jesus being here, and he has to make himself known. And like he did for these disciples, he can surprise us by showing up crystal clear in the everyday moments of our lives. These small instances we see where people offer love for each other. In moments of tenderness, of hope, that defy despair and meanness and death, you just see something good that shines out into the world. And of course, we do meet Jesus in the breaking of the bread, the sharing of the wine, where we taste and see the Lord is good.

And, but God shakes his head at us, I’m sure, that we all get so caught up in our lives and chaos that we’ll argue to God’s face that he’s nowhere to be found, even as he meets us anyway in what we need. And all of this is just grace. We don’t have to be looking for him. We don’t have to be taking out a telescope or looking closely at everything we go through in our lives to find him. Because remember that the disciples on the road here, they’re not looking for Jesus at all. And in fact, if we’re not looking for him, which isn’t to say we shouldn’t, he’s likely to barge in when we least expect it. Maybe an unfamiliar or very familiar face is transformed into the loving face of Jesus. They’re not looking for Jesus at all. And that can go in a number of ways, as we see in Scripture. In this story, we see this surprise encounter with Christ where he appears as he’s serving his disciples. But it can also happen in the other direction, I think. Just as that waitress for me was out of context in the grocery store, we can find Jesus out of context in faces that we are ready to overlook. You know, maybe the neighbor you’ve walked past for years. Maybe even a person we’ve never really gotten to know or talk to here.

And then we see in Matthew 25… no, that’s not the next chapter, but in Matthew 25… we hear that famous parable of the sheep and the goats. When Jesus tells us that we literally, somehow literally, serve Jesus when we care for the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the hungry, the thirsty. I wonder if you can think of times where that’s happened for you. Where you thought you were serving somebody or helping somebody or talking to somebody and then you realize Jesus is here. I’ve had this experience, right? Right? In hospital rooms, at dinner tables, sharing lunch with people at Prevention Point, walking with the kids we pick at the Good Friday crosswalk through Allentown. That’s always a miracle. We get these kids tacking on with us to hear the Bible story as we carry the cross on Good Friday.

Unfortunately, Jesus often appears and then vanishes the moment that we realize he’s there. It’s just a split-second thing. That’s what he did for the disciples. But rather than dwelling on that loss, he intends that we’re supposed to be invigorated by that, renewed. We’re supposed to keep looking, keep seeking, keep hoping to find him in our lives. He’s out in the world. He’s ready to be found in service, in love, in conversation, in friendship.

I have such incredibly strong memories of spending Sunday mornings in those little corner booths at Camelot. My sister and my friends and I would all share breakfast after worship there. It was a good crowd, right? And most of us were baptized together. One Christmas Eve at the Slippery Rock University Rec Center Pool, I think there were like eight of us that were baptized that day. And together we went through like four youth leaders over the course of six years, which probably says something about our group. Yeah. And we participated in the Bible lesson to varying degrees, but we always tried hard and captured the flag on Wednesday night. Just such good memories here. On Sunday mornings, we all sat in one pew almost every Sunday, the second one back on the right, and most of us had no family with us. We were just kids by ourselves. And a number of us who would probably have had next to zero social interaction, our paths never would have really crossed without the love of that church, we became good friends.

And this sounds dramatic here, I know, but it hurts to remember this because I miss it and so much of it is gone. Most of these people, these friends of mine, as far as I know, have drifted away from the faith that we shared in high school. We were baptized together and I think they’re far away from that now. But, Jesus was there in all the moments that we had together, from sharing the bread of communion to sharing a cinnamon roll an hour later. And Jesus’ face was present in all of those faces and is present now in the memory there. I knew him in the breaking of bread and the making of friends. And he was working in and among us, and I can know that he’s still on the road with them, regardless of whether they recognize him right now.

And I’ve been thinking about that great Easter hymn, the one we sang last week. “You asked me how I know he lives. He lives within my heart.” And that’s true. But that’s only part of it. Because as we hear our gospel story today about the road to Emmaus, we see also that we can know that Jesus lives whenever we see him in the world. Jesus isn’t just in here. Jesus is out there in other people, in the world. He’s not just a faded memory. He’s not just an affirmation that we say he’s alive, but really, really alive, right?

