Good Morning and welcome to Dr Ing’s Easter Resurrection Sunday Soul Connection.
As always, I like to applaud you for taking the next 45 minutes out of your busy Sunday as we consciously come together to link hearts and minds as we deepen in our communion with the God that is everywhere present at every point in space and time and as we conclude our Lenten journey with the resurrection service this Sunday.
I trust that this has been a time that has brought you closer in relationship with the Divine like never before.
I trust that it has been a time where you've reflected and pondered over the questions for your life, for your purpose, and for the meaning of God's will in it.
I trust that you have found it to be a time of Revelation, a time of experiencing God, expressing God and living God like never before, And so this Sunday, is we celebrate the resurrection, the triumph over death of our beloved teacher and a Way-shower Jesus.
Who on Friday I shared that I felt so often we have looked at his frailties back in the Garden of Gethsemane and upon the cross and offered an alternative viewpoint of looking at things that perhaps wasn't showing his frailty but was really highlighting His complete unification of his humanity and His divinity.
His acceptance of that which he was purposed for. He knew and spoke about his death. He knew and spoke about how cruel it would be, He knew and He spoke about how He would resurrect on the third day, and so having known and spoken about his impending death it felt somehow not quite in alignment, He would be asking God to take it away.
However, as with everything, it's open to interpretation. As with everything, you have free will and free choice as to what you choose to believe. But always I look to Jesus as my teacher and my example.
I take this as a message and demonstration of His courage, of His faith, of His fortitude, of His compassion, of His forgiveness.
As the example for which I should embrace, the example of how I should live, as the example of what I'm here to express, it is incumbent on each and every one of us to make the choice for ourselves.
Jesus taught, but at the same time he did not impose, he allowed the individual to make the decisions and choices for themselves. And so my beloved this message this morning, is entitled “Roll Away and Resurrect”. I always I think to mention it, every if not nearly every Easter Sunday service.
I like to remind you, there would have been no resurrection had there been no forgiveness. Resurrection is incumbent upon being free from anything that could tie you to the past or tie you to some emotion to which you cannot heal. If Jesus had not forgiven the heartlessness of the people to whom He had healed, the people who He had taught the people whom He had fed, not only literally, but spiritually.
If He had not forgiven the cruelty with which the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees had chosen to to defame Him, and beat Him and ultimately hand Him over to the Romans to crucify Him.
If He had not forgiven in all of His Spirit, His soul would not have been able to resurrect!!!
For any resurrection experience we want to have in our lives. If we have not embody forgiveness, to whomever or whatever it is, that we felt or feel has wronged us. We will never be able to resurrect.
This is a message I have been preaching for the last umpteen years over and over again. Whilst I know that there are some of you that want to hang on to your righteous indignation that you believe that something or someone is beyond forgiveness my beloved the invitation today, this resurrecting Easter Sunday is that anything and everything can be forgiven and must be forgiven if we are to resurrect.
So I want to kick off with our sacred text first.
Sacred Text
Mark 16:1-6
16 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” 4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. 6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
There's a couple of things that struck me as I read that text Number one, Jesus had already resurrected before the stone was rolled away. He didn't need the help of the angels or anyone for him to have his resurrection.
So the stone rolling away happened well after he had already resurrected after he had dematerialised from the physical form, resurrected into His complete soul and divine self and had taken himself out of the tomb.
But we like the women would be wondering who is going to roll away the stone. For me as I reflected on this, it struck me how this is the kind of thinking we have, we are always thinking, who is going to do this for us? Who is going to roll away this idea of poverty, this idea of limitation, this idea of negativity, who is going to roll this away for us, who is going to roll away those thoughts and the fears that come sometimes and plague us. Who is going to roll away our anxieties, depression, healing, who's going to roll all of this away from us?
See Jesus was so enlightened that He didn't need anything or any one. He had done the work.
He had done the work that He had come here to do for which He was purpose. He had done the work on himself is 40 Days and nights in the desert, integrating His humanity and divinity.
He taught his disciples to watch and pray, even though they couldn't manage it. He did the work for his own resurrection.
