Love Is Stronger Than The Grave

Welcome to the First Love Church podcast.

This is a collection of Sunday teachings inspired by the Revised Common Lectionary and recorded weekly in Ocala, florida.

Death around us tells lies and says things like things will never change.

I have good news beloved, yes, they will.

Yes, they will.

As we encounter the resurrection this morning, as we come back, I'm asking that the Holy Spirit illuminate us.

We enter into mystery this morning and, whether you knew it or not, you entered into mystery through even the singing of songs In the very beginning of the world, in the beginning of the cosmos, when God is creating everything and love sets out.

In fact, in the Proverbs, it talks about the spirit of God that was with God when God was creating and it says that she was there as the architect by his side, and it says that God, that love, hovered over chaos and created something new.

That's so encouraging for me because I see a lot of chaos.

I see chaos in our world, I see chaos in relationship, I see chaos in myself, and it is an invitation Holy Spirit, spirit of love and resurrection, come and hover over this and create something beautiful.

I am excited to be in your presence this morning and as I looked around this morning, as I'm singing, I'm thinking to myself this truth For many of us, we have already been in death's tomb in all kinds of ways in ways through addiction, in ways through broken choices, in ways through our own paths.

And there is a resurrection, kelly.

He is risen, yes.

So many times he drags us from the grave and says Love is here, beloved.

I'm so excited that your presence is here with me this morning and that you would expect and that you would allow the Holy Spirit to expand your imagination and your presence.

Before we get any further, in case you are nervous or anxious about something, I want to ease your fears.

We're going to have Holy Communion at the end.

So if you came here going, where's the communion?

Where do I just get my time with Jesus?

I want to tell you be patient, because we're saving the good stuff till the very last.

We're going to enter into mystery.

We're going to enter into something that is so incredibly sacred and it is, for us, a remembering.

I'm grateful that you're here.

I'm going to read a text this morning, but I'm going to ask that you would allow spirit to illumine you.

Maybe you've heard the story before, but let me tell you it again, and let me tell you an expanded version, let me tell you a version that maybe has been glossed over.

And let me speak to you, to your own heart of love.

Let me speak to you of things that you already know, that spirit has already been telling you.

And let's, together, allow the Spirit to expand our capacity to love and to receive love, if you would close your eyes with me just for a moment, and together we are grateful for breath, the breath that sustains us.

All-loving God, creator, god, god of new beginnings, who burst forth from the tomb, who spoke to Mary Magdalene in the form of a gardener, who appeared behind closed doors in the disciples' need.

Send now your Holy Spirit into this place.

Fill every heart with your mercy, touch every mind with your grace.

Reveal yourself to those who believe in the seclusion of their own thoughts.

Pass freely through every emotional and mental barrier, just as you appeared to the disciples, unhindered by locks and deferences.

Allow our breathing to be your breathing.

Fill us now with the peace of your Holy Spirit.

Relieve us all of fear.

Open our eyes that we may see.

Open our ears that we may hear.

Open our hearts that we may live.

Bring the scriptures to life within us.

Allow us to participate in the telling of the story alongside your disciples.

Amen, amen From John's Gospel.

Early Sunday morning, while it was still dark, mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance, and she ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and she said they have taken the Lord's body out of the tomb and we don't know where they have put him.

Peter and the other disciples started out for the tomb.

They were both running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first and he stooped and looked in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he didn't go in.

Simon Peter arrived and went inside and he also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, while the cloth that had covered Jesus's head was folded up and lying apart from the other wrappings.

Then the disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in and he saw and believed, for until then they still hadn't understood the scriptures that said Jesus must rise from the dead.

Then they went home.

If you stop there, beloved, you miss.

You miss so much.

We're going to read on in the story, but I want you to hear the story from this incredible disciple, this Mary Magdalene, who stays, and I want to remind you that the spirit of God stays with you.

You cannot depart from love's presence.

Love is with you, love is always with you.

