Who loves doing new things? How about learning new things?

What’s a new thing you just learned to do? Remember in your mind’s eye, what it was like when you were in the thick of learning whatever that was. What’s the feeling? Does it feel frustrating? Confusing? Embarrassing? Are there times you want to give up on the new thing? Sometimes doesn’t it feel like you should just keep doing what you’ve always been doing because at least then you know what you’re doing … even if you’re pretty sure it’s the wrong thing to be doing? Sometimes we know we need to learn and grow, but it is awkward!

Learning is stressful. Change is stressful. It makes us feel vulnerable and exposed.

So when Isaiah says,  
 ”The former things shall not be remembered
  or come to mind.
 ¹⁸ But be glad and rejoice forever
  in what I am creating,”

Does that sound like actual good news to you? The former parts of your life, your family’s history, our shared histories, shall not be remembered … but don’t worry, something great is coming. What does that feel like, if we imagine ourselves on that level of change? It seems a bit like being on a gangplank and then the ship disappears from behind you. You better really trust whoever is doing the talking, right?

The people for whom these words of Isaiah were written were the people of Judah after their exile to Babylon in the sixth century BC. The elites of Judah were exiled after being conquered, while the working-class folks were made to stay home to work the fields and tend the flocks for the conquering Babylonians. So, when these two groups of people were reunited after 80 years, there were some tensions about the best way to rebuild life and move forward.

They had to relearn how to do life together and start a whole new thing. God’s promise in the Isaiah text is that it will be good. You can trust this. Let your divisions and your squabbles go. Don’t grasp at the past; we are doing a new thing together and it will be good. What a wonderful word of hope! But even though new promising horizons are great, that doesn’t take away that sense of vulnerability.  

We tend to celebrate Easter as if all our problems and fears and worries just go away after Jesus’ resurrection, but here we are (at least some of us or likely most of us), still with problems and fears and worries. And if that’s the case for you, maybe it’s because a new thing is happening. When new things happen, even when it’s good, we get scared.

Let’s remember, Jesus’ death and resurrection were not expected. Leading up to this moment of discovering the empty tomb, the disciples hadn’t really believed Jesus when he taught that he was going to be killed in Jerusalem. On Palm Sunday, we heard about how the people celebrated Jesus as the Messiah who was to come free them from the tyranny of Rome, not be killed by it. Jesus was supposed to be the Teflon-man, the Son of God, performing healings and miracles as he went. He was going to “win” against Rome because nothing and no one could touch him. And then … a horrific thing happened that shook the ground on which these people stood. What they thought they knew, they didn’t really know. They felt incredible fear and vulnerability in the face of the unknown.

So, when the women found the empty tomb, the response from them was quite reasonably terror. They had no real point of reference for what was happening. It was helpful for the angels in dazzling clothes to say, “Remember.” Remember what Jesus taught you and what he said. This helped them get their feet under them, enough to stop looking for Jesus among the dead and to go tell their story. But it’s not like they switched from terror to the Alleluias right away. A new thing happening. And it was so new, they were forced to set aside how they understood the world to be without yet having a map for this new world. Even if it’s good, this kind of shift is not done without discomfort, fear, and vulnerability.  

We know that eventually the early church did move through this time of doubt. The disciples finally figured out the women were not telling idle tales, bless their hearts. And a whole movement was born of these early people who told their stories.

Us modern folks like to quickly move past these moments of vulnerability and discomfort. We often celebrate Easter with uncomplicated joy, with candies and bunnies and eggs and lilies. Our music is celebratory and for good reason. It is Good News that Jesus showed us that death and the seeming domination of destructive powers are illusory. It is Good News to know that evil and violence are not greater than God’s compassion, forgiveness, and creative power.  

But when we read the gospel story, the actual story like we just did, what we hear is uncertainty and fear. In addition, the Isaiah text is about a people lost in how to move forward. And in Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth we hear about the truth and reality of resurrection for us all, not just Jesus, as being an important part of resisting empire. That’s all a lot more complicated than bunnies and eggs and candy… or high fiving Jesus for fixing everything for us.