And I think a big part of why I am in ministry today is the persistent hope that I will encounter Jesus and the people around me in the church the same way I did in the church in my teenage years with those friends. And when we do get that miraculous gift of seeing him, you know, rather than lamenting how brief those encounters are, because they are brief, right? Hopefully we can hold on to it. We can seek more of him, find him more. Maybe Cleopas and the other disciple would not have seen him at all if their hearts had refused. And perhaps we can refuse to see him too when he’s looking us in the eye. But our challenge from Emmaus is to do our best to keep our hearts soft and open to meeting him out there on the road, in the world, both among those who need his love from us and those who share his love with us. And of course, if we can’t do that, he just might surprise us and show up anyway. He seems to enjoy that. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Fairhaven Sermon 4-12-2026

April 14, 2026

Summary

In this week’s service, Rev. Peg Bowman explores the challenge of believing in the resurrection, noting that because it falls so far outside of normal human experience, many struggle to embrace it. Drawing from 1 Corinthians 15, she emphasizes that the resurrection of Jesus is the indispensable foundation of the Christian faith; without it, faith becomes futile. Rev. Bowman also examines the Book of Acts, illustrating the parallels between the Jewish and Christian Pentecosts and providing a critical historical correction regarding the crucifixion, clarifying that the blame for Jesus’ death lies with the Roman authorities and specific temple leadership rather than the Jewish people as a whole.

The sermon further delves into the story of “Doubting Thomas” to highlight the journey from uncertainty to a confident, lived faith. By reflecting on Thomas’s need for physical proof and the subsequent blessing given to those who believe without seeing, Rev. Bowman connects the biblical narrative to the modern importance of truth, warning that “fake news” and dishonesty undermine the trust required to receive the gift of eternal life. Ultimately, she calls the congregation to move from an inward focus of doubt to an outward focus of mission, encouraging them to be lights of hope and life in the darkness.

Transcript

Welcome to the second week of Easter. For the next few weeks until Pentecost, we are going to be spending time talking about the resurrected Jesus and giving some thought to life after death. And this week, our scripture readings focus on some of the different ways that people experienced Jesus’ resurrection, and also on how people struggled to believe it, because life after death is not something we run up against every day. So, you and I, to the best of my knowledge, have never seen anybody die and come back. And for this reason, there are a lot of people, both in and out of the church, who don’t really quite believe this resurrection story, or that resurrection might apply to us. People say things like, “Well, Jesus was a great teacher,” or, “Jesus was a man of great compassion,” and these things are true. But where it comes to being crucified and then resurrected three days later, a lot of people just can’t quite go there. Resurrection is way outside of our experience, and it’s hard to get our minds and our hearts around.

So one of the things that encourages me is what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15. The Apostle Paul says, Jesus died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and he was buried, and he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and he appeared to Cephas, that is Peter, and then to the Twelve. And Paul continues, “…for if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins.” If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have died. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all are made alive.

So Paul is saying, if Jesus was not raised from the dead, we’re wasting our time here. Might as well go home, mow the lawn, enjoy a beautiful Sunday morning, right? But the fact is that Jesus is alive. This is the core foundation of our Christian faith. Without much, we really don’t have much of a faith at all. So for the next few weeks, we’ll be hearing from people in the New Testament, people who were eyewitnesses to Jesus’ resurrection, who by their witness gave our faith a solid foundation.

And I find it comforting that on the first Easter morning, even the disciples weren’t sure what was going on. Mary Magdalene thought Jesus was the gardener. The disciples on the Sea of Galilee didn’t recognize Jesus on the beach, and nobody recognized Jesus on the road to Emmaus. So Jesus is risen, but somehow the risen Jesus is not the same. He’s different now. It makes sense that a resurrected body would not be the same thing as a mortal body. A resurrected body might look a little different. It might be able to do things we can’t normally do. The important thing today is to believe that the resurrection is not only possible, but that it has indeed happened, and it will continue to happen for all of us who trust Jesus. This is our hope, and hope does not fail.

