Mar 31st: Love Has the Last Word, with Rev. Dr. Steven Koski.
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Rev. Dr. Steven Koski
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Love Has the Last Word with Rev. Dr. Steven Koski. Series: Everyday Peacemakers A Spacious Christianity, First Presbyterian Church of Bend, Oregon. Scripture: John 20.1; John 20.16.
Celebrate the power of Love with this Easter message from Rev. Dr. Steven Koski and First Presbyterian Church of Bend through stories of Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection, as well as examples of forgiveness and reconciliation overcoming deep suffering in Rwanda.
Transcript:
This past week was called Holy Week. But if we jump straight from Palm Sunday to the the joy of Easter, we miss how unholy the events around the last days of Jesus’s life really were, you know in this world where we see the love of power always trying to flex its muscles. This past week we witnessed the humility of Jesus as he held the dirty, tired, cracked feet of his disciples in his hands, and tenderly washed them and said, Love one another like this. This past week, we remembered one of Jesus’s own disciples, sold them out for a few pieces of silver betrayed Him with a kiss. They arrested Jesus because his way of justice and mercy and love was, was a threat to the Empire. They accused Jesus of all sorts of things. But all he did was love and healing and forgive. All he did was hanging around with outcasts and people who lived on the margins. All he did was tear down walls, build bridges. Welcome everyone. The eat with him at the table. Especially those the religious leaders said we’re not welcome. All he did was give people hope. All he did was love in a way no one had ever seen before. This past Friday, we remembered how they beat him humiliated him stripped him naked. They rammed a crown of thorns on his head. And they laughed. Before he died, Jesus looked into the eyes of the ones who spit on it mocked him, the ones who drove the nails into his hands and inexplicably said bother. Forgive them. This man, Jesus, who many believed was the holy one the prophet spoke of so long ago, who they believe was the long awaited Messiah, the One who had saved them. This man was brutally executed. You know, there’s nothing more evil than what happened on that so called Good Friday. His friends deserted him. Some so scared they even denied knowing him. Only the women stayed and witnessed the one that they loved. Die. They saw their hopes and dreams of a different life a different world die and be sealed in a tomb with him. It was a gruesome week. That first Holy Week was a week of of intense grief. A week when violence and justice suffering death claim victory and broke the hearts and spirits of those who follow Jesus. It’s so important on Easter to remember that part of the story. Because what we celebrate with an empty tomb on Easter is that it wasn’t the end of the story. The Easter surprise is that injustice suffering despair death do not have the last word God does. And the word God spoke and continues to speak is of a love that refuses to be defeated a love stronger than even death itself. And Lamotte road Easter isn’t about proving anything as if he can possibly explain the unexplainable. Easter is about choosing to believe and bet your life on this one thing that love that love is stronger than any of the grim bleak crap life could throw at us. You I was asked recently. If I really if I really believed in the resurrection. You know, instead of giving a theological response, I told a story. I told a story about a photo SCA saw in the New York Times about the project of reconciliation in Rwanda. It’s been 30 years since the Hutus took up hate and weapons against their Tutsi neighbors, leading to a genocide that claimed over a million lives. You know, there’s so much suffering and trauma so much bitterness and hate. You know, it’s hard to imagine the cycle of revenge and retaliation. and could be broken. It was hard to imagine that a different future than the one of hate and violence was actually possible. It seemed impossible to think that a different story could be told. Just as today, it seems impossible to imagine peace and reconciliation in places like Gaza, and Ukraine, or even in our own deeply divided country. You know, maybe that’s what hopelessness feels like. Trapped in the dark tomb. reliving the same old story feeling the stone will never be rolled away, nothing will ever change. In Rwanda, in spite of the deeply entrenched hate, and pain from that horrifying conflict, love insisted on having the last word. Love stirred in the imagination of leaders and peacemakers who were foolish enough to believe a different story than the one they were living was possible. They propose a project of reconciliation. And the projects crepe the project courageously stated that those in prison for war crimes and genocide could be released, set free if their victims were willing to reconcile and the perpetrators were willing to confess their violence. And both parties were willing to live a new life and somehow do it together. Can you imagine? Unthinkable? Impossible. How can you overcome heal transform? That depth of pain and trauma? I mean, surely there are instances that cannot be overcome. Surely there are instances instances where despair and death really do have the last