When I was a little boy, the Easter Bunny would bring baby chickens. These
chicks would be yellow or pink or green or blue. When I was 3 or 4 years old, I got a blue one.
My brother and I both got one. That’s the only part of the story I remember:
getting that little chicken on Easter and how happy I was. The whole story comes
from mom and dad.
We lived in apartments in New Orleans which frowned on chickens; so, after
a couple of weeks, my parents brought the baby chickens to my great uncle and
aunt’s house is the woods of Mississippi.
It was an old house high up off the ground; the animals would go up
under it in the heat of the summer to cool off. Every time we’d visit, I’d run
under the house looking for my chicken.
My great uncle would tease me, “Boy how’d you like to see your chicken
today, baked or fried?” I was afraid I’d
eat my pet chicken. My aunt would fuss at him for teasing me.
Years later, I asked Dad, did we eat my chicken. He’d say “That’s what
chickens are for.”
I’m fifty-six; I’d like to have some chickens. Deep inside a part misses
that little blue chicken.
I tell this story as a parable of humanity. In
the beginning God created us. He looked at all He created and said it was good.
We were happy when we were young and God was with us in the garden.
Humanity ruined it. We forget that.
It was long ago and humanity was young. As humanity grew older,
happiness in the Garden became a memory. We remember parts of it. Even though we don’t remember
exactly, we long for the part that’s missing. There is a God-size hole in us.
We just don’t remember how to fill it.
We look to someone older to know the whole story. The story is that God is
always with us even though we think differently.
God spoke to Moses, Why are you crying out to
me? I am with you, I will protect you, I will lead you through the waters.
Isaiah writes those who are thirsty come to the
water. Ezekiel says I will sprinkle clean water
upon you to cleanse you from all your impurities….
The scripture from Romans says we were baptized
into Christ Jesus… so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the
glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.
The whole story points to the waters of baptism. The same baptisms most
of us share, the baptisms we remember tonight; the baptism that brings us to
God. Baptism brings Christ to the God size hole inside us.
Because of that hole, we long for God. We will never truly be happy until
we fill that missing part of us.
But my brothers and sisters here is the problem. Evil and meanness
exists in the world. It tells us that the hole is not the absence of God. It’s
the absence of self, of the world, of things we can get or buy or steal. Or
maybe, the hole is something as simple as a little blue chicken.
This world tells us anything and everything will fill that hole. This
world changes anything and everything to the acceptable; the thing that will
make right; and the thing that will fill that longing in our heart. The world
asks “How do we want to fill that hole inside us?”
Do we want to be baked of fried?
Nothing that comes from man or the world can fill that hole.
Things the world puts forward can never fill the hole that only God can
fill. The world can change but the hole inside does not change. God does not
change. Many will never acknowledge it: but, our longing for God is always
there.
After the crucifixion, Jesus’ disciples and the apostles knew what
caused the hole inside them. But they
forgot, He is always with us, even when we think differently.
The Gospel tells us, that Mary Magdalen and the
other Mary came to see the tomb. The angel said to the women, "Do not be
afraid! You are seeking Jesus the crucified. He is not here, he has been raised
… They went away quickly, fearful,
yet overjoyed…
Christ Jesus meets us and tells us - Do not be
afraid. Jesus came to change us. And
by that, Christ fills that God-size hole.
I look at everyone here: those who live in Christ, those about to be
baptized, those to be confirmed and about to make a first holy communion. Your
faces show the joy of people who seek Jesus and your hearts want Jesus more
than anything.
By our baptism, we open that hole inside us so Jesus can fill it. By partaking
in the Holy Eucharist, the risen Christ becomes part of us and fills that God-size
hole in us.
That‘s what Jesus came for and what He died for. That’s what Christ’s resurrection
was for.
Have a Holy and Happy Easter. Amen.
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