So, let’s take a look at today’s scripture, starting with the reading from Acts. Now, this reading that we just heard actually takes place on the day of Pentecost, and for that reason, part of me kind of wishes that we were going to be reading this a few weeks from now on Pentecost. We will come back to this chapter in a few weeks, but in the verses we’re reading today, Peter is speaking to the crowds in Jerusalem on the day of the Jewish Pentecost. This will become the Christian Pentecost as well, but that’s not where Peter is in these particular verses. So, the Christian Pentecost didn’t exist had it just happened, but they didn’t know that yet. Peter is in Jerusalem for the Jewish feast of the Pentecost, a holiday that celebrates the giving of the Torah, the law of Moses, 50 days after Passover.

So there is a parallel between the two faiths. In the Jewish faith, there’s the Passover, when the blood of the Lamb was placed over the doors of the Jewish homes in Egypt, and the blood of the Lamb was placed over the doors of the Jewish homes in Egypt. And then 50 days later, after the Exodus, the Jewish Pentecost celebrates the giving of the Ten Commandments. For Christians, we have Good Friday, on which we remember the Lamb of God crucified for us. And then 50 days later, Christian Pentecost celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit, which makes it possible for the law of God to be written on our hearts.

You see the parallel. So, in this reading from Acts, Peter is speaking on the day of Jewish Pentecost, and he is speaking to his fellow Jews who have come to Jerusalem from all over the world to celebrate the holiday. There are Jewish visitors in town, from all over the place, from the Roman Empire, from Africa, from Egypt, from the Middle East, from Mesopotamia. And all of a sudden, all these people are hearing the disciples praising God in their own languages, and they want to know what’s going on. So Peter explains to them, from one Jewish believer to other Jewish believers, he says, “You have heard about Jesus,” which they had, because Jesus was very popular and very well known in those days, even in places that were far from Jerusalem. And Peter said, “You know about his deeds of power. You were witnesses to his miracles. You heard him preach. You heard him teach. Jesus was handed over to the authorities by God’s plan and foreknowledge, and you crucified him by the hands of those outside the law.”

Now, what Peter is saying is that the Jewish temple authorities manipulated non-Jewish people, that is the Romans, into handing down a death sentence on Jesus. In those days, capital punishment in Israel had to be by stoning. That was the law. Crucifixion was something only Romans could do, and Jewish authorities wanted to see Jesus crucified.

Now, I need to do a really strong side note for a moment here, because these words of Peter’s, where he says, you crucified him, have been misused, misinterpreted, and twisted down through the centuries in ways that are extremely anti-Semitic. Scholars have blamed the Jews for Jesus’ death, and they use this verse in Acts as proof. So let me debunk this. First off, Peter is Jewish, and the people that Peter is speaking to are Jewish. Everyone in this conversation is a loyal and devout Jew. This is a conversation between people who are all citizens of one country or of one faith, and it was not meant to be heard by non-Jews.

Secondly, we have no proof that the average Jewish person was complicit in Jesus’ death. Jesus was tortured and turned over to the Romans by the temple leadership, which had some problems with Jesus. The temple in those days had its own police force and its own guards. These are the people who arrested Jesus with help from Judas Iscariot. They wanted to see Jesus dead on a cross, but since that was illegal, they took Jesus to Pilate. Pilate, meanwhile, knew that Jesus was innocent, and he said so. But Pilate caved in to the shouts of the temple leadership who whipped up a crowd against Jesus. So Pilate gave them what they wanted and crucified Jesus, and he posted the sentence over Jesus’ head, which is the Roman tradition. He said, They post what the guy was guilty of over top of their head. And his sentence read, The King of the Jews, which was an extremely anti-Semitic statement. And the Jews knew this, and they objected. And they said to Pilate, and they asked him to change it, to say, this man said he’s the king of the Jews, but Pilate said, what I have written, I have written, and refused to change it.

Which shows us what Pilate thought of the Jewish authorities. So, back to Peter’s speech on Pentecost. What Peter is saying is that all of these things happened according to God’s plan, which doesn’t let anybody off the hook, Jews or Gentiles, But it does let us know that everything happened as planned. King David himself predicted and described crucifixion in Psalm 22, at least 500 years before crucifixion was invented. and because So the cross was always there in the ancient prophecies, and so was the resurrection. David writes in the psalm that we read today, Psalm 16, “‘My heart is glad and my soul rejoices. My body also rests secure, for you did not give me up to Sheol, or let your faithful one see the pit.’”