But I ask that, if you read this story with me, as you imagine it in your own life, if you would pay a moment attention to the fact that she stays.

She stays, perhaps, in grief.

Yesterday is Holy Saturday, where there's just nothing.

I love that for us, because sometimes that's what it feels like inside Nothing.

Nothing has changed.

A great tragedy has happened and I am the same and the world is the same and nothing is changing.

And Holy Saturday holds that for us.

We celebrate Good Friday, where there's this tragedy, this heartbreak, this loss.

Mary is one of the followers of Jesus, one of the apostles, one of the disciples, and she has put everything in her belief that he will be the one to change everything, the world, that he is the Messiah.

And then he is killed by politics, by fear, by misinterpretation of things.

He is killed by his own countrymen.

He is killed by people who don't understand what love really is.

Imagine for a moment heartache.

I don't know if any of you have ever experienced it?

I'm suspect that you have.

But I want to remind you this morning that Easter, no matter where it finds you, if in deep grief, if you're the people who, just you know, decided this is the end of it, I want to tell you that love is here to tell a better story, a bigger story, a more hopeful story.

So the boys go home and Mary stays.

We don't know why she stays.

I think it's because she loves him and love is her home, loves him and love is her home.

She stays in love.

She stays in the presence because beloved love is eternal.

Love does not stop once your body is no longer here.

Love goes on and on and on, and love calls to us even beyond the grave.

Mary was standing outside the tomb, crying, which is appropriate when your heart is broken.

Don't let anyone tell you you can't cry, beloved.

Tears are a form of prayer.

Tears are a way that we hold our own grief with honor.

Allow yourself the freedom to cry If you are heartbroken, beloved weep.

And as she wept, she stooped and looked in and she saw two white-robed angels, one sitting at the head and the other at the foot of the place where the body of Jesus had been lying.

Up until this point she hadn't gone in.

She went to the tomb this morning, to this garden place.

I love that it tells us that she's in the garden.

It reminds us of the other poetry in the story that tells this is how this whole thing started, in the garden.

So here she is in the garden again and she has gone there expecting to find Jesus, to find this one that she loves, separated from her.

And when the stone is rolled away, it is grief upon grief.

It is almost too much to bear.

But she never actually goes in.

She runs and gets the boys and says come and see, this is what's happened.

Now they see, they have their own encounter.

They believe or they don't believe, but whatever happened, they just went home.

They left Mary there with her grief.

Maybe you feel like that's what's happened to you.

You've been left with your grief.

Love is coming for you, beloved.

But she bends and she looks in and she sees angels.

Now, I don't know how long the angels were there.

Perhaps they came as soon as she bent and looked in, but maybe they were there the whole time.

As soon as she bent and looked in, but maybe they were there the whole time.

Maybe in your life there are messengers of love and resurrection and promise everywhere.

Maybe we just have to bend to see them.

Dear woman, why are you crying?

The angels asked her.

Why are you crying?

The angels asked her.

I've heard this story told before and it is almost sometimes told like you shouldn't be crying, like get over it, be done with this.

By now, the angels of heaven are asking, and I want to tell you that's not their tone, that is not what it is.

It is this invitation of would you like to share the pain?

Why are you crying?

And her response because they have taken away my Lord and I don't know where they have put him.

They have put him.

It's a terrible thing that death does to us, that robs us of our sight, that we cannot see those that we've loved.

She hasn't seen before and she turned to leave and she saw someone standing there.

It was Jesus, but she didn't recognize him.

Sometimes grief will cause us to not see love when it is right there in front of us and sometimes, in some ways, maybe the God and the Jesus that you followed feels like is unavailable, unavailable, beloved.

Stay in the garden long enough so that love can reveal itself to you anew.

She saw Jesus and she did not recognize him.

Dear woman, why are you crying Again, she is asked, because the weeping does not stop.

The weeping does not stop once you've seen angels.

The weeping does not stop even once you've been given the message of angels, because the grief is still present, the loss is still real.

