Readings for the Day:
Sermon:
Go to iTunes or SoundCloud for Audio Podcast
Original Manuscript:
Naming is an important task because names are how we are presented to the world. Names say something about us. They might say where we come from, or they might denote a quality we posses. It is why names are held up as extremely important in Scripture, and it is why we think through the names we pass down to our children.
The same is true for naming churches. Take a particular church in Jerusalem; it's the church that contains both the locations for Jesus' death and the tomb where he was laid, at least as far as we can be certain. Now many of you will know this church I speak of by the name "The Holy Sepulchre", literally meaning "The Holy Tomb", but there is another name the church goes by.
In the East, they call this church the "Church of the Resurrection". There are many reasons for this. The church is not a tomb in the same way other tombs are. There is no body in there.
Jesus' body is no longer there. He is risen. We are here today to celebrate this event, and Jesus' Resurrection is the crux of our faith.
That is why it is so important that Church of the Resurrection is called that. It is not just the site of Jesus' death and His burial, but it is also the site of the Resurrection of our Lord that makes new life possible for us.
The name isn't just a statement of what went on there. It is a statement about our life in faith.
That is why our name as The Episcopal Church of the Resurrection here in Rainbow City, Alabama, is so important. It's not because we can have a little pride that our name matches the church of our faith, although that is pretty cool. It's also not because we picked "the right name" for our church, because, as we can see in the church as a whole, there are a lot of right names out there. Our name is important because it says something about who we are, or at least who we want to be.
Resurrection is what our faith is all about, so what we are saying is that we put the highest emphasis on what it means to be a Christian.
What being Christian means is that we live a new life in Christ Jesus. We are baptized into His death so that we may rise with Him to new life. Make no mistake, it is new life. When Jesus is raised, as we hear in the Gospel this morning, He is almost unrecognizable. Something is very deep, different, and new about this Resurrected Life.
This is a good thing for us. While Jesus doesn't need any change, we do. We need a change from the old ways of life to the new. We need to move beyond those things that separate us from God so that we can be present with God once again. Jesus' Resurrection allows us to do that.
So Resurrection first-most and full-most means loving God again, or maybe even for the first time. It means making God's will our own. It means reading Holy Scripture not as a tool to prove ourselves right, but one that often proves us wrong. It means when we see something in the Bible that makes us uncomfortable that we stop, and instead of rejecting what we read, we are called to take the time to reflect and wrestle with those words so that they might change us.
Doing God's will also means loving our neighbors. Jesus died for all of us in this world, and as Ambassadors of Christ, we are called to show and share that love with all that we meet, no matter how difficult it may be.
Resurrection means we are reunited with God, and with each other. It marks a new and glorious time in our lives, our relationships, and our spirituality.
As the church, this life, the Resurrected Life, is what we proclaim, and in living up to our name as Resurrection, that's what we are especially called to proclaim too.
If renewal of life and reunification with God are things you are looking for, then please consider joining the church community, whether it is here at Resurrection or, if you don't live here, at another church like us. We want you to be a part of our family because God wants all of us to be a part of His family.
Our motto here at Resurrection is "Live it, the Resurrection Life." That's a really good phrase, because it not only points to the life we live here on this world in Christ, but it points to the Resurrected Life we all receive from Jesus. That's what our name calls us to do. No longer live to yourselves, but to Christ Jesus. Don't live the life you had before. "Live it, the Resurrection Life."