early easter

from my sermon on 4/10/11 from John 11:17-27 Do the math with me. From the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday, March 9 this year, to Easter, April 24 this year, there are 46 days. Yet the season of Lent is only 40 days. So how do we get only 40 days out of 46 days? The 6 Sundays don't count as part of Lent. They are not called the Sundays of Lent, but the Sundays in Lent. Every Sunday is a little Easter, a day when we celebrate the resurrection of Chirst. Every Sunday is an early Easter. Especially today when we read about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. In John's Gospel, there are 7 signs, 7 events/miracles that point to who Jesus is. Jesus changes water into wine, heals a royal official's son, feeds the multitudes with only a few fish and loaves of bread, walks on water, cures a paralytic, and cures a man born blind. Today, the trump card, the ace in the hole is Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. An early Easter. And in case we didn't get it, Jesus has all of these "I am" statments in John's Gospel. So today Jesus says something that I have used as an opening line in every funeral service I have ever done, including the funeral I led here on Friday for Thelma Fisher who was 100 years young. Jesus says, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and every one who lives and believes in me will never die." Jesus then asks Martha, "Do you believe this?" Martha says that she does....even before Jesus raises her brother up from the dead....even before she sees Jesus die and be raised up. She says, "Yes, Lord, I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the One coming inot the world. It is an early Easter. I ask you today, "Do you believe?" I am asking you to act on your beliefs. Today we are doing Rethink Church. I am asking you to be the church in the world. I am asking you to go into the world that may not know the good news that Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Not in some future, end of the world or when I die kind of way, but today, right here and now present reality. You are called to become the message in the world: to bring good news to bad news, to bring healing to hurt, to bring life to death. Next week we will share pictures and stories of your living faith, of how Easter came 2 weeks early this year. You are the sign that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. Go to celebrate an early Easter.