I must confess to you that I am not a morning person. I am groggy until about 10:00.  George says that the day is already half over by then, but not for me. Am I the only night-owl who's up early this morning? So why do we do it? Why do we get up from the sweet darkness of rest to stand in the cold and greet the sun on this morning? Why is it that people who never come to church any other day of the year except maybe Christmas, why do they come today?

I enjoy listening to NPR, National Public Radio. One afternoon while driving home from the airport, I listened to an interview with a psychiatric nurse from Tacoma Parks, Maryland. She shared this experience. She was in a discharge meeting for a young girl who was held captive by her rituals and thoughts. The participants in the meeting, the nurse, a social worker, the girl, her parents, and the girl's doctor were trying to make arrangements for her to go home. Making these arrangements was almost impossible because the girl was convinced that the opposite of God now resided in her body, the opposite of God. She kept interrupting the conversation saying, "It is possible, isn't it? The Bible says it is." Again and again, "It is possible, isn't it? It could be, couldn't it?" Finally the doctor stopped and looked over his half glasses at her and said in a quiet voice. "I'm going to say one thing and one thing only about this. In the Bible and in life, God wins." The girl seemed calmer and more settled after that. The nurse continued. "I carry that statement with me as I work for there are few happy endings in my work and few cures." "In the Bible and in life, God wins." We greet the sun this morning to drink in that assurance.

This has been a very long week. At the Maundy Thursday service, we saw the loving relationship between Jesus and his followers as they shared that final meal. We saw Jesus' terrible grief and fear in the garden just before his arrest. The Passion story we read at the Good Friday service brought into sharp relief the depth of humiliation and pain that Jesus experienced after his arrest. And it wasn't just his suffering, but the pain and disappointment of those who loved him so deeply and believed in him completely. It was hard to walk through that part of Jesus' story with him, but having experienced the horror of his trial and execution, today is sweet. God wins. The brutality, the humiliation, the degradation by those who opposed his message and his mission have been defeated. He's alive.  Humans threw their worst at him. They tried to strip him of his humanity, his dignity, but God has lifted him up, the Son rises.

Degradation and brutality, unfortunately, did not end with Jesus. People still do that to others, but because of Jesus we can have hope of overcoming that brutality. Black poet Maya Angelou wrote:

"You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies.
You may trod me in the very dust.
But still, like dust, I'll rise. . . .
 
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries.
 
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard,
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
 
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes.
You may kill me with your hatefulness
But still, like air, I'll rise."

Isn't that what Easter is about? Isn't that why we come here bleary eyed at the crack of dawn? We all know that each of us, at sometime in our lives, for some that may even be now, will experience crosses of our own. And we know we can't bear them alone. We need that assurance, that word of hope, that with the Son we too shall rise.

During the last 6 weeks we have been talking about living fully using the story Tuesdays with Morrie about Morrie Schwartz who died of Lou Gehrig's disease. The key to living fully is to love and to place our priorities as we would if we knew we were dying. This is risky because loving opens us up to being hurt. The Bible tells us that God is love and Jesus demonstrated this in his life and we see the risk of suffering take place in Jesus' life. But Easter shows us that love is worth the risk because in the end Love will overcome. God wins. People can throw their worst at us. Are some of us feeling rejected, isolated?  With Jesus, there is the promise that we can rise to new relationships, new lives. I know that is true. I live in one of those relationships. My husband was divorced when we first met. We consider our marriage a resurrection experience. After, the rejection and pain of the death of his first marriage, God brought him new life and a wonderful life I might add, in our marriage. Do some of us feel alienated and alone? Who would want us? In Jesus, we belong; we belong to the family of God. Our value is set by the One who knit us in our mother's womb as Psalm 139 tells us and the One who will love us beyond the end.  With the Son, we shall rise. How many of us face despair over a wound, an illness, a loss? The journey to healing seems too hard. But God tells us with Jesus we can find healing, with the Son, we too shall rise.  We will rise out of the many little deaths we face throughout life to find healing and wholeness, new life, new hope, new promise. Think about a place of pain in your life. Bring it to your mind and then say with me. "With the Son, I will rise." Turn to your neighbor and say, "With the Son, you will rise." With the Son, we will rise to new life and new possibilities. 

Today's message though is bigger than our individual lives. For God has called the church together to become the Body of Christ in today's world. As a community, God calls us to face the despair of our society to act as Jesus' hands and heart in this world. Every night on TV or in the newspaper, we see acts of violence, injustice, and greed, one after another. There are so many needs and issues that need to be addressed, if we are to truly serve as Christ served. It is overwhelming; it would be so easy to despair, to give up. Yet, Easter comes and reminds us that ultimately God wins. Even in the face of slow progress and great obstacles we work diligently, hopefully for we know that with the Son, we shall rise.

We went to Ethiopia last summer to see a ministry to street children called Hope for the Hopeless. There are an estimated 25,000 - 100,000 children abandoned in the streets of the capital city of Addis Ababa alone, mostly due to the ravages of AIDS and poverty. Some of those children are as young as 3 years old. Through cooperation between Ethiopian Christians involved in Hope Maranatha and American Christians, we have been able to rescue over 100 children transitioning them from life on the streets to foster families.^[i] We know it is just a drop in the bucket, but it will reverberate in the futures of those children and we are dedicated to helping as many children as we can. With the Son, they shall rise. 

This is why we wait in the cold so early in the morning. This is why our churches fill up today like no other day of the year. We desperately need the reminder of Easter.  We need the assurance that after the agony of our own passion stories, after the pain of other's passion stories, there can be healing and new life. Jesus Christ was raised today. And with him, with the Son, we too shall rise. We shall rise. Amen.

Sermon delived by Rev. Nancy Cushman on Easter morning April 8, 2007.