David is not talking about himself because David died and was buried, and his tomb still “I’m exists in Jerusalem to this day. David, being a prophet as well as a king, was talking about the Messiah. So Peter said all the things I just said here. Peter said all these things to the crowd in Jerusalem on that Pentecost day. And as a result, over 3,000 people became believers in Jesus in just one day.

And we’re going to talk more about that on Pentecost Sunday. Our other reading for today is the well-known story of so-called doubting Thomas. To set the setting, this is the first day of the week after the crucifixion. This is Sunday evening. And earlier that day, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary had told the disciples, We have seen the Lord. But the disciples haven’t seen Jesus yet, and they don’t know quite what to make of what the women have told them. So they’ve gathered together in a house with the doors locked because they’re afraid. We have seen the Lord. Basically afraid that the people who crucified Jesus might have a few more crosses available for them.

So they’re in as much doubt as Thomas. And suddenly, Jesus is with them in the house. How did he get in? I mean, did he beam in like on Star Trek? We don’t know. Apparently, resurrected bodies can do some things that regular bodies can’t do, which is something to look forward to. But Jesus’ first words to the disciples were, peace be with you. Not because Jesus is expecting to hear and also with you, but Jesus said this because the disciples were troubled by Jesus’ appearance. Each one of them was probably thinking back to the last time they saw Jesus. Peace.

On that fateful night when Jesus was arrested, some of the disciples were in the garden and ran away. Some of them followed Jesus to his trial, and then realizing Jesus was going to die, went somewhere else. The best that we can tell from Scripture, the only disciple of the Twelve who stayed with Jesus all the way to the end was John. And the women, Mary, Jesus’ mother, Mary’s sister, and Mary Magdalene. It was the women, along with Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who placed Jesus in the grave. So where were the disciples? else. it makes sense that Jesus’ first words to them are, peace be with you.

It’s a way of saying, hey, in case you doubt it, I still love you. The Hebrew word for peace, shalom, sounds a lot like the Hebrew word for paid in full, which would be another way to hear what Jesus said. The peace of God is offered freely, but it is also costly. And Jesus’ words mean more than forgiveness. They are an invitation to start again.

So after Jesus greets them, he shows them all his wounds and his hands and his feet and his side with a spear. And it’s proof that this really is Jesus and that resurrection really is possible. Jesus is still very much human, but he is no longer dead. and the same tortured body that went into the tomb is the same body the disciples are looking at right now. This really is Jesus. He really is alive, and Jesus forgives them and welcomes them, and that’s all they need to know.

But one man’s missing, Thomas. Thomas was one of the Twelve. He was very close to Jesus. And when he’s told that Jesus is alive, he says, no way. Unless I see the scars and place my hand in his side, I will not believe. And this is a very reasonable reaction from someone who loved Jesus deeply. Thomas knows that everyone wants to see Jesus alive and that grief can do funny things. Thomas is committed to the truth, and God bless him for that.

So a week later, the disciples are all together again in the same house with the doors locked again, but this time Thomas is with them. And again, Jesus pops in, and we don’t know how he got in, and Jesus does not say anything negative to Thomas, but he does seem to know what Thomas has said. So Jesus says to him, “See my hands, see my feet.”

And if you would hit that slide. There you go. Back on, please. Here we go. I love this painting. This just kind of sums things up. It’s done by the Italian Renaissance painter Caravaggio. It’s called The Incredulity of St. Thomas. And you can see Jesus on the left. actually with his left hand guiding Thomas’ hand into the spear hole in his side. You see, actually putting his hand there. There you go. Jesus wants Thomas to know the truth. And now Thomas knows because he has actually touched the truth.

And Jesus speaks blessing on all of us who don’t have the opportunity to touch, but still believe. There you go. Thanks. By the way, this is why I believe that fake news is such a bad thing. Fake news is nothing new. Fake news has been around as long as the human race has been around. But this is why fake news is such a damnable thing. Because anything that is not truth stands against everything Jesus stood for. Fake news chips away at people’s ability to trust. And faith and trust are needed in order to see Jesus for who he is and to receive the gift of eternal life.

