Old South Sermons:

God’s Best Idea

an Easter reflection
by Nancy S. Taylor, Senior Minister

Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008

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Over the course of history – human history and cosmic history – God has come up with some quite wonderful ideas.

God is an author and artist of the first order: Author of the Universe, Creator of the Whirling Stars. God is an inventor and a sculptor of ideas, images, of music and drama, of justice and mercy, of the four-leggeds and the winged creatures and the creatures of the sea … and, of humankind.

If we were to work together to create a Top-Ten list of God’s greatest ideas – God’s greatest hits – the list might include the Grand Canyon and the Grand Tetons. It might include at least one sun-drenched Caribbean island surrounded by aqua blue waters. The list might include J.S. Bach, Michelangelo and Martin Luther King. We’d probably disagree about garlic and anchovies. We’d have to negotiate between elephants, giraffes and hippopotami. But we’d likely agree on the Aurora Borealis and Mount Everest.

My guess is that most of us, perhaps even all of us, could agree that near the very top of God’s Top Ten List of Best Ideas of All Time would be babies: infants, newborns.

Which is why Christmas is the other great festival of the Church. It was at Christmas that God had the brilliant idea of bringing us a child.

I believe that God’s very, very best idea – the very top of God’s Top Ten Best Ideas – is the one we have come to celebrate today: resurrection!

In the biblical book of Ecclesiastes the author expresses a profound and fundamental despair over life. The author laments that there is nothing new under the sun, and that our lot in life is reduced to toiling, eating, suffering and dying.

Resurrection is God’s defiant and triumphant rejoinder to the despair of Ecclesiastes.

With resurrection God introduces a paradigm shift of cosmic proportions. It is the way out of Sartre’s No Exit nightmare. It is the bright door through which God invites us to a new day.

We have come to this place on this day to take up the cry of the angel at the tomb, the cry of the Mary’s as they run with joy and astonishment to bear the news to others: “He is not here! He is risen!”

Because he is risen, because the tomb is empty, nothing with ever be the same again. We shall lost battles, you and I, but the war is won. We shall not escape our share of grief or pain or fear, but through that door, on the far side of the tomb, God promises a place where all tears shall be wiped away.

Here, now, on this morning of the empty tomb, we have come to claim – against all odds and in direct violation of the logic of the world – that death shall have no dominion. Here, now, at the empty tomb God shouts life! God authors life! God creates life from death.

Here, now, in this long season of war, in the face of our no-exit-nightmares of world poverty, terrorism and an HIV pandemic, God gives us a purchase, an angle through which to see beyond the world’s deep despair, to another way and another world.

Just when we had given up … just when we had thought that death had the last word, God comes up with an idea to beat the band: resurrection!

Speaking of the band, we have with us today a mighty chorus of noise makers: choir and instrumentalists … and you, a might Easter congregation. For you, too, we hope, shall take your part in the chorus.

Today is the anniversary of the London premiere of George Fredric Handel’s stunningly wrought oratorio: Messiah. Today, on its Easter anniversary we shall do our best to celebrate God’s splendid idea of resurrection by singing Messiah’s “Hallelujah” chorus.

On March 23, 1743 London’s Covent Garden was sold out. Among the throngs in attendance was George II, King of Great Britain and Ireland.

That night at Covent Garden the king did an extraordinary thing. As the orchestra began the first notes of the “Hallelujah” chorus, inexplicably the king stood and remained standing. Why? It wasn’t the end of the performance. “Hallelujah” comes at the end of the second of three parts.

Some surmise His Majesty’s gout was acting up and he needed to stretch his legs. Some think the king mistook the opening notes for the British national anthem. It may have been that His Majesty had nodded off and, startled by the loud music, instinctively jumped to his feet. Maybe, just maybe, the king of Great Britain and Ireland understood the difference between kings and the King.

Whatever the reason, protocol demanded that when the king stood, so stood everyone else. And so they did. And so shall we.

For, ever since that night in 1743, for the past 265 years, congregations and audiences have stood for the “Hallelujah” chorus … stood in celebration of the Author of Life whose best idea is resurrection … stood in honor of Jesus, the One who escaped the tomb, who defied death and who rescues us from despair.

We stand in awe of the One whose life changed the course of history, for whom the kings of the earth had no power … the One to whom the poor, the oppressed, the discouraged, the afflicted, the sick, the blind and the leprous gave welcome and accepted as Savior.

We stand in honor of the One who with love changed the hearts of the proud, and with his life showed that it is more important to serve than to be served, and that the greatest joy is in giving your life for others.[1]

We stand in honor of the kingdom that outshines and will outlast the shabby, violent and voracious kingdoms of this world.

Handel’s “Hallelujah” chorus shouts what the angel shouted, what the Mary’s shouted and what the Church has shouted for lo these two millennia: that though we die, yet shall we live.

Stand then, stand – go ahead, stand, stand up! – stand with George II; stand with that Covent Garden audience. Stand in honor of Jesus … Kings of kings and Lord of lords, for he shall reign for ever and ever. Hallelujah!

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[1] Adapted from A Christmas Creed from Latin America (author unknown).

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