Easter

More Information

Religious Education for children and youth begins at 9:30 a.m. in the same room! Learn more here.

If you don’t have a chalice, but want to light one, check out our Making a Chalice at Home page.

Service is followed by Coffee Hour.

Children’s Story

Sermon Audio

Sermon Text

Today is Easter. Easter is the central holiday of Christianity. It is often problematic for Unitarian Universalists, especially the doctrine of bodily resurrection. But our faith tradition is rooted in Christianity and has a long and nuanced relationship with it. So, what are the issues? What are the underlying themes? What sense can we make of this holiday? 

I remember a sermon on heard one Easter years ago. It was on resurrection, but it had nothing to do with Jesus. I do remember three illustrations the preacher used: 

• A young boxer gets knocked out and ignominiously loses his first big fight—but picks himself up and goes on to become the Senior Minister of a major UU church. 
• A mother’s son ODs on drugs but goes on to start a support group that grew to include all New England. “Out of tears and ashes.” 

• A wedding between a woman dying of cancer and her short-order cook beloved. 

For David O. Rankin, who’s sermon I am recalling, Easter was more than an ancient story; it is many modern stories. It is a real and ever-present possibility for everyone. If we open our minds to new channels of thought and learning. If we open our hearts to new ways of loving and living. If we open our eyes to new models of growth and beauty, Easter will appear. It will supply us with courage and take us on great adventures. It will save us from pride, grief, and cynicism and bind us to joy and hope again.  

It’s important when considering Christianity to keep in mind that there are two Christianities: the religion of Jesus, and the religion about Jesus. What many UUs—and lots of other people as well—object to in Christianity is the religion about Jesus that sprang up after his death. Its patriarchal bias with its depiction of Jesus as a model (with attributes most particularly preached to women) of meekness, humility, self-sacrifice, and loss of self in the service of others is persuasive. But when you read the Jesus story, the great prophet of Nazareth comes off as anything but meek, humble, and long-suffering. Yes, he is filled with compassion and forgiveness, especially towards the oppressed and marginalized. But he’s opinionated and assertive. He’s criticized for the company he keeps (women, poor folks, people with questionable professions). When challenged by elites, he tells them they are going to hell if they do not show compassion to widows, orphans, and the poor. He gets chased out of several towns. He is criticized for making his religion too open and for partying too much. 

He was executed by the Roman authorities because he threatened the oppressive, patriarchal, classist social order; they were afraid his popular ideas might catch on and grow. The whole story has nothing to do with God’s decision to send Jesus to die for our sins—that’s the religion about Jesus.  

As a sixth generation Unitarian Universalist I never grew up with any of that. It was in college when I first became fascinated with religion—not as some kind of talisman, but as a discipline for turning one’s life around. First, I was turned on by the Greeks and Eastern philosophy. I realized: there is a science to this stuff. It can be studied analytically and empirically. It can help open a person’s heart and mind. Cut away the hocus-pocus and get to the heart of religion and there is something really real there.  

After Jesus was executed his disciples (and a lot of other people) were upset and dismayed. How could this happen? How could life be so unjust? Plato felt the same way after Socrates was executed by the Athenian authorities. He could have let it end there, but he did not. He had an Easter experience. And he spent the rest of his life trying to make sense of it, trying to find the meaning. And to share his insights with others to help them recognize what Socrates revealed about the profound depth and expansiveness of the human condition.  

The followers of Jesus did much the same 300 years later: they resolved to integrate into their lives the values and relational/restorative practices of their teacher—so that his teachings— 

• What he stood for 
• What he lived for 
• What he died for 

Would not be buried with him but would live on. That’s the resurrection. Believing in the resurrection means simply believing in this dynamic. And carrying it forward. 

Here’s the thing; the great irony: our growing edge is not success, but failure. We can know what friendship really means only when we have experienced rejection or betrayal. The best counselors are often wounded healers—people with emotional problems themselves and who have worked through them to health. Those with consistently successful lives are apt to be shallow and glib. And that’s because what we call “character” in others is revealed, not in how we handle our successes, but how we handle our failures. As the Humanistic psychologist and Esalen luminary George Leonard once put it, “Ecstasy without agony is baloney.” Life is laced with plenty of successes, for sure, but, for most of us, with an equal if not surplus of failures. The glory of Easter, the resurrection of hope, is in carrying on, with your dignity and courage intact. Alleluia! 

Music Videos