word. The New York Times photo essay of this project of reconciliation is of is a perpetrators standing next to their victims. People who have miraculously moved to a place of forgiveness and love for their enemy. I mean, one photo and story that that shocked me. Is this one of an older woman next to a younger man. This woman became a mother to the young man who brutally killed her own children. Who does that? How is that kind of love? Even possible? Here’s what the woman said. She said. This unspeakable tragedy will always be part of my story. But I refuse to have it be my whole story or the end of my story. I refuse to let hate when she said I had to trust there’s a goodness stronger than evil. A forgiveness stronger than my hate. A love that can do for me. What I can’t do for myself. She said I had to believe there is something more beyond my pain and grief. This young man took my family away. And I need to love so God gave me the freedom and the power to love him. It was hate in his heart that led to such evil and that hate can only be healed with love. She said love has to have the last word. Wow. Just wow. You know that kind of love cannot be explained. Is Easter is not about trying to explain the unexplainable Easter it’s about being willing to bet our life on one thing that there is a love stronger than anything that life can throw at us that even the very worst thing will never be the last thing. And I don’t know about you but I really need to believe that I really need to believe Do that now these days more than ever.
You know, if we have faith that love has the last word will keep feeding the hungry. Even though the line of those who are hungry is longer today than it was yesterday. If we have faith that love is the last word. We’ll keep praying and working for peace. Even when peace seems impossible, we’ll keep fighting for a world where every life matters, even when, when hate seems to be shouting louder and louder every single day. If we have faith that love, that love really does have the last word. We can sit with our loved one who has Alzheimer’s and doesn’t even recognize who we are. Because we can trust that kind of suffering will not be the end of the story. If we have faith that love has last word i i can say to all of you who are going through hell. And I know so many of you are facing hard things, impossible things I can say to you Don’t stop, keep going. Because the worst thing will never be the last thing. If we have faith that love has the last word we can say to those who are grief stricken. Death is not the end. That beyond this life, there is more life. If we have faith, that love will always have the last word will keep showing up to do the work of love that is ours to do. Even when we face large boulders that seem humanly impossible to be rolled away. The Gospel of John begins the Easter story this way. On the first day of the week, while it was still dark. Mary Magdalene, a dear friend and follower of Jesus makes her way to the to while it is still dark. Mary doesn’t enter Easter with joy and celebration, certain everything’s going to work out. She arrives to the tomb with swollen red eyes from crying more tears than she’s ever shed in her life. She goes to the tomb while it is still dark. That’s so important. Because I know so many of you come to Easter this year. While it is still dark in the midst of your own pain and grief, there are so many places in our world where it is still dark. The Easter story begins with the words we know only too well. While it is still dark. But the story doesn’t stop there. It says on the first day of the week. While it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw the stone was rolled away. What if we had the courage to end the story right there. You know before we tried to explain the unexplainable before wonder calcifies into interpretation and then concretizes into dogma over which we would spend 1000s of years fighting before we turn the mystery of the resurrection into a test about whether we believe the right things? What if we had the courage just to experience the event without needing to explain or prove the event? Or even be sure what it’s all about? To simply stand at the mouth of the empty tomb with Mary in awe and maybe a little fear, allowing just enough imagination and faith to trust that there is a love. Powerful enough to not only empty a tomb, but powerful enough to heal all the brokenness in our lives and in this world. There is a love that refuses to die no matter what the world throws against it. In the Easter story, Mary only knows its Jesus. When he calls her by name. Jesus said to her Mary and he In that moment, she knows the worst thing will never be the last thing that love will always have the last word. What if this Easter we dared to believe. And imagine that love is calling us by date. Not asking us to explain the unexplainable but inviting us to bet our life on one thing that love is stronger than any of the grim bleak crap life can throw at us, stronger than even death itself. For today, all that’s asked of us is to stand at the mouth of the empty tomb with Mary and just open our hearts to the possibility of such a love. Tomorrow we can join together and prove to this world that love will always have the last word. Maybe so. Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed.
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