(5) Easter Monday

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for Easter Monday, originally shared on April 10, 2020. It was the fifth video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   Yesterday was Easter Sunday. The Resurrection is the central event of the Christian faith. No resurrection, no Christian faith. Paul writes that if there was no resurrection, we are the most pathetic creatures on the planet.

   It was celebrated differently throughout the world this year as the result of social distancing, stay at home orders, and the resulting reliance upon technology.

    I received breaking news yesterday morning from BabylonBee.com, a Christian web site the skews conservative and evangelical/Calvinist but contains enough material for everyone to be amused.

   The headline said, “Roman authorities investigating Jesus for Violating Stay-in-Tomb order”.

    Today, we’re going to talk about Easter.  We’ll be looking at Romans 6:3-5

    The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the part of the Church where I have grown and served, has a slogan for service that says, “God’s Work. Our Hands”.

   I was a meme on line in which some letters were added to that graphic so that it read, “God’s work. Wash your hands.”

 Romans 6:3-5

    Fun fact. When Paul wrote this letter to the church at Rome, the capital of the Roman empire whose language was Latin, he wrote it in Greek, whose presence was pervasive throughout the Roman empire.

    We are told that we are now in the deadliest part of the contagion.

    But, we are celebrating Easter. Death is a past tense experience.

   Easter means that we are being served by the one true God, creator of the universe. God came to be fully God and fully human among us and to live as a servant, even to die for us, to pay the penalty for our sin, that we might know a living relationship with the living God, the relationship for which we were created. Our service, in response, is central to what it means to be a Christian.

    It’s been said that for every old person there’s a young person inside saying, “What happened?”

   That’s certainly Sally and me, especially when we are now seen by some as the seniors who need special attention.

   For example, our neighbors have been asking if we need anything. One shopped for fresh fruit for us when that was what we needed.

   People are being asked to care for elderly in their neighborhoods who are supposedly more susceptible to the effects of this virus than other age groups, though we’ve seen tragic hospitalizations and deaths among all age groups.

   It’s a strange place for us to be, because we feel fine, and we feel prepared.

   I had been preaching and leading worship at Solheim Lutheran Home in Eagle Rock on Sundays  since last November. That ended when the home was closed to everyone except medical professionals. Why? Because they are a population most at risk. Anyone coming in from outside the facility whether a friend, and family member, or a pastor, could be bringing contagion, and even death into that closed environment. We think about them and pray for them often.

   One of my cousins and his wife are on the front lines of medical professionals caring for the elderly population in Minnesota. We think about them and pray for them often.

   We are, each of us, a part of a human race that can do great things, including great acts of sacrifice. We can also be hoarders, we can be haters, we can take advantage of people in times like this.

   But, as Fred Rogers said in a quote that became very popular after 911, “When I was a child and I would see scary things on the news, my mother would say, ‘Look for the helpers. There are always helpers.”

   This is why, in part, the early church grew, because of the behavior of Christians during pandemics. Hospitals.

   Our Christian behavior comes out of our new natures, though we are still saints and sinners and sinners.

   God feeds us out of streams of living waters God’s Biblical metaphor for God’s very presence.

   If you haven’t experienced this new relationship, this new creation. I invite you to open your heart to God. Today.

   Christ is Risen! Receive him now.