Unity Church of Castro Valley
Sunday Message for April 4, 2010
Easter Sunday
This is the first Sunday of the faculty of Wisdom. Is everybody wearing yellow? We have developed Faith, Love, and Strength, and now we add Wisdom. Faith, Love, and Strength should always be tempered with Wisdom and good judgment.
THE RESURRECTION
This is also Easter Sunday, so I would like to talk about the resurrection. It says in John 20:1-18:
20:1Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 20:2So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him. 20:3Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. 20:4The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 20:5He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 20:6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 20:7and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.20:8Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw, and believed.20:9for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 20:10Then the disciples returned to their homes.
20:11But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb, 20:12and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 20:13They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him." 20:14When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 20:15Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." 20:16Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher). 20:17Jesus said to her, "Do not hold onto me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" 20:18Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her.a
Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. Its inner meaning and spiritual significance is the awakening and raising to spiritual consciousness the I AM in us, which has been dead in sin and buried in the tomb of materiality.b
Jesus said, I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.c The resurrection is the raising up of the whole person - spirit, soul, and body - into the Christ consciousness of life and wholeness. This is what Jesus did. The tomb could not hold His redeemed perfected body temple. Resurrection is accomplished by the quickening power of the Holy Spirit.
Every time we rise to the realization of eternal, indwelling life, making union with the Father-Mind, the resurrection of Jesus takes place within us. All thoughts of limitation and inevitable obedience to material law are left in the tomb of materiality.
Jesus was born into the race thought so that He might reconstruct it in conformity with the divine law. He thus became our Way-Shower, our Saviour, our Helper.
The resurrection of Jesus takes place in us each time we rise to the realization of the perpetual indwelling life that connects us with the Father. The grave clothes of mortal sense, which are thoughts of limitation and inevitable obedience to material laws, are left in the tomb of matter. True resurrection within us lifts up all the faculties of mind until they conform to the absolute ideas of Divine Mind. This mental renewal makes a complete transformation of the body, so that every function works in divine order and every cell becomes incorruptible and immortal.
Today the light of Truth is illumining our minds. And we rise up in the majesty of our divine sonship and proclaim ourselves to be children of the Most High, free from all belief in sin, sickness, and death.
THE WILL TO LIVE
Jesus said, "...I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,"d What is the most common use of this mystical saying of Jesus today? That's right, it is read at most Christian funeral services. But look at the great affirmation Jesus makes here: I am life! This is not only to reassure us of ongoing life after we die; it is to assure us of our power of life now. He is saying: CHOOSE TO LIVE FULLY NOW!
John writes his unique gospel about Jesus much differently than the other writers. John often has Jesus stating a principle and then proceeding to prove or demonstrate it in manifest form. Here Jesus states, "I am the resurrection and the life." He then proceeds to "raise" Lazarus from the tomb. Later he proves this principle in what Charles Fillmore called, "The Great Demonstration" - Resurrection. Jesus says to us, "Come, follow me"!e Can we also deeply choose life, and have the will to live and love? We, too, can affirm, I am life!
WE ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE
We always have a choice in life and our life reflects our choices just as a mirror reflects our image. We may sometimes lament, "But I had no choice." It may seem as though that's the case, but we always have a choice. Ultimately, that choice may be to decide what or how we are going to think about a certain situation or ourselves. Given the direst circumstances, we can still choose our thoughts. Our life is a series of choices. Someone said we have 50,000 thoughts every day. That's a lot of opportunity for choice.
I think this little story illustrates how you can choose to see things in a positive light at all times.
Two men crashed in their private plane on a South Pacific Island. Both survived.
One of the men brushed himself off and then proceeded to run all over the island to see if they had any chance of survival.
When he returned, he rushed up to the other man and screamed, "This island is uninhabited, there is no food, there is no water. We are going to die!
" The other man leaned back against the fuselage of the wrecked plane, folded his arms and responded, No we're not. I make over $100,000.
The first man grabbed his friend and shook him. "Listen, we are on an uninhabited island. There is no food, no water. We are going to die!"
The other man, unruffled, again responded. "No, I make over $100,000 a week."
Mystified, the first man, taken aback with such an answer again repeated, "For the last time, I'm telling you we ARE doomed. There is NO one else on this island. There is NO food. There is NO water. We are, I repeat, we ARE going to die."
Still unfazed, the first man looked the other in the eyes and said, "don't make me say this again. I make over $100,000 per week. I tithe 10% !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My minister WILL find us!"
TURN YOURSELF AND LIVE
It says in Ezekiel, "For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live."f There are losses, disappointments, heartaches, break-ups, failures, things that just don't work out, people who go their own way, changes we didn't count on and are not ready to accept. All of these are "facts of life." But life is more than these. We can turn from these situations and live. We can have the will to live strongly. We can make a conscious choice to rise up and start anew, to set new goals, to recover from loss, to love again, to build a new life, to have the wisdom and good judgment to see beyond what was to what can and will be.
Max Lucado, in his book In the Grip of Grace, tells of his boyhood days when he and his friends would gather on the street each afternoon to play football. One dad in the neighborhood, a die-hard football buff, would sometimes join them. This dad always played for whichever team was losing that day. Max Lucado writes, "His appearance in the huddle changed the whole ball game. He was confident, strong, and most of all, he had a plan." The kids, fired up by his leadership and emboldened by his plan, played with new determination
Lucado makes the point that Jesus did the same thing for us. He came to join the losing team, and his appearance in the game changed everything. He is a leader who inspired hope, confidence, courage, and love in his disciples. And he had a plan, a plan so outrageous and amazing that no one, not even his disciples, truly understood it at first. But they trusted him as their leader, and so they followed.g
So no matter how badly it looks like you are losing this game of life, there is someone who will give you guidance, someone who will help you have the courage to move forward in new ways.
