SUNDAY SERMON: A new beginning

By Rev. Stephen Baldwin

Easter Sunday

READINGS: Genesis 1.1-5, Genesis 7.1-5, & Romans 6.3-11

New beginnings. Fresh green grass growing up from the ground that was white with snow not too long ago. Purple dots of redbud across brown hollows of dormant forest. The yellow glow of the sun warming us from the outside in. This is a season of new beginnings, all around us!

And new beginnings are glorious, amen? New life, new love, new challenges, new opportunities. New beginnings all around us. 

Which is fitting for Easter, because God is famous for new beginnings. We are going to read about three today, on the day of the biggest new beginning of all–Resurrection Sunday. Let’s begin with…the first new beginning. Day one of God’s glorious creation we now call home. 

 Genesis 1:1-2:4a.  

1:1 When God began to create the heavens and the earth,

1:2 the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

1:3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

1:4 And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.

1:5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. Amen. 

Don’t you just love the rhythm of the creation story? So beautifully written and made. But as new beginnings tend to do, it didn’t last. The humans God created to care for the Earth he made in seven days got greedy and soon made a mess of the world. Unbelievable, I know! But it happened. So it was time for another new beginning. 

Genesis 7.1-5.

7:1 Then the LORD said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you alone are righteous before me in this generation.

7:2 Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and its mate; and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and its mate;

7:3 and seven pairs of the birds of the air also, male and female, to keep their kind alive on the face of all the earth.

7:4 For in seven days I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.”

7:5 And Noah did all that the LORD had commanded him. Amen. 

It was a new beginning for us, for God, and for the good earth. A clean slate intended to cleanse God’s good creation from whatever was spoiling it. And it did, for a while. Noah lived a long and good life afterwards. Before the impurities crept to the surface once again. Begging God to begin again, yet one more time. 

Romans 6.3-11

6:3 Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

6:4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.

6:5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

6:6 We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin.

6:7 For whoever has died is freed from sin.

6:8 But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

6:9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.

6:10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.

6:11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Amen. 

New beginnings. The creation. The flood. The only Son. All new beginnings. God reaching out to the world to connect again. 

Some people wonder why we celebrate Christmas and Easter year after year? We know the story. We know the traditions. Why must we tell it every year? 

Because we need new beginnings…and everything they bring, including hope for tomorrow. 

The disciples knew that Jesus was dead. They watched him die in the cruelest way possible, knowing they had in some ways been complicit in that death. They were beside themselves, locked away in fear several days after his death. Only the Marys weren’t afraid. Thank heaven for the Marys. They ventured out to the tomb, and you know what happened next. The stone was rolled away and he was risen! 

It was a new beginning, and one detail which is easy to overlook is worth diving into this Easter. Do you remember what happens when the Marys arrive at the tomb? 

An earthquake. Which made me think about Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Do you remember what the scripture said the city was doing? Shaking. The situation was so charged that the city was shaking in turmoil. Now, a few days later, an earthquake strikes. Which got me to thinking, “What other earthquakes occur in the Bible?”

In total, there are around 20. All occur in major moments of…new beginnings. The creation, the flood, the giving of the Ten Commandments, the crucifixion, and the resurrection. Earthquakes at all of them. 

Earthquakes in the Bible are a symbol of God breaking into this world, ushering in a new beginning, and the book of Revelation says they will continue. 

Some hear that as judgment; I hear that as covenant. God will not forsake us. God will not walk away. God will bring a new beginning, no matter what. 

The earth shook in Florida this week, as Artemis II took off, bound for a trip around the moon and back. Those on the ground described the liftoff like…an earthquake. The ground moved, their bodies shook, and as the rocket extended into the heavens up to speeds of 17,000 miles per hour, people on the ground said it sounded like the air was being ripped in two. 

Just like an angel riding a bolt of lightning down from heaven as the air rips in two, an earthquake shakes the ground, and Jesus walks out of the tomb! 

Here we are, two thousand years later, reaching for the heavens and the heavens are still reaching down for us. There was so much to marvel at on Wednesday as Artemis lifted off, but most of all I marveled at us reaching up just like God always reaches down…praying that we can somehow connect in a new beginning. 

What gives me reassurance is what Jesus says when he’s resurrected. He doesn’t say, “Peter, how could you deny me?” Or, “Judas, seriously?” He doesn’t dwell on the past for one second. 

He says, “Greetings!” Hey guys. What’s up? Good to see you. Quite literally, the Greek word he uses means, “Be rejoicing!” 

Because it was a new beginning. No time for past mistakes. Only a new beginning. No interest in rehashing what went wrong. Only a new beginning. No bitterness over Friday. Only a new beginning on Easter Sunday. 

Easter is not just a holiday. Not just another Sunday. Not just a season on the church calendar. It is a new beginning for God and us. A day of resurrection. A day to…“be rejoicing”! Amen.