Our Savior: Isaiah 25: 6-9; Mark 16: 1-8
The other morning, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror. New and brighter lights had just been installed, and I could see myself far more clearly in the mirror than I ever wanted to. I began to take stock. I’m getting a lot of gray hair. Whether you can see it or not, my barber gently said it’s time to make a decision whether to let it go or start blending the color. So, trust me, it’s there. I looked at the dark circles under my eyes. I looked at the few little skin tags on my neck and my one crooked tooth. And now I have these little spots, little places on my face that eventually will have to be removed. I stood there, looking at myself in the brightly lit mirror and thought, “Wow, Will, it’s getting bad.”
I think we all do the same thing, whether we want to admit it or not. We look over our lives and think, “When did I start needing a nap every day?” We wonder where those wrinkles came from. We can remember when going to the doctor was once or twice a year instead of once or twice a week. A teacher friend of mine wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry when a student turned in a paper that began, “In the late 1900s…” She quickly realized they meant the 1990s. There are all these things in our lives that make us feel…shall we say…old and decrepit? Maybe we could even say depressing?
All too often we focus ourselves squarely and only on the mess. We complain about being too overweight, too old, too unattractive, too boring, too mentally fractured, and in so many ways too broken. Human nature tends towards this focus on the negative, and we are no exception—I have listened to you, oh yes, I have heard you talk quite frequently about the negative things of life and all the ways we’re getting old. The disciples were no exception, either, when it came to negativity. Jesus was dead, crucified, wickedness had won. Their leader, their hope, their Rabbi was dead and buried with a giant stone blocking all access. They were afraid. They were broken and messy. Humankind very often finds itself living in the broken and messy.
But into all of that, a miracle occurred—a resurrection—and the Savior lives. The angel said to the women in the Gospel, “Don’t be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead!” And into that place of life and resurrection, we find ourselves. We may see the decrepit, feel the slowness of death creeping in, but just as the Holy One was resurrected, we too shall be saved. Together, we wrote short explanations of what “saved” means to us. Some of you wrote a sentence or two. Some of you sent me several paragraphs, and at least one sent me chapter and volume in a three-ring binder which I am continuing to read.
One of you talked about being saved as a process, one where we draw closer to God each day until we see our God face to face. There were other things said and written: being saved eases the sting of grief, being saved speaks life into the place where death and Hell once reigned for us, being saved is more than just words—it means truly walking in this new life with God, being saved means finding a home with Jesus where you are saved, loved, and welcomed just as you are, being saved means living for Jesus instead of under the burdens of others, being saved means a relationship, hope, eternal life, living in the shadow of the cross but seeing the glory waiting on the other side.
All of these speak to Jesus’s ability to speak hope and wholeness, sweetly and softly, into those places where we are messy, broken, or feel a little more decayed than usual. Isaiah speaks also to this idea of restoration, saying, “Then he will remove the cloud of gloom, the shadow of death that hangs over the earth. He will swallow up death forever!” And then we get this powerful statement of trust and commitment: “In that day the people will proclaim, ‘This is our God! We trusted in him, and he saved us! Let us rejoice in the salvation he brings!”
There is good foundation throughout the scripture to believe in this level of hope and restoration…of this saving. II Corinthians 4:16 reminds us, “Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.” I used to chalk that up to some theological talk by Paul that seems rather comforting at funerals, but these days those words speak a bit more to the soul. We look in the mirror and see what’s wrong—whether it’s the bumps on your face, the gray in your hair, for me personally at one time the Crisco needed to grease me up and squeeze my pants on and buttoned, or all the life drama we face. But in our individual spirits, we can feel God speaking, renewing, giving us strength, teaching us. It’s that feeling of one’s soul being renewed and strengthened despite the growing level of decrepit on and about us.
It brings us to a place of peace in our lives. As one of you wrote, saved means “to gaze out my window to see the beauty God has created. To close my eyes and feel it too. To have the freedom of knowing no matter what comes, I am being held tenderly in Jesus’s loving arms.” We see messiness and brokenness; Jesus sees the one he loves and died for. We look on the negative, the faults, the failures; Jesus looks at the holy calling given to you. We look at the difficulties and struggles; Jesus looks at his own resurrection and the promised hope for you and for me. And somehow, some way, out of all that messiness comes this beauty of us that God has created, redeemed, and called his very own.
Easter is about the redemption God is giving today and the hope for tomorrow that Jesus’s death and resurrection will bring. Tomorrow morning, we will likely all stand again in front of the mirror…on a Monday no less. Each blemish, each problem, each age spot, lump, bump, and wrinkle will start to weigh on our mind. Each broken place in our lives, each mess we’ve made, and each problem we are sorting through will also come to mind (though usually that’s at night when you’re trying to sleep). And I hope in that moment, as those thoughts invade, that you will remember the words of that song we heard minutes ago: “Something beautiful, something good, all my confusion he understood. All I had to offer him was brokenness and strife, but he made something beautiful of my life.” So after we say the benediction, go home and look in the mirror, and see the one whom God loves, whom God redeemed, and whom God has given hope because our Savior lives.
Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/264779475306888