Bill Countryman 4/20/2025

Good Shepherd Episcopal Church, Berkeley, CA

EASTER SUNDAY

April 20, 2025

Year C: Isa. 65:17-25, Ps. 118:1-2, 14-24, 1 Cor. 15:19-26, John 20:1-18

We’ve been reminded during Holy Week of just how badly a human community can treat one of its own. Jesus was tortured and hung on the cross for exposing the self-serving corruption of the powerful, including the religious leadership, and for preaching a kind of faithful life founded on love for God and love for our neighbors—over and above simple obedience to rules. He was accused of plotting revolution. And he was. But it was a revolution unlike all other revolutions. It wasn’t a revolution to replace one armed power group with another armed power group. It was a revolution to replace the rule of force with the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. 

And it failed—to all appearances—on a Friday in Passover. There’s a deep irony there! Passover is the feast that celebrates the liberation of an enslaved people from their masters. And it got used, instead, by the religious and political establishment as an opportunity to get rid of a troublesome prophet who insisted on taking God’s love for people seriously. 

But—you know something?—even with all the power at their disposal, it didn’t work! 

The prophet from Galilee, who kept talking about loving your neighbor and doing good to those who hate you, had no reverence for the hierarchies of this world. His vision of the world rested on different foundations. Remember the story of the widow at the Temple, whose ten cent offering he singled out as the one of highest merit? She had next to nothing, but she gave all she could. And Jesus gave his all. He didn’t try to escape. He allowed them to crucify him.

The devil must have been doing a happy little jig. “Got him!” But evil, it turned out, wasn’t strong enough to hold onto its prize. Strong though it always seems to be, evil can never quite grasp the final victory. Because only love has that power—the power to create life and enrich life. All evil can do is feed on what good creates. 

There’s no denying the influence evil has in our age–and in every age. You can stop watching the news or reading the newspaper or you can put a bag over your head. But it will still be there. Even so, Easter shows that the world is still filled with promise. It tells us that even the worst that can happen to a person—right up to and including a quasi-legal lynching—will never be the last word in our story. 

Jesus, who died to proclaim God’s goodness, lives now and for ever—and wants nothing more that to welcome us into that same abundance of life, in this age and in the age to come . . . the life of joy and love and generosity and hope. It can feel scary to take up the offer. But, in return, it gives back . . . new life.

Christ is risen!