These texts from the Bible speak to what it’s actually like to be a human being living in a complicated world where there continues to be domination, empire, cruelty, and violence. This complicated world can be scary and disorienting, even when you’re a disciple of Jesus on Easter morning.

While Isaiah tells us in the voice of God to forget the old things because a new heaven and earth are on the way, the Jewish people were steeped in memory. Jewish festivals are mostly remembrances of past deliverance. Passover, in particular, is the remembrance of God’s liberation of the people from slavery in Egypt and it is written in the Torah that the people are to remember this deliverance every year. We are to remember past joys and victories to help us trust in God moving forward.

That said, we need to be looking ahead for God’s new thing. What came before needs to be released to make room for God’s new creation. And yet, the promises and covenants of the past still stand. The people of Isaiah’s time had a foundation of faith and trust so that they could forget what came before and look ahead to what God was creating for them. They were encouraged to lay aside their ideas of how everything was supposed to be and lean into what this new future was going to be. Through their strong relationship, the people’s world was to be created anew.

The same challenge was there for the followers of Jesus on that first Easter morning.

The women heard angels asking why they were looking for the living among the dead when they were at the empty tomb. Imagine being in prison or in a cage and hearing a click of the door being unlocked and opened, but without a prison guard telling you what to do. Just, inexplicably, the cage door unlocks with nothing holding you back. It’s a moment of seeing your world radically shift, but not in one fell swoop. You’re still in the cage. You don’t know what’s out there. You don’t know if it’s freedom or something worse.

God promises to free was from our cages, whatever they may be. For the women, this may have been the cage of believing Jesus’ mission of redemption of the world was ended with his crucifixion. For us, the cage may be believing the only power that truly matters is the power of weapons, money, violence, and intimidation. Or the cage of resignation and believing we should just give up. Or the cage of believing more in our inadequacies then our God-given wholeness and inherent belonging.

While cage doors are clicked open by God, it is still up to us to walk out. To have the courage and trust to walk out that door, we too need a strong foundation. We need to remember what God has done for us and we need God’s help for us to trust in the promise of God’s unlocked cage doors in our lives. Your cage doors are unlocked this Easter morning!

I recently watched a video of a lioness who had been rescued. They captured the moment she first moved from the inside of this sanctuary to the outside grounds, where she could touch grass for the first time. It took her quite a while to leave the indoor tunnel she was used to, and then again to leave the concrete pad just outside that tunnel. She had to look around with intense vigilance and still she second guessed herself almost every step. You could tell this was a lion having the uncomfortable experience of learning a new world and wondering if she was OK.

Even for a lion, there’s no way to learn a new reality, even a great one, without fear and vulnerability.

Einstein once said, “The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.” We live in a world that operates as if hostility is the name of the game. We’re told basically, if we want to survive and thrive, then we need to be sure to “get ours” and not worry too much about those who don’t make it.

Jesus’ resurrection does not mean that us humans will never again experience heartache, violence, hunger, or injustice. Clearly that is the case, but that is also not God’s plan for us. The universe is indeed friendly. However, we still mostly live as if we are locked inside this cage of our own making that tells us that brutality is necessary, and compassion is weakness. Jesus’ death on the cross showed us that he rejected this human cage. And on this day, we reckon with the empty tomb, that “click” of that cage door unlocking and swinging open to a new world that we are assured is indeed good and friendly. This is the Good News!

This may have happened 2,000 years ago, but I wonder if we are still in the early moments of testing out this new reality, like the lioness who has made it to the concrete pad, but not much further. The click of that cage opening, the opening of that tomb still resounds, and we are feeling our way forward.

So, let us take heart in our fear and vulnerability. We can and should continue to wonder how to live fully as Jesus would have us live. Like the lioness moving out into a good, safe space of freedom, let us wonder how our lives and our world might continue to shift for the good as we grow in our trust that the universe is indeed friendly, that we are indeed safe, and that the reality of love is indeed stronger than the cages that only appear to control us. We are called into liberation on this day for the sake of ourselves, all people, and all of Creation.  And for that, we can truly say Alleluia and amen!

AMEN