Dear woman, why are you crying?

Jesus asked her who are you looking for?

And she thought he was the gardener.

I love that.

And she thought he was the gardener.

I love that the transfigured Christ, this transcendent one, could be mistaken for the gardener.

I think it's one of the reasons why gardening is such a holy enterprise.

Very often we need to have dirt under our own fingernails before we can see what love actually looks like the promise of resurrection.

If you have taken him away, tell me where you've put him and I will go and get him.

I ask for a moment that you would imagine with me what it is like to imagine that the body of the one that you love has been taken.

Don't worry about it, it's okay.

We'll talk about why that happened later, but just tell me where he is and I will go get his body.

You don't have to defend yourself, just show me where he is, mary, jesus said, and she turned to him and cried out Rabboni, which is Hebrew for my teacher, when love spoke her name In the silence, in the practice of silence, I encourage you.

Love calls for you.

Love speaks your true name, your worthiness, your belovedness, your part in the story that love is telling him.

It doesn't tell us a whole lot about what happens yet, but by what happens here I know what happened.

She saw him and she recognized him.

I don't imagine she knew what had happened, but how is it that he was in front of her?

She put a death grip on him.

She was not going to let this go again.

It happened the one time.

It's not happening again.

Love was going to cling, love was going to hold so tightly to what she knew.

And the first thing that Jesus says after this and I imagine they embraced I imagined it was not, it was not, don't touch me, because I'm holy.

It was loves, I have found you.

I can't even imagine how amazing this is.

And Jesus says don't cling to me.

Where in your life is there clinging, maybe to a representation of God that no longer exists?

Maybe to a path or to a way.

Maybe there is an invitation to a transcendent life, to a Jesus that is beyond the boundaries of this mortal life, for a Jesus who lives forever.

And the beauty of this is that is an invitation to us to give up our clinging, our clinging to our way of doing things, our clinging to our plans, our clinging to what we know.

And Jesus' encouragement to us is love opens love's hands.

Don't cling to this form.

I haven't yet ascended to the Father.

Jesus returns to God, and there's other scriptures that tells us that Jesus ever lives to make intercession for us.

If you want to know what Jesus is up to right now, it is up to intercession for you and I.

And when you don't know what to pray, pray whatever Jesus is praying for me.

May that be true.

Whatever Jesus is praying for my family, may that be true.

Whatever Jesus is praying for the politics, may that be true.

Whatever Jesus is praying for my family, may that be true.

Whatever Jesus is praying for the politics, may that be true.

Whatever Jesus is praying for whomever, may that come to pass.

Don't cling to me.

Jesus says I have not yet ascended to the Father, but go and find my brothers and tell them.

Please do not miss that part of the story and in fact I just won't let you miss it.

Jesus looks at a woman, his beloved friend, his disciple and apostle, and says go tell the boys First of all, go find them.

And I don't.

This is like a life's problem for me, beloved.

The boys scatter, they just like leave before the work is done.

They like they do a little bit and then they're going home and I'm like it's not done.

I'm not done.

Crying Love is not done.

Winning Death is still lying.

Don't go home.

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Stay in the garden, stay in this renewal, stay in this hope.

Allow love to expand what you even thought love was possible of.

Go and tell my brothers First of all, find them.

I just do not miss that.

Jesus did not send the boys to find anything.

Jesus sent a woman to find the boys and then to tell them.

This is essential now because we still live in a world of hierarchy.

We still live where, all over the world, people are put into categories of greater than or less than.

And Jesus has showed us that love removes every category, that love calls us all beloved, that love calls us all home and back to our truest selves.

And so Jesus is absolutely practicing something that culture would not have done.

But he said to his beloved friend, his beloved friend, find the boys, round them up, let's go boys, come out of your houses and come back to love and tell them I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and to your God.

And the message here, if you read it, is Jesus is telling Mary tell the whole world we're family.

Tell the whole world that it's no longer my God, it's our God.

