More on Dae's Easter Sermon

An excerpt from Dae's sermon. You can now link to the entire sermon here.

"And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and beacame like dead men. But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified." (Matthew 2:5)

"...This morning I have good news for you....this very angel who delivered this message 'fear not, fear not' is sitting on the very gravestones that have been rolled away by the power of God. No, not the gravestones of yesterday--two thousand years ago, but the very gravestones--your own gravestones. We all have our graves, where we bury our deep festering wounds. And let me tell you, it stinks and smells pretty rotten. It's that place where our lives are held hostage by fear. It's that place where the power of death has taken hold of our lives such that we breath and move about, but are not living. It's that place where we keep our shame hidden, our guilt, and our need for forgiveness, tucked away. It's that place from which we constantly hear the whispers 'you're not good enough, you're never good enough...you don't have enough'. In these places violence is the currency, and from these places our hearts become indifferent to our fellow human beings. Therefore we are able to wage wars upon one another, take more than we need, and we create enemies. We hate and our hated, we deprive the powerless the basic necessities for life...violating our common human dignity and rights, and even in the name of religion. Yes, our collective graves are quite smelly and stinky, pretty bad in our world. And I don't have to continue explaining to you our gravesites.

But I have good news for you this morning. Because Christ is risen, there is no place for fear. The awful stench that arises from our graves is transformed into new life. Our dead bodies are infused with God's love, for God has once again breathed into our being the breath of life, the very Spirit of God, the power of resurrection. The Easter message is quite simple. Beacuse Christ lives, you also live. Because Christ is risen, you also will rise. Because Jesus is the resurrection, you are the resurrection...now this is the great earthquake...."