St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church

Contact our Web Master

Who? What? When? Where? Why?

Luke 24:1-12

April 8, 2007         (Click the date to see the bulletin)

1. Have you ever had anything totally unexpected happen to you? Probably so! I know I have. But the most totally unexpected thing I ever experienced didn’t happen to me, but I was there. Or, rather, I was here, and I saw it with my own eyes! It happened right on this corner, one beautiful Sunday morning. Emerson and Valerie had driven their car to church, and parked it in the east lot. When they were ready to leave, they went out those doors, and the wheels were gone. Oh, the car was still there, but it had no wheels. Someone had moved big rocks under it, removed all four wheels, and left the scene, in a space of about 30 minutes. All four wheels . . . gone! Not just the tires – the tires AND the wheels. What were they supposed to do? What should happen next? And who was responsible to see that it happened. Emerson volunteered, and called for a wrecker. The man was nice enough, but he couldn’t help. After all, cars have to have wheels attached before they can be rolled onto a wrecker. Fortunately, someone in the congregation had wheels at home that fit well enough to satisfy the wrecker driver. He carried their car on the bed of his trailer, and after a few days they had new wheels and were pretty well back to normal.

2. What happened to Emerson and Valerie that Sunday morning 4 or 5 years ago was in about the same category of surprises the women experienced that first Easter Sunday morning almost 2,000 years ago. And the same question applies – what happens next? It’s a hard question for us to answer, because we aren’t there. Where are we? At least that’s easy to answer! We are right here, celebrating Easter, sitting in a very comfortable room with bulletins to tell us what happens next, an organ to keep us on pitch and hymnbooks to help us sing and Bibles to read the story and everything we need to worship. We have on our new Easter outfits, or at least old ones that have been cleaned and pressed. We’ve all had a bath within the last 24 hours and have put on lotions and potions to keep us from smelling "natural." Everything this morning is as we expected it would be – the lights came on, the furnaces work, the bulletins were in the closet on top of the offering plates where they always are, the Easter lilies have been beautifully arranged and their donors are listed on the insert in your bulletin. In other words, nothing about us this morning is like it was for those women that morning. Nothing, that is, except the words, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, he has been raised." The women heard them spoken, we read them written. And we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of the question, "What happens next?" And who is responsible to see that it does happen? To answer that question, let’s follow the system of investigating that reporters use. Let’s ask ourselves their famous questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why?

3. First question – Who? Who is responsible to make the next thing happen? As much as I’d like to point to someone else, I’m afraid the answer to "Who?" is you, you and me. Who? It’s us. We are the ones responsible for what happens next. In Mark’s gospel, the story ends with the women saying nothing to anyone, because they were scared. If we did that, we’d be like that old joke about combining a Jehovah’s Witness and a Presbyterian. Remember that one? You get someone who rings the doorbell but doesn’t say a word. Kinda corny, I know, but it’s true, more often than not! But saying nothing is not an option for us! Christianity is always one generation away from extinction. And if we’re the generation that rings the doorbell but doesn’t say a word, then God is going to have to find someone else to do that job. Who is responsible for what happens next? What other answer can there be? It’s you and you and you and you and you and me.

4. If we’re the "Who," then what is the "What"? The "what" is the good news that nothing can kill life; God intends for people to live. "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" Excellent question! Sure, bad things can happen, events we least expect can send us in a totally different direction than where we intended to go. But God is Life, and Life will always be. We can chose to embrace life, or we can chose to turn our backs on life. If we embrace life, then we will do everything we can to make our own lives deeply fulfilling, and we will do the same for others when they cannot do it for themselves. We are the ones to make certain this good news gets told, one way or another!

5. Well, if we are the ones to tell the world by word and deed that God wants people to LIVE, then when do we do it? What do you think the answer is? Yup! Right now! There is no time like the present! We can do nothing about the past, except learn from it. We cannot live it over, make different decisions, chose different options. But we can decide to make real the truism that TODAY is the first day of the rest of our lives.

6. Okay, that’s clear (I hope). Now, where do we do all this living starting now? Where do you think? Wherever it need to happen! That’s a quick answer, but not all of us can quit our jobs and go to some remote village in Africa to dig shallow water wells so the native people will have safe water to drink. Not all of us can travel to ANY place to be "ambassadors" for Christ, or "missionaries" for the Church. But ALL of us are right here, right now. So we begin by paying attention to what is going on around us. Who do you see in this room who might be alone today, and need an invitation to lunch? Who do you think might like a phone call from you sometime this week? And what about outside this room? ALL of us will leave this place today and go somewhere. It will probably be somewhere for Easter dinner. The point is that none of us will stay in this building very long today. We will leave this place. And wherever we go, there will be some person who needs attention, or some situation that needs to be addressed.

7. Who? Us! What? The Good News! When? Now! Where? Everywhere! And the last question, "Why?" Because much of our world is dying, and needs to be raised up! God did not raise Jesus so the rest of us would die! God raised Jesus so the whole world would live! And it’s up to us to help it happen.

To navigate through the web site, click on the buttons at the top or on the side of the pages or on any links within the page.  Use your browser's Back button to return to the previous page if that page does not appear in the buttons available.  External hyperlinks should open in a new window - close it to return to this page.