Tell the whole world that love has escaped beyond the boundaries of our mortality and has brought us into newness of life.

This story has so many other stories woven into it.

Matthew and Luke and Mark have already been written for years, and John still writes a story.

And he writes the story and he says things over and over again, reminiscent of the storytelling.

He tells us it was dark and then he brings us into the light.

For many of us, in our grief there is still darkness.

Into the light.

For many of us, in our grief there is still darkness.

And it's okay for you to weep.

In fact, it says in four scriptures, it mentions she's crying four times.

This crying is acceptable.

This crying is part of your humanity.

This crying is essential for healing and transcendence.

And the spirit this is what the apostle tells us the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, lives and dwells in you and in me, and when we gather together, it is that spirit.

It is love spirit, it is the spirit of possibility.

What would it look like if the kingdom of heaven were actually here?

What would it look like if we could love each other without hierarchy, with us all coming to this understanding, my God and your God.

It doesn't say my God if you do everything that I do, my God if you confess these things, my God if you read this certain book.

But it is this understanding that if you follow love, you will end up at the feet of Jesus, because love is coming for you, beloved and love in the silence will speak your name.

Mary was in the garden and she went looking for the corpse of her beloved.

Mary was in the garden and she went looking for the corpse of her beloved and what she found was the living God who called her by name.

What she found was a living God, beloved.

Love calls us into living, into trueness, into life more abundantly.

Mary gives us such a beautiful entrance into what it looks like to follow.

You say I don't know.

She didn't tell me what to do with my life, but she does.

In fact, she shows us in the way that she lives, in her practice of generosity, in her practice of including.

Mary Magdalene found the disciples, which in a sense, is a miracle.

Let's talk about that just for a hot moment, because I grew up in a faith tradition where miracles were a big thing, and I am still a miracle believer.

I want for miracles, but I was told that miracles were huge things like the Red Sea parting, like fish being multiplied so that over 12,000 people can eat.

That's a big thing.

But I want to tell you miracles are all around us, every single day.

Miracles are everywhere if we're trained to see them and the Holy Spirit invites us into this.

Mary Magdalene found the other disciples.

She went and found that which was lost, that which had turned around, and went home.

This is a miracle, right there.

Have you ever lost anything?

Have you ever tried to find someone who didn't want to be found?

She did, and she told them this I have seen the Lord, and then she gave them his message.

This is the hope for all of us.

This is my witness.

This is your witness.

Where have you seen love?

Where have you allowed love to see you?

Where have you sat in the presence and allowed yourself to be held in the loving embrace and in the gaze of Jesus?

I have seen the Lord.

Now, I also want to remind you that this is her interpretation.

So before someone tells you that, you know you shouldn't say anything because that's your interpretation.

They have their own.

This is my witness.

This is what I have seen.

I have seen love, and love that is greater than death.

That's hopeful, because all of us will see death Until that final day when death is absolutely destroyed.

We will all see death, and that is a difficult thing for us to even think about, comparing our lives and our loves.

Where is love?

What do you do with it when you have all this love and no one to put it on?

You grieve, and the Spirit allows us to expand our capacity to see death not as final but as a passageway, to see death as something that we recognize, that we go through.

But there is something so much more.

Sawyer agrees with me this morning he has so much resurrection to speak of.

Cs Lewis said pay attention to the ones who are so fresh from God.

They have not forgotten all of the glories.

And so when we gather together in God's house and among us are children and among us are those who have gone much further down the path and there are those among us.

Maybe you don't even know why you are among us.

Maybe you were dragged here by someone who found you in your house and dragged you here like Mary did with the brothers and she said I have seen the Lord, I have seen love, and I want to tell you about the message that he's my God and he's your God and he's our God, and love is the way.

Love is the way.

This is what resurrection reminds us of, if there are areas in your life this morning where you see deadness, where you see things that are without hope, beloved.

Resurrection is coming, newness is coming, new life is being created here.

She went to tend to the body and what she found was the living Lord.

