"Nonsense"

Pastor Laura Guy

April 8, 2007

Here's an instant replay of what happened in worship:

We sang "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" with drums, brass, guitars, violins and keyboard. Butterflies created by Living Water people decorated the room.
We thought about how the disciples must have felt after Jesus died. Not only were they grieving the loss of a friend, but they were also grieving the loss of the dream Jesus gave them - the dream of changing the world. They were also afraid that they might be arrested and killed like Jesus.

We heard about a church building in Lisburn, Ireland that was devasted by a bomb in 1981. The beautiful stained glass window that once showed a picture of Jesus and his disciples became a mess of shattered glass, with a huge, gaping hole where Jesus used to be. The people of the church were grieved and heartbroken by the destruction and violence of the blast. It was similar to the way the disciples' lives had been devasted by the violence that took Jesus from them. They, too, had a huge, gaping hole where Jesus used to be. We read Luke 24:1-12, and saw that when the disciples first heard that Jesus was alive, they thought it was nonsense. When things and people are destroyed, that is supposed to be the end. But Easter changed all that.

We saw that the people of the Lisburn church understood what Easter is all about. They began to gather up all the broken pieces of glass that had been their beautiful windows. They gave these pieces to an artist, who created a new stained glass window, called The Resurrection Window (shown at the top of the page). The orb in the middle is earth, and the red glass around it is all the pain and suffering of humanity. But breaking through that is the brilliant white light of resurrection power, the power to bring something new and beautiful into our brokenness.
We realized that this is the message of Easter - that Jesus is alive, and he offers his resurrection power to us to bring beauty and joy into the devastation of our lives. This means that disease is not the end; divorce is not the end; destruction is not the end and death is not the end. In Jesus, there is always resurrection.
We closed our eyes and thought about all the broken pieces of our lives, like broken pieces of glass. We imagined giving them to Jesus, the artist, and allowing him to create something new and beautiful with them. We thanked him for allowing us to share in his resurrection power.
We shared communion around the table of love.