At the end of these conversations, Jesus says to his disciples, “‘As the Father sent me, so I send you.’” Jesus’ resurrection moves us from being focused on our own little group to being outward focused, like Peter was on the day of Pentecost. Jesus moves us from wrestling with doubt to confident faith. And real faith is not so much believing in miracles. Hebrews 11 says, Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. We know what we know because Jesus knows. We believe in resurrection because Jesus lives. And now we are called to light a candle in the darkness and to sing songs of hope and of life in the valley of the shadow of death. Amen.
Fairhaven Easter Sunday 2026

April 6, 2026

Summary

In this week’s service, Rev. Dylan Parson reflected on the Gospel of Matthew, focusing on the powerful and unexpected events of Easter morning. Drawing from the account of the two Marys visiting the tomb, Parson highlighted the contrast between the women’s faithful presence and the preoccupation of the Roman authorities with guarding a corpse. He noted that the angel’s act of rolling away the stone was not intended to release Jesus from the grave, but rather to allow the women to witness the reality of the empty tomb and the profound power of the resurrection.

Moving beyond the historical narrative, Parson challenged the congregation to move past “spiritual muscle memory” and the hollow performance of religious tradition. He cautioned against approaching faith merely as a duty—bringing “spices” to honor a dead memory—and instead encouraged a vibrant, personal encounter with the risen Christ. Ultimately, he invited listeners to consider the “tombs” in their own lives, such as dead-end situations or lost hopes, and to trust that the living Jesus is already out ahead of them, inviting them to meet Him in new and transformative ways.

Transcript

All of them are convinced that Jesus has just been full of it all along. In Matthew, though—and again, I know it’s hard to pay attention to what’s not there—this angel rolls away the stone that has sealed the cave. Is that maybe a relationship that’s fizzled or burned up? Most of us have gone most of our lives, familiar at least vaguely, with the events of the last week: from Palm Sunday to the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday, to Jesus’ death on the cross, followed by this: his resurrection on the third day—that this is a God story.

And so the challenge for us becomes to enter into this story that we know so well, we barely even stop to think about it. These two, who’d been there when Jesus’ body was put in the ground, wanted to be… And it’s kind of ironic, really, because it seems like Pilate and his guards take the threat of resurrection, even a fake one, more seriously than the disciples do. But even as they’re brave in Mark and Luke and John, they do seem to still carry this sort of grim resignation to the really that Jesus is dead. You know, I like to think that I know all these stories in the Bible pretty well.

One of the most beautiful things about having four Gospels—all different, obviously—is that they each tell the story of Jesus’ life and ministry and resurrection a little bit differently. On Good Friday, the moment that he breathed his last breath, the earth shook again. And the women, in the end, are rewarded for their faithfulness… which is a little more ambiguous, isn’t it? They sat; they watched all that happen, sitting in front of the tomb.

Jesus knew you’d come. The people who were there, though, their experience couldn’t have been more different than ours. It’s always kind of like that, isn’t it? And he gives them the message personally that the angel gave them secondhand. And if that’s the case, the two Mary’s fierce commitment to hope is met on Sunday morning with God’s assurance that things are even better than what they’d hoped for.

This anxious expectation of Mary Magdalene, knowing that this is exactly where you should be looking for God all along. Nope. Flip back to the previous chapter, check the details: he decides that he’s going to show up, and he’s going to meet them right there.

And indeed, the whole point of the Easter story, which we’ve heard so many times, is one about… And oftentimes, any single gospel defies the kind of collective picture of what we think is in there. And so, as we look at Easter Sunday, the day of resurrection—Mark, Luke, and John—which, you know, maybe you have heard the words of Jesus countless times every Easter, promising… You know, he doesn’t even need to wait for the stone to be rolled away. Today you might think that you have come to anoint the dead body of tradition, doing your duty. He’s not so much interested in your respect as your following.

