Do you believe in life after love?

 

For sermon videos these days, CLICK HERE

Easter C

In the name of God who loves us beyond the distant limits of our imagination.  Amen. 

“Do you believe in life after love?” 

That’s a question that was posed in the sacred text: Believe, or the 22^nd chapter of the Gospel According to Cher.  Of course, it’s hard for me to imagine that Cher was actually thinking about Jesus or Easter when she sang those words.  More likely the song is just what it appears to be: a reckoning between the singer and her lost love; and also her inner demons – her self-doubt – that love’s departure left behind.  Again and again she sings, “I can feel something inside me saying, ‘I really don’t think you’re strong enough.’”  But eventually, she speaks back to that doubt saying, “Well I know that I’ll get through this, because I know that I am strong.” 

But this week, like the unending refrain itself, I kept hearing those words over and over again.  “Do you believe in life after love?”  Because that is essentially the Easter challenge.  Love took on flesh in the world.  Love walked around.  Love healed.  Love taught us a better way.  Love brought us closer to God, who is Love. 

And then, the powers of the world – the powers of an unchecked tyrannical government and the powers of a self-serving religious establishment, both more concerned with their own power than they were with love – those powers tried to shut love down.  They tried to kill love. 

But the Easter message is that there is life after Love.  And the Easter challenge is to believe it.  Even after Love seemed to have been wholly defeated, there was life.  Even after it should have been rotting in a tomb, there was life.  Even after they told us that Love was gone, Love lived. 

So that’s the question that Easter poses, right alongside Mother Cher: do you believe in life after Love?  Do you believe that life survived it all?  Do you believe that love survived?  Every “Alleluia” says yes.  I believe in love.  Alleluia – yes – love still wins.  Alleluia – yes – love is stronger than fear; love is stronger than empire; love is stronger than religion.  Alleluia – yes – love is all that is true, and love is more than enough. 

But you know what?  There’s a reason that song keeps asking that question over and over and over again.  There’s a reason that its structure is of an ongoing debate between belief and doubt.  Because that’s what it means to believe.  It means understanding doubt – embracing doubt, and then, choosing to believe anyway. 

The reading from the Gospel that we shared today is an exploration of that same dance that Cher spelled out for us – the dance between doubt and belief. 

It begins in the early morning – when those longest shadows accompanied the women on their grim task in Jesus’ tomb.  But when they got there, they were the first to hear the good news of Jesus – of Love – stepping through the chasm of death.  But even that most inescapable chasm couldn’t contain the love that Jesus brought.  There was simply too much love.  In Christ, there was no more room for death, because love was all there was. 

Have you ever seen those videos on social media that show what happens to objects when they’re subjected to extreme pressure?  The machine presses down on them in such unyielding force that the objects eventually just spew out of the way, almost liquified.  That’s how I imagine this moment.  The force of love is so strong that nothing can stand in its way.  Death may have seemed solid – immovable.  But under the pressure of unimaginable love, even it fell apart and fell away.  There’s room for nothing else.  Just love. 

It's a lot to take in – seeing the world in this way.  It’s no wonder that for the disciples, when the women first told them of love’s plan, they didn’t believe.  They were living in the “after love” times and they didn’t believe in the life. 

So, if, on this Easter morning, you’re finding yourself thinking that this is all a little hard to swallow, know that you’re in good company.  Some of the first people to hear the Easter message on that – the very day of Resurrection also didn’t believe.  They had to be convinced.  They had to be reminded of the message of love they’d already been following before they could come to believe. 

And, if you can’t wrap your mind around Resurrection this morning, know that that’s okay.  If it all just seems too fantastical for you, know that you’re not alone.  But for a good place to start – remember a time in your life when you’ve known love.  Remember what it’s like to believe in that love.  Life can come later.  Life will come later.  But at least start with the love.  That’ll be enough to put you on the right track.

I know it’s not always easy.  I know that the message of the religious institutions through the years hasn’t always been so helpful.  I know we haven’t always embodied the love of God that we say we believe in.  So, when we stand up here on Easter morning and scream out that we believe in life after love, it’s fair to question it. 

I’d bet there aren’t many people here in this church, or sharing in this worship remotely who haven’t been hurt by churches and by religious leaders at some point in their lives.  I know I have.  For far too long so much of the church has been on the wrong side of history.  It has supported racism and sexism, and it has reinforced hurtful and inaccurate gender norms, and it has embraced and modeled its life after homophobia and transphobia and xenophobia – all in the name of power.  The church, for too long, has sidled up to the powerful and said, let me help. 

But this is some of what that “life after love” means.  This is some of what it means to cling to love that is so strong that it leaves room for nothing else, only love.  When we believe in Easter love – when we embrace its steady strength and gentle power – we help push out all of that old baggage that has been weighing us down – all of the old, baked in hurt that isn’t true to the purity of Christ’s love.  When we embrace love as the truth of our calling and as the core of our belief, we help push out the hurt.  We help push out the injustice.  We help push out the inequity. 

And at the end of that, what remains is a living church that has no room left for death.  A living church that only has room for love. 

That’s my dream.  That’s our dream.  And I swear, I believe it’s God’s dream.

So today – on this Easter – don’t worry if all those churchy beliefs aren’t working for you right now.  It’s okay.  Just remember love.  Believe in love if nothing else.  That’s where God truly lives – in that love – whether we believe it or not.  Amen.