Personally, I like to go back to Jesus for my guidance in questions of faith. When Jesus was asked which commandments were most important, his answer was, “Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.” and “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” That’s his summary of the law. What Moses brought down from Mount Sinai in ten religious shalls and shall-not’s, Jesus got down to two, and my friends, those two are notoriously difficult to put into a consistent practice.

But today we celebrate Easter, and as followers of Christ’s way, it is a special day indeed. I happen to understand the resurrection as proof positive that God’s love goes deeper and reaches farther than anyone ever expected it would. Even in the eloquence of the Psalms and the passion of the prophets, God’s love can, at times, seem conditional depending on our human responses. That God would become like us, taking on human form, even to death - now that says something that human language, even our language about love, has a hard time trying to capture. And ultimately, it is a mystery. It is a mystery that God could love us enough to take on all the pain and suffering linked to this mortal human form so that we might be drawn into a closer, more loving, more honest relationship with our Maker. I cannot even pretend to understand the miracle that took place and allowed Jesus to mingle with his friends three days after his death, but I do understand that because he lives, our lives are transformed. Our lives become something new. Forgiveness is not only possible - God has forgotten our sin thanks to Jesus’ freely given sacrifice. And the miracle now is that all distinctions, and categories, and classes of people are erased as we become the living Body of Christ by learning together to love God and love one another more fully. Call me a closet Universalist if you must – but on this day in particular, it’s hard to imagine that a love like that is inclined to leave anybody out of the greater picture.

As the gathered church, though, by next Sunday if not before, we will find ourselves returning to our old sinful ways. We are, after all, inclined to hold on to past grudges and foster the distinctions rather than growing closer to our spiritual brothers and sisters out of thanks for the love we have received through Jesus Christ. We happen to be self-centered, greedy, needy Christians, who either find ourselves too busy or too lazy to live into this love that we have been so freely given. This radical love that formed the essence of Jesus’ core values and launched a mission to restore and redeem God’s beloved world does not always come so naturally for ordinary humans like us. There’s some scriptural evidence that at times it was even hard for Jesus. But it took the renewed courage of the disciples and multiple generations of Jesus freaks to further this message of love once the whole story was complete in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

That courage is evident through the writings of the apostle Paul who is constantly harping on the fledgling church to eliminate all malice and evil and replace it with love. He likens such divisiveness and immorality to a little pinch of yeast that infects the whole loaf. It requires constant diligence to purge out the old yeast of hate that keeps re-infecting every loaf of bread we bake. He insists that Jesus offers us a new life, a fresh start, a beginning like no other, and from telling his own story – he ought to know! Once a zealous advocate of Pharisaic law and persecutor of the Christian faith, his heart was melted by Jesus and thereafter he couldn’t even call himself by the same name. His whole identity changed. And even though Paul still has those very human instances in his writings in which he becomes a defender of certain traditions or practices for whatever reasons that have been lost to us, on the whole, the love of Jesus is what changed his life for good.

For me, when we get down to those instances in which Christians of good faith disagree, I do put all my eggs into the “Easter-story” basket, and find that the rule of love is where I draw the line. I know it’s not the easiest way to go. Love defies so many boundaries that it seems, well, wimpy and inconsistent compared to the concrete theologies of fundamentalist thinkers and those who just seem so sure and certain that their way is the “right” way, God’s way. But really, I think Jesus was intentional in not giving us an easy way out. I find love to be much harder of a guideline to follow. It actually challenges all my preconceived notions. It makes me rethink whether or not I, myself, have acted in loving ways, or if I woke up with at least three hateful thoughts before I even got out of bed this morning. It sets us on edge knowing that it was the stone that the builders rejected that has become the chief cornerstone. Remembering correctly I think, Jesus was crucified by good religious people just like us.

The Easter story is the story of God’s love that sets us free from sin and death, from constant pain and suffering, but in order for it to be OUR story of liberation - we have to find ourselves a place on the underside of things. Jesus came to save sinners, to bind up the broken-hearted, to fill very real needs – but if we don’t need saving, or healing, and all our needs are met in other ways, we may find little use for the resurrection to be the linchpin of our faith. Jesus was rejected in his time by the important people and loved by those who were the oppressed, the outsiders, the misfits, and the broken ones. Love that is poured out freely and without condition is so quickly absorbed by those who need it the most. It runs off those who shut it off or shut it out. Jesus died for all of us, everyone, and yet we sometimes fail to allow that love to soften our hardened hearts. In fact, we are rightfully afraid. It may change us. It may lead us to an identity crisis – like it did for Saul who became Paul. It may make us more concerned for our neighbors leaving us less time to follow our own personal ambitions and desires. That love of God and neighbor thing sounds so simple and yet can change so much.

Early on a Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been rolled away. Empty tomb Christians, love of God and neighbor Christians, let me tell you, have much to be thankful for. In a graveyard of all places, Mary’s grief-filled weeping quickly turned to tears of joy. “I have seen the Lord,” she said. That was amazing, life-changing news! “I have seen the Lord.”

Amen.