And we like that. We like the spices, the tradition, because they keep things smelling nice, staying still. And this, to be clear, was very, very brave that they were doing that. Mark and Luke, again, they seem to reflect their presence at the tomb as one of sadness, of resignation, of mourning. They’re still in hiding. He says that these Marys go to the tomb because they expect it to be empty. The Roman guards could confirm that no one’s been there. And the moments that are marked by this earthquake are so powerful, just like the ones that we saw elsewhere in Scripture. Here on Palm Sunday, there was an earthquake, right? Maybe you’re here this morning, sitting in the light of these windows, the smell of these hyacinths, out of habit, out of obligation—whether that’s a once-a-year obligation or a 50-times-plus-a-year habit, doesn’t matter.

Well, maybe, just maybe, they had been the only ones who actually listened to Jesus when—I have to warn you, like the angel did, don’t be afraid—here, but the tomb where you expect to find Jesus’ dead body, it’s empty. In the name of the and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Is it possible that the tombs that you have written off… But one thing is clear.

On the very first day of Easter, no one is waking up at sunrise, ready and eager to proclaim, “Christ is risen indeed.” And so, this Easter morning, I wonder where the tombs are in your life, where the rest… Maybe their faith, just theirs, wasn’t obliterated when Jesus breathed his last breath, when the temple curtain tore in two and the earth quaked. All of these disciples, except for Thomas, who’s even further away—away from all of them—they go to see the tomb. We show up with our spices, with our carefully prepared plans, but God is already at… the God is the one who is doing the resurrecting. So, meet him this morning.

He doesn’t walk out the door. I’ve spent a good bit of time with them. Much like with Christmas, there’s this weird dynamic in how we celebrate Easter Sunday. They don’t have to wait; meet him with everybody else. Again, remember that all these male disciples are still in hiding. They faint in fear the moment the angel shows up. Yeah, I was reading and I stumbled upon a commentary from a Baptist New Zealand scholar… No, they’ve already been there. And whenever he does that, he plops down, sitting on top of the stone.

So, why come back? And now they view their most important job as making sure no one steals his body to perpetrate a hoax of resurrection. So, are you here, Easter Sunday, at the mouth of the tomb, to preserve a memory or to encounter a living person? We didn’t read today; all of these tell the story of the women going to the tomb at sunrise. Doing the saving. And that’s not how this one goes. There when it came back out. And they kind of get that. Just as the angel… Is that a career, a full family situation that feels like a dead end, that’s become a tomb in the middle of your life, that you hide from, that you don’t even want to go look at again? There’s no mention of spices. By the time the ground has stopped shaking, by the time the guards hit the dirt in fear, see this tomb that has proven to be bare.

They were there. And countless holy people, Matthew said, rose from the dead—a sign of what was to come. “Go and tell my disciples.” They’re in fear, in hiding for what might happen to them now. Not only have they already been there, they were pretty much the first ones there: Mary and Mary. Resurrection and new life will come in the wake of death. He can quake the earth. They’re rewarded for apparently being the only human beings who clung to Jesus’ own words tightly enough. They should get to see him.

Thomas is completely off the map, somewhere. Going to look for Jesus on the morning of the third day and finding something completely… Whatever you’re looking for… For Christmas Eve, if you pick any given gospel story, you’re going to find a piece that you think should be in there that’s missing. So much for these soldiers, the most powerful empire the world has ever seen, and they just faint. And a dead tradition doesn’t ask you to change your life. No disciple can do that. Many of those who are closest to him, namely the disciples like Peter, have spent the better part of the previous three days pretending not to have heard Jesus when he said he would be killed and raised again. I assume that he was stretching a little bit. “Go and tell my brothers.”

You’ve got to go find him right in the place that he promised he’d be, in the dark. He was alive, when he had told them over and over and over again that he would be killed. There’s no mention of anointing or of the purpose for which the women go. Are exactly where the living Jesus might be found at work? Of the whole world, where even most of your own soul expects to find nothing but cold… next thing, before we’ve got a handle on what next might be, he kicks back and he talks to the women from up there.

They expect, they believe that he has been resurrected. Why come back the morning of the third day when they had just been there after dark on Good Friday? No emperor, no general. Instead, Jesus is way out ahead of you. Whenever we say, “Christ is risen indeed,” we can basically do that with muscle memory. But Matthew seems to tell us that these two Marys are there in this vigil of expectation. And so he greets them, showing up right there on the path. The earth has quaked beneath the world’s feet in celebration, in defiance. Judas is approaching his last day. But like the disciples, maybe you’ve let that promise slip away when darkness trickles in. You’re bringing the spices to anoint Jesus’ body, but you expect that he’s going to stay right where he is and leave you alone.

