Pastor Darren: Well, you've got to love Easter.
Pastor Darren: Amen In my mind.
Pastor Darren: I really enjoy the journey of Lent, of taking this time to focus on myself, my faith, my spirit, and just really trying to dig in on it.
Pastor Darren: And I tell you what it can be a tough journey, and so I feel like, when I hit Easter and I'm feeling that relief and that hope and that joy, I did Lent okay, I did it all right, and I'm feeling it today and I hope many of you are as well.
Pastor Darren: Our journey this week or this Lent, we used Les Miserables curriculum, or this Lent, we used Les Miserables curriculum.
Pastor Darren: A pastor out in Louisiana, named Pastor Matt Rall, wrote the Grace of Les Miserables, and for six weeks we've been reading about how God's love, god's grace, god's hope was lived out in this story that many of us have known already.
Pastor Darren: How many of you have seen the Broadway show?
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: I mean a good amount of us, so there's a few of you who need to get to see that Broadway show, though One of the better ones.
Pastor Darren: As it ends, the story lands us in this chapter about gardens, this chapter talking about gardens.
Pastor Darren: In our scriptures, many of you will know about the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve were initially started out in life God trying to work with humanity to make a beautiful world, to build God's kingdom.
Pastor Darren: Unfortunately, we weren't quite ready, evidently, or maybe we were and it was a journey we had to take.
Pastor Darren: Then there's another garden, kind of a darker, more somber garden, the one Jesus in Gethsemane, the night before he'd give his life.
Pastor Darren: And then there's a third garden he mentions in Revelation.
Pastor Darren: Revelation is our passage that looks into a future with God and in this particular vision, this particular future with God, we were understanding, maybe a reflection back to that Eden, back to that place where God had blessed us and was living with us and was looking to live life's journey with us.
Pastor Darren: But he forgets one particular garden.
Pastor Darren: It's the one in our passage today, the one where Mary, who has seen the empty tomb, goes and sits and weeping because she's wondering where Jesus has gone, not only with his death but also in his absence at this point, only to find this gardener, this gardener who she doesn't quite recognize, until she finally realizes it's Christ, it's Jesus.
Pastor Darren: You know, to me I wonder if that story, if John's gospel, is trying to get us to understand that we are invited back into Eden.
Pastor Darren: Only now it's with Jesus as the gardener, jesus as the one who will be with us, tending this garden, bringing it to its fruition, bringing it to its fruition, bringing it to its love, to its peace, to its joy, to its justice.
Pastor Darren: We're back in Eden, but this time with Christ and able to live it out in more meaningful ways.
Pastor Darren: Do you guys know that a lot of times we think of Lent as a season of fasting, self-denial?
Pastor Darren: Did anybody give something up?
Pastor Darren: Not a one of you.
Pastor Darren: Okay, okay.
Pastor Darren: Oh, maria, you gave something up.
Pastor Darren: Are you willing to tell us?
Pastor Darren: Did it work?
Pastor Darren: Oh, good for you.
Pastor Darren: What did you give up?
Pastor Darren: I didn't really give up anything, but I limited my TikTok to an hour.
Pastor Darren: Oh, a limitation on TikTok.
Pastor Darren: All right, you got applause back there for my sister, so she's right with you.
Pastor Darren: She's right with you.
Pastor Darren: A limitation, yeah, it's that idea of oh, is there something I can work on?
Pastor Darren: Is there something I can eliminate and fill it with God?
Pastor Darren: Is there something I can add to my life?
Pastor Darren: Right, that is kind of the journey we're invited to take over Lent.
Pastor Darren: Easter is not just a day, but it's a season, a season of 50 days, landing us on Pentecost, and they call that the season of feasting Pentecost and they call that the season of feasting.
Pastor Darren: We go from fasting to feasting.
Pastor Darren: I think there's an invitation on Easter for us to embrace that idea of feasting, that we are now in the garden with Christ, where God wants us and God is inviting us to feast on the love that we know that we have seen existing in this world.
Pastor Darren: It's so often we get lost in our fear, we get lost in our hopelessness, our frustrations about the world, and how often do we actually pivot the other way and look to where God is present, where God's love is strong, where we're being nourished, where we're being motivated and inspired to do the right thing, to do the loving thing?
Pastor Darren: I think Easter should be a season where we feast on the presence of God amongst us.
Pastor Darren: But it begs the question will we recognize it?
Pastor Darren: Mary's in that garden and there's the gardener, but she doesn't know it's Jesus yet.
Pastor Darren: She doesn't know that love is there in her midst.
Pastor Darren: Will we be able to find that love?
Pastor Darren: Will we be intentional enough to look for it and then maybe even take the next step to embrace it and to share it?
Pastor Darren: I think that is our Easter invitation, not just for today but for this whole season.
Pastor Darren: And who knows what, if we do it for 50 days and it becomes a habit, it becomes part of who we are, these people who recognize God's loving presence in the world and not only own it and embrace it, get nourished by it, but share it with the world.
Pastor Darren: And not only own it and embrace it, get nourished by it, but share it with the world, building the kingdom God always wanted us to build.
Pastor Darren: And why should we do it?
Pastor Darren: Because he has risen.
Pastor Darren: God has conquered the darkness that our world can bring, even the worst that our world can do.
Pastor Darren: God sending God's only son to be in this world and our killing him is something God has turned into an embodiment of love, has turned into a nourishment of life, life as a bounty.
Pastor Darren: I invite you to walk that journey this Easter season, and let's walk it because we know that Jesus has risen and love is real.
Pastor Darren: Amen.