Steadfast Love: A New Cut

Oh, I've been like a captured eagle, you know an eagle's born to fly / Now that I have won my freedom, like an eagle I am eager for the sky // And I can see the light of a clear blue morning / I can see the light of brand new day

Songwriter: Dolly Parton
“Light of a Clear Blue Morning” lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

If there is a day for singing, it is this day. Does the preacher feel squeezed out today? Probably. But maybe that’s the way it should be. Maybe the preacher should take a back seat to the singers today. The musicians who bring the Easter announcement need to lead this morning. The sermon should sound like an anthem. But don’t sing unless you have a voice worth hearing! Rather, let your words paint pictures in the hearts of those who listen. This is not a day for explaining; it is a day for describing.

Tell the story: John’s story of a frightened Mary of Magdala who found a tomb empty and a simple explanation that she came up with on her own. That led to a foot race that ended in confusion and a lonely, tear-filled vigil in the garden, interrupted by two interlopers who asked about her tears but gave no explanation . They smiled as Mary turned around and bumped into a gardener turned Risen Savior who knew her by name. Tell it as if you were running with Peter and John and weeping with Mary. Tell it as if you don’t have any clue what Jesus meant when he said “Don’t hold on to me” because you don’t. Tell it as if you know that sense of abandonment, because you do. Tell it as if things are out of your control, because they are. Don’t tell what you know; tell how it feels. Or, if you must, tell what you know because of what you feel and what you’ve felt. Tell of your faith that grows out of experience, out of living in the real world just as everyone listening to you does.

If you lack the words to describe the events and your reaction to them, ask Dolly Parton for help. Our Lenten playlist leaks over into Easter with the finale, “Light of a Clear Blue Morning,” by Dolly Parton. You don’t have to play it or sing it (though I’m told there is a choral version out there should you have a choir or ensemble up to it; check the music notes!). But listen to it as you prepare to preach. Listen to the light breaking through the darkness as Dolly sings with faith in the coming dawn. Let that hope infuse your words. Let the taste of freedom put wings to your words as the sermon takes flight like an eagle.

Too much? Is it possible to be too much on Easter Sunday? Yeah, I suppose it is. But still, this day is about the joy of possibility in the face of a grim certainty. We are convinced that death has the final word. But Easter says differently. And what’s more, it is fully consistent with the God we have known from the beginning.

If the gospel account seems too familiar for this experiential approach, then turn to the psalm. “The steadfast love of the Lord endures forever” (Psalm 118:2). Maybe the emphasis on the steadfast love of the Lord is the way to go this day. In the psalm, we have the songs of victory (v. 15); we have the promise of eternity (v.17 and 18); we have the promise of joy and the hope of a clear blue morning. We have a sense that everything is going to be all right.

But not in a rose-colored-glasses way of denying the reality of the world. No, this is not groundless optimism. This is hopeױnot an empty hope, but what one scholar calls “a feral hope.” It is a wild hope that opens the door to the possibility that the only thing that makes sense anymore is a kin-dom approach to living in the world. The only thing upon which we can build a life is loving God and loving neighbor – which includes those we are supposed to call enemies. The only thing that will give a sense of wholeness is to live generously, freed from the call to amass so much stuff that it becomes a weight pulling us down. Freed to see the light of a clear blue morning.

The steadfast love of the Lord endures forever. What better proclamation can we make than that on Easter Sunday? Another way we can say it is simply, “Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed.” Time to sing some more.