“I am going to Galilee, and they can meet me there.” Named Warren Carter, and he points out something even further: to enter into this story with the eyes of people who are encountering the risen Christ or the empty tomb for the very first, first time. And they tell it in the way that we have come to know it. Surely, I thought, you know, if they went to the tomb on Sunday morning without spices, nobody is in that place. Nobody is ready for a real resurrection. And maybe we aren’t either. And the Roman authorities, on the other hand, those that crucified Jesus, from the governor… Maybe they were still holding on. It just asks you to pay your respects and move on. When Jesus processed into Jerusalem in this Palm parade, the city experienced an earthquake at his arrival.

He’s not standing in front of them. And not only then, Jesus is already out. He’s inviting you to get going while an angel is looking down with you with a smirk from the top of the boulder, saying… And that demands that we pay close attention to what each says and equally what is not said. They expect that tomb to be empty much more than the disciples do. They were there the moment that Jesus was wrapped in linen, placed in the tomb by Joseph of Arimathea. He’s sitting up on the stone, talking down to them. The women in Matthew’s Gospel were told, “Go early Sunday morning to see the tomb of Jesus.” You don’t go to anoint a body with spices and oil if it’s not a dead body. Unexpected.

The angel, the earthquakes that we see here—again, the clear point that even the earth… since the stone was still sealed when they got there—is it your faith? Finishes telling them that Jesus is on his way to Galilee, that they can see him. Jesus is never reacting to our arrival. They go to pay their respects to Jesus. Jesus is halfway to Galilee, where he invites the disciples to meet him. But these women are still going to do this, to anoint his body. And tells them not to be afraid. And maybe they interpreted that earthquake, that tearing curtain, as this roar from God as Jesus descended to face Satan in the world of the dead before coming back in a few days. It’s been this greeting that we’ve heard every Easter of many of our lives, right? That they expected to meet him on Sunday morning and made a plan to be there. While I’m sure they would have liked to be there at the moment of his rising, they would have loved to see him take his first new breath. They get exactly what they went there for.

Is it possible that deep down in your heart you feel somewhere… And you have to love this image. I wonder if that’s right here, right now. Carter argues that these women, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary… And then they go to be the first to see it with their own eyes. A sense that your faith has become sort of spiritual muscle memory that doesn’t have a heart anymore. And raised on the third day, they fall down at his feet. And there’s this kind of, like, playful cockiness to it. And then go forth with the joy of someone who realizes the stone didn’t move to let Jesus out, but if Jesus is alive…

Whenever I opened Matthew chapter 28 this year to write this sermon, I did indeed find… they’ve gone to pay their respects because they haven’t been there yet. Pontius Pilate down to the military commanders to all these occupying soldiers keeping watch and overtakes your hope. Did no grave robbers steal this body? I noticed this for the first time, too. They know it’s closed after all. These only two people in the world to meet the risen Christ. They worship him. They go to bring spices with them with which they would anoint and embalm his body. The rest of the world has given up; not these two. He’s always already out ahead of us, waiting for us to catch up. There once they go, gather everybody else to go meet him. Jesus has a change of… and emptiness and decay. It’s sealed. As Pilate and the other soldiers worried, and when the rock was rolled in front of the entrance… They were there.

This image that we get when the angel arrives at the tomb… who is Mary the mother of James, not the other, other Mary, James, or Jesus’ mother… It’s sort of a God doing some showboating, which he’s probably entitled to at this point. There’s a soldier posted. I told you. And as I read this commentary, I immediately refused to believe that he’s correct. Is moving and shouting… is that human action really isn’t all that important in this whole… Why go? Matthew tells us that another earthquake strikes and an angel comes to meet them, and Jesus has already left by the time they got there. No human being ever unsealed the stone. It’s something that you did for someone who was dead to respect their corpse. At Jesus’ tomb—but to let you see that he’s alive and already gone. No boulder here is going to keep the Son of God in the ground. Something unexpected, which is always exciting. Plans. By the time it’s rolled away, Jesus is out. Story. Okay. Right? Right? Amen.