FROM THE VALLEY OF DECISION TO THE MOUNTAIN TOP OF ANSWERS
If we trust the Christ presence within us we go beyond much of the struggle and agonizing over decisions we have to make. We realize we can receive direction, ideas, and guidance from within. This is a much different process than racking our brains, running around to others trying to get them to tell us what to do, getting emotionally swayed or "sold," just spontaneously "jumping into it," or postponing the decision indefinitely.
THE ROAD TURNS WITH MY FEET
"The road turns with my feet," is an old Chinese saying that means I can't really make a fatal mistake or error. Life and love follow me forever, wherever I go. I may think I made a terrible mistake or a horrible decision, but life goes on. I can learn from that decision and weave that into my wisdom. Like a musician playing the wrong note (which they do all the time), I weave the mistake into the melody and keep right on going. The divine outworking of good or "God" transcends so-called "mistakes," if we learn from the experience and apply that learning in our lives. Then there are no "wrong choices." It is all "grist for the mill."
There is a story that tells of someone who asked the philosopher, Socrates, "How do I get to Mt. Olympus?" (Olympus was the place of the oracle, the residence of the gods of the ancient Greeks). Socrates answered, "Just make every step you take go in that direction."
FLOWER SERVICE
In a moment we will have an opportunity to blossom forth in the beauty of this Easter Day. We are going to do a ceremony where the promise of the leaf is fulfilled in the blooming of the flower.
Would you now get out the yellow sheet that has on it the Easter Responsive Reading:
MINISTER (Giving the call to prayer): Lord Christ, we pause in adoration before Thy pure presence of being.
CONGREGATION: Lord Christ, we pause in adoration before Thy pure presence of being.
MINISTER:
"Glory be to the Father,
And to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning,
Is now, and ever shall be,
World without end. Amen. Amen."
MINISTER & CONGREGATION:
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And leave us not in temptation, but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen."
MINISTER: I believe in one God almighty - peace, love, joy, and life. Father and Creator of all good.
CONGREGATION: And in Christ, our Lord, through whose power I am saved from mistaken beliefs and unfulfilling experiences.
MINISTER: I believe in myself, in God in me,
CONGREGATION: And in my power through Christ to behold in myself the Son of God, for such I am in Truth.
MINISTER: I believe in all people, in God in them,
CONGREGATION: And in His power to be filled with all good, because God in their midst is All-Good.
MINISTER: I believe in forgiveness,
CONGREGATION: Which takes place when through Christ in me I remit and release mistaken beliefs from my consciousness.
MINISTER: I believe in the resurrection of the body to perfect life and health,
CONGREGATION: Which is achieved when through Christ the body is exalted above mistaken beliefs and limitations of any kind.
MINISTER: I believe in everlasting joy, peace, love, and life.
CONGREGATION: Which are realized when through the knowledge of Truth we behold heaven in our very midst. Amen.
MINISTER: O Lord God, quicken in us the vision that, looking within the fleshly walls of Thy temple, beholds Thy Spirit there! Light within us the fire of Thy consuming love that burns away the dross of error, and makes of our heart a holy shrine for Thine abiding. Give us to know Thy joy, as with patience and forbearance, with infinite thoughts and words and deeds of love, we reveal Thy Son within.
CONGREGATION & MINISTER: Through the power of the living Christ I am quickened to newness of life.
MINISTER: Perhaps too the thought of some loved one at a distance, or of one who has slipped into the realm of life beyond the physical, may enter your thought. Let us become still and for this loved one affirm the same thoughts together:
CONGREGATION & MINISTER: Through the power of the living Christ you are quickened to newness of life.
How we find God is less important than that we find Him. We are assured that if with all our heart we truly seek Him, we shall surely find Him. Sometimes we can more fully express our feelings and our desire in a simple act of faith than we can in words. In either case a symbol is employed. In one case we symbolize thought and feeling by the language of speech, in the other by the language of action. So today in flowers we offer our devotion in an active prayer of faith.
Let the wreath of green before you symbolize the infinite life of God. The wreath is circular and endless to remind us that the life of God is without beginning or end. It is green to symbolize the expression of life in the abundance of the natural world.
The life of each of us is a part of the larger life of God. Jesus said, "I am the vine, you are the branches..."h It is in us that the life of God comes into manifestation. The closer we live to Him the more beautiful and radiant our own life is, and the more glorious life becomes to us.
I invite you to come forward and place your flower in the wreath. With the flower, you were given a written blessing, which has been lovingly and prayerfully prepared for you. I invite you to keep it and memorize it, and I trust that by the law of attraction you have received just the blessing that will most help and inspire you in meeting the challenges and opportunities that lie before you.
As you place this flower in the wreath let it be with the thought of consciously placing your life in the infinite life of God, or of recognizing that your life is already safely and lovingly held in His. Perhaps as you do so, the thought of some deeply felt desire of your heart will come to mind. If so, place this too in the encircling life of God.
So would you now come forward row by row and place a flower in the wreath and we will watch the dull-green wreath become a radiant figure of fragrant flowers. The drabness of Easter Eve gives way to the glory of Easter Day. The promise of the leaf is fulfilled in the blooming of the flower.
BENEDICTION: "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you." And you will become an inhabitant, here and now of "a new heaven and a new earth."i
THE END
a John 20:1-18
b Keep A True Lent Charles Fillmore
c John 10:10
d John 11:25
e Matthew 19:21, Mark 10:21, Luke 18,22
f Ezekiel 18:32
g In The Grip of Grace Max Lucado, in his book
h John 15:5
i Romans 8:11
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