Sometimes you come to church on Sunday mornings and you're here to attend to your body, to bring ourselves into ritual, to remember, to remind ourselves of our truest identities, ones who are loved by God, and this is the truth that our witness calls other people into family.

When we come and we do these things together, we tell a story, whether you even know it or not.

It's been 45 years since I have seen my grandmother, since I've heard her voice, since I watched her radical hospitality.

I was 10 years old.

You know, 10 year olds, they should not be trusted with a lot of I don't know anything.

They should just be loved.

They should just be loved, no trust.

But I was 10 when my grandmother died, and I will tell you, though I cannot remember a lot of what she said to me directly, my life has been marked by her devotion to Christ, by the way that she opened her home and said everyone is welcomed at this table.

She would come home from work as a nurse long hours on your feet, and she would begin to make supper for whosoever would not just for our family whoever we had all brought home for the day.

I was thinking about this last night as I was remembering her and I was thinking when she would carry laundry, she would always sing songs.

And it bothered me as a 10-year-old because my grandmother would start all kinds of beautiful songs but she never knew the words, and so she would go to da-da-dee-dee and I would be like, well, that's not the word.

Now, did it matter that she knows the word?

As an older person, I realize now we're going to forget the words.

But what was happening when she called those words, those songs, those melodies into remembrance?

It was bringing her back into the presence of love.

I saw my grandmother's devotion to the church, the church that had not always been good to her, but this church, this body of Jesus Christ, her saying this is where I come to remember this communion that I come to have, and this is for us an indication.

Why do I bring that up?

I have not seen her, I have not heard her in years, and yet it still encourages me.

Beloved, people are watching you, not out of judgment, but to see how you will respond to the witness of love.

What does it look like for all of us to follow the way of Mary into the way of anointing, where it says that she knew who this Jesus was and it was at great expense.

Personally, she anointed him and she didn't stop just there.

Here she is, his body is dead and she's still coming for more outpourings of love.

This beloved friend is an invitation for all of us to come back, to return to love.

Here she has.

Every night after the resurrection they go home.

I don't know what they do.

They're not sleeping.

I just know that Because when you have that kind of heartbreak, you are not resting, she's not eating, but she is returning to love.

She is returning to love and then we see what love does.

Love returns to her and this is the hope for all of us, this is the hope for the world.

This practice of returning to love, as many times as love, has failed.

You do not abandon love.

Do not go home.

Stay in the garden and wait for love.

Wait for the love of God to come and speak your name and say here, round up everybody and tell them I am going to my father and to your father, to my God and to your God.

This is what we do when we practice holy communion together.

We say my God and your God.

Love has heaped up a feast.

Here is this incredible ritual and maybe you didn't even know what you were doing with it.

It has been years since I've heard my grandmother's voice, but I can still remember her breaking bread and passing the cup.

I can remember her stirring a big pot of soup.

She was sure the miracle was in the pot of soup, because that could go much further than any other kind of.

There were lots of stews in soup because you could make that into a lot for many people.

And this hope for all of us as we prepare our own hearts to meet love's feast, to come to the table, to reimagine our life with love at the very center.

We talk about this frequently here, but this is your weekly amnesia therapy this at the table of the Lord.

You come back and you are reminded you are loved, you are holy.

The spirit of God is with us all and love speaks our name.

And love reminds us that we are here for a purpose.

And the purpose is that love would return, that love would grow, that there would be something more.

We listen and we respond to the invitation of this apostle who said to us do not give up on love.

Love is coming for you Now.

Maybe you're at a place in your life where you're like I don't have the strength to wait on love, I can't even stay here in the garden.

I want to remind you that Thomas, the apostle Thomas, misses one of the first appearances of Jesus and he says I can't do it, I cannot even imagine what it would be like.

And so Jesus appears to Thomas behind locked doors.

So do not fret, beloved.

If your heart cannot stay open for this, love can appear behind locked doors.

We hope you've enjoyed this week's sermon.

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