We to have to do our own work for resurrection. Jesus said that we were to each carry our own cross. We were, each of us, to work our own salvation.
We want somebody to roll away the stone of our ideas and limited thoughts and beliefs. No, we have to do the work.
Jesus is always the example not the exception. I love the quote that I shared yesterday by Michael Leung who said that Easter is not limited to the passion and the death of Christ. It also includes the dismal tragedy of life on lived by the men and all the loss of passionate truth that goes with it.
This Easter Sunday is an invitation for you to crucify, roll away and resurrect.
Roll away and Resurrect
When your physicality is crucified with sickness, dis-ease mental, emotional spiritual
Roll away; that there is a sickness greater than God
Resurrect to the truth that health is your Divine Birthright - that you are made in the Image and likeness of God.
When your mentality is crucified, with limiting self defeating and debilitating beliefs and ideas.
Roll away that lack of self worth
Resurrect that you are a child of God and Let the Mind that was in CHRIST JESUS be in you - to
When financially you feel crucified and seem at rock bottom
Roll away the stone of limitation and lack and erroneous belief
Resurrect to the remembrance that Jesus said I came that you might have life and have it abundantly
When your emotionally feel crucified by those you love and trusted
Roll away thinking and acting like a victim
Resurrect to the fact that Jesus said I will never leave you nor forsake you so irrespective of what happens in our familial or any other relationship
When feel spiritually crucified that your ground is shaken from beneath you
Roll away the stone of a sense of separation from the Divine
Resurrect to the remembrance that with faith it is impossible to please God - that there is nowhere where God is not
I'd like to share a poem this morning.
PEOM: Psalm for Easter Morning by Dr Ralph F.Wilson
In chill of dawn birds sing clear
After Friday's darkness,
After Saturday's numbness;
Dew on grasses sparkle
As night surrenders to rising sun,
And clear blue reigns above
Without hint of cloud.
Women travel swiftly, silently
On their pathway to the Garden,
Where martyred Messiah lies slumbering,
Lifeless on cold limestone
In a newly-chiseled tomb.
As they approach,
Guards have vanished;
Remnants of a fire smolder
Among debris of camp
Deserted in haste.
In their place resides a new Guardian,
Harbinger of a Heavenly Army,
Resplendent in white,
Seated upon the stone of death
Now displaced forever.
The Angel speaks,
women shrink back.
"Why do you seek the living
Among the dead.
He is not here;
He is risen,
Just as he said."
Hallelujah, risen Jesus!
Praise forever, risen Lord!
We greet you at your Resurrection,
Bow before you now and always --
Lives wide open,
Cleansed and healed,
Hands uplifted,
Hearts surrendered.
Forgive our doubts,
O Risen Lord,
Calm our fears,
Renew our faith,
And lead our lives from this day on.
For we serve You,
Christ our Lord!
And we love You,
Risen King!
In your Army we will follow.
Lead us on!
Lead us on!
Science of Mind Reading
Story
Megan McKenna, the prolific and profound Catholic writer, shares the following vignette in her book
"Once in a parish mission when I was studying this scripture (Luke 7: 11-17) with a large group, someone called out harshly, 'Have you ever brought someone back from the dead?' I had been saying that life happens when we are interrupted, and that some of the most powerful acts of resurrection happen to the least likely people; that we are the people of resurrection and hope, called to live passionately and compassionately with others, to defy death, to forgive, and to bring others back into the community, to do something that is life-giving, that fights death and needless suffering. And then this challenge from the back of the church.
"My response was 'Yes.' I went on to say, 'Every time I bring hope into a situation, every time I bring joy that shatters despair, every time I forgive others and give them back dignity and the possibility of a future with me and others in the community, every time I listen to others and affirm them and their life, every time I speak the truth in public, every time I confront injustice — yes — I bring people back from the dead.' "
SUNDAY SOUL CONNECTION PRAYER
Please follow this link.
BODY MEDITATION
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BUDDHIST REFLECTION
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Song
Celebrate (He Lives) by Fred Hammond.