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EASTER SUNDAY – THE POWER OF WITH There’s a great commercial that I just saw for the first time earlier this week. I can’t promise this is the exact way it goes, but you’ll get the idea. It starts off with dad helping a son ride a bicycle. Then it moves to a grandma baking cookies with a granddaughter. Then there is an image of a couple standing at the altar about to take their wedding vows. Then there’s a team of people working toward a goal. Then an elderly couple holding hands. And it just keeps showing these different scenes of special moments in people’s lives where they are sharing time with each other in intimate and meaningful ways. It makes me think of all the special moments and relationships that I’ve had in my life, that we’ve all had at some point. Then comes the tagline – The Power of With. The Power of With – what a message! There is power in being together, being WITH someone else. Now, I can’t tell you exactly who the commercial is for, but its advertising a couple financial firms like AGEdwards & Wauchovia who have just merged together, and they’re trying to convey the idea that they are stronger together. But this idea of the Power of With is really the message of Easter. Let me explain… Have you tried to take a teenager’s cell phone away from them? Its like killing them. At the coffee shop over at Java G’s, one the owners, Mary, has a couple teenaged daughters, and for Holy Week this year, she had her girls give up all their technology – their cell phones, iPods, television, even the internet. She said it about killed her girls, but the time has been great for their family. Teens love to be connected with each other with cell phones, email, text messaging, the internet, even through video games. If you take away a teen’s technology, you take away their Power of With and they can barely function. The worst thing for a teenage is to be separated from everyone else, to have no one WITH them. Well, I know its easy to pick on teenagers in this regard, but in reality, the rest of us aren’t much different. At our core, we all want and need to be WITH other people. It’s the way that God made us. God made us to be relational beings, to live in community, and to experience firsthand the Power of being With each other. One of the very first things that God says to Adam after he created him as the first human being is, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” That one statement has pretty much guided God’s actions ever since. Our God recognizes the Power of With and since the beginning of creation has tried to be a God WITH us. He was with the Israelites in slavery in Egypt. He was with them in wilderness and in David’s kingdom. He was with them when Israel erupted in civil war and as they were carried off into exile. He was with them when they returned to a demolished Jerusalem, and shortly after that, God made the ultimate statement of being WITH us. He came to be with us as Jesus – to not just be with us as a nameless, imageless, cloud of mystery and fury, but rather as a human being. God wanted to be WITH us in the most intimate way possible – to become one of us – with flesh and bones, with feelings and temptations, with hands and feet, with friends, parents, brothers, and with struggles. God could make no clearer statement about being with us than coming down to our level in the form of Jesus Christ. But here’s the problem with that. We didn’t want God to be that close to us. Like a teenager’s rocky relationship with their parents, its nice to know God was there, but having Jesus with us all the time was just a little too much. He had too many expectations, wanted to challenge us in our faith journeys, wanted us to actually love each other, take care of those less fortunate, show grace and mercy to outcasts, and to forgive each other. Jesus told us that we weren’t exactly doing life the way that God had hoped. He hit a little too close to home. Turns out we didn’t necessarily like having Jesus with us all the time - going to the mall with us, looking over our shoulder as we surf the internet, screening our emails, knowing who we really hung out with. Turns out we all have dirty little secrets that we all kind of like to keep dirty and secret. And so, just like good little teenagers, we threw a fit, we rebelled, we exploded in a fit of rage and told our loving God to get lost, stay out of our life, leave us alone, mind your own business – and we crucified him on Good Friday. And I say “we” because each time we sin, each time we reject him, each time we go our own way rather than the way we know to be right, its like we’re driving a nail into his hands ourselves. We didn’t really want God to be WITH us like that and our ugliness reared its head like never before. I have some good friends who have adopted a couple of little girls through the foster system. The girls happen to be of a different race than their parents and the children have had some horrible experiences prior to being placed in their forever homes. And as a result, these girls have incredible rage at times and have been known to throw hysterical fits. And my friends have told me about a powerful parenting technique whenever one of their girls is raging out of control and rejecting them as parents. Instead of having a time-out, they have a time-in. They hold their little girl in their arms as tight as possible, they absorb all the physical and emotional blows the girls can throw, and they take the worst their daughters have to offer. And the whole time, they whisper, “I love you. I am with you.” Often this just makes them rage even more, but eventually, this exhausts their children and the girls get the message. As parents, they aren’t going anywhere. No matter what, they are WITH them. The Power of With. On Good Friday, Jesus gives the world a massive time-in. He takes the worst we have to offer and he wears us out. Granted, it does kill him. We’re pretty tough on him. But ultimately, he’s tougher. Like any good parent, God didn’t let us have the last word. He let us throw our fit, he took our rage and anger and disobedience and then he had one last response. His response to our Good Friday murder is the Easter morning empty tomb. On Easter morning he says, “I love you. I am with you, whether you want me or not. I love you. I am with you.” His resurrection shows us that he is still with us, that he loves us and that his love is stronger than our hate. His good is stronger than our evil. His light is stronger than our darkness. His life is stronger than our death. He does this because he knows what is best for us. He knows the Power of With and that we need him with us, that we can’t make it on our own. And, in fact, this power that draws us together, that causes us to dread loneliness, that gives us comfort in the arms of another is ultimately the power of the Holy Spirit. The Power of With is actually God’s power of the Holy Spirit that draws us together in such meaningful and powerful ways. It is this power that has drawn all of our new members today to be with us at Hope Lutheran Church. It is this power of the Holy Spirit that is calling Sarah Wagner to the waters of Holy Baptism today. It is this power of the Holy Spirit that leads us to welcome visitors and newcomers and helps us practice Holy Hospitality so that others can come to be with God. From our scripture readings, it is this power of the Holy Spirit that let Peter to be with Cornelius, and allows us to be hidden with Christ to feel his safety, protection, comfort, and peace. Our new worship experience, which starts next week, is called LIFT, Living in Faith Together, and is an attempt for us to worship and be with God in some new and different ways. The Power of the Holy Spirit is the Power of With. It was strong enough to bring Jesus back from the dead. It is strong enough to draw us out of rebellion to Jesus. This power is so strong that it will one day allow us to be with God forever in heaven. And in the meantime, the risen Jesus has one final promise for us in the gospel of Matthew, “And remember, I am with you always until the end of the age.” Like it or not, the resurrection proves that through Jesus Christ, God is with us, God is with you, no matter what. Amen.
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