[Propertalk] Luke 24:1-12 Easter sermon quotes - Part 1

[Joe Parrish]

...Theodore Wardlaw has noticed the many times Luke uses the word "but" in his telling of the Easter story. ...("Living by the Word: Unnatural Event," The Christian Century, March 20, 2007). This "defiant conjunction" gets in the face of every cynical, hopeless, harsh evaluation of the state of the things and the meaning beneath them. It says that God isn't through with things yet. God hasn't spoken the last word, not yet, not in our situation.

This has to mean something to each one of us, then, when we face the "empty tombs" of our lives: the losses and disappointments, heartbreaks and failures, tragic deaths and prolonged illnesses, loneliness and despair. Those tombs are our "Friday" lives, and Jesus shares them with us.  But (there's that word again, and again) Jesus also shares Sunday, and resurrection, new life and new hope, with us. It wasn't a one-time thing, the resurrection of Jesus. It was, instead, the dawning of a new day, and new life as well.
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...a little poem called "Anyway": a man named Kent Keith wrote it, but they say that Mother Teresa had it framed on her wall, and she certainly was someone who knew something about suffering and faithfulness (and doubt, we have later come to understand) and, I suspect, resurrection and new life, too. Like Mother Teresa (probably the only way I resemble her!), I too have this poem framed on my office wall, and I really should get up out of my chair and read it more often. It says, for example, "People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Love them anyway! The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway! Honesty makes you vulnerable. Be honest anyway! What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway! People really need help but may attack you if you help them. Help them anyway! If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway!"

http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/april-4-2010.html

Kathryn Matthews Huey, 2010
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Luke goes on to tell us the response of the apostles when they heard the women's Easter Sermon. Here's how Luke describes their doubt and skepticism: "But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them." A couple of other translations employ the word "nonsense," instead of "an idle tale." According to Dr Wm. Barclay: The word used is one employed by Greek medical writers to describe the babbling of a fevered and insane mind.

http://dimlamp.wordpress.com/2010/04/02/sermon-easter-day-yr-c-2/

Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson, 2010
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Your loved one dies and you're cast into the journey of grief, and you ask, "Why did this happen? Where is God in all of this? How does my faith help? What do I do now?" Well, as a pastor, I can provide the major theme. Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God. Nothing. Neither life nor death nor grief nor loss nor anything else. But I can't provide the score. "What do I do now?" The answer is, "Improvise. Do the next thing there is to do and trust God's love." Patrick Henry, author and former professor of religion at Swarthmore College, has a wonderful phrase in his recent book The Ironic Christian's Companion. He says, "I can't tell you what the grace of God is. The most I can do is tell you what trusting it is like." 
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Let us pray. 
Surprise us, O Living God, as you surprised the women on that first Easter morning. ... Roll away every stone threatening to entomb us in a rigid and timid faith. 

http://day1.org/468-sunday_morning_at_the_improv

Homer Henderson, 2004
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The oldest book in the Bible - the book of Job - asks a question which applies to everyone.  "IF A MAN DIES, SHALL HE LIVE AGAIN?"
It is this one question which separates us from all the rest of God's creatures.  Made in the image of God, our hearts turn to the heavens and ask the question of Job, "When I die.shall I live again?"  The animals don't do that.  (Wondered about my German Shepherd one morning, but he was just looking at a squirrel.)

http://www.lectionarysermons.com/april_20=03.htm 

John Jewell, 2003
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A Benediction

O people of the Lord, you have been raised with Christ!  Go from
this place with joy and rejoicing in your hearts, for Christ is your
life and his glory is your hope!  Amen!

http://www.lectionarysermons.com/april_1501.htm

John Jewell, 2001
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