Love Has the Last Word, with Rev. Dr. Steven Koski.

Love Has the Last Word, with Rev. Dr. Steven Koski. Series: Finding Hope in Hard Places A Spacious Christianity, First Presbyterian Church of Bend, Oregon. Scripture: John 20.1; John 20.16.

Join us this Easter Sunday and discover a powerful message of hope that breaks through darkness. Whether online or in-person, hear how love conquers despair and why the worst thing doesn’t have to be the last thing.

Join us each Sunday, 10AM at bendfp.org, or 11AM KTVZ-CW Channel 612/12 in Bend.  Subscribe/Follow, and click the bell for alerts.

At First Presbyterian, you will meet people at many different places theologically and spiritually. And we love it that way. We want to be a place where our diversity brings us together and where conversation takes us all deeper in our understanding of God.

We call this kind of faith “Spacious Christianity.” We don’t ask anyone to sign creeds or statements of belief. The life of faith is about a way of being in the world and a faith that shows itself in love.

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Keywords:

love, easter, jesus, tomb, hate, word, week, story, project, impossible, suffering, woman, life, reconciliation, dark, long awaited messiah, rwanda, empty tomb, perpetrators, man, presbyterian, church, online worship, bend, oregon

Featuring:

Rev. Dr. Steven Koski, Rev. Sharon Edwards, Becca Ellis, Brave of Heart, Guests

Transcript

Steven: 0:00

You welcome and Thanks for joining our Easter celebration at first, Presbyterian, you know, when faced with trying to describe a truth so profound it's actually hard to comprehend, I find it's best to turn to the simple so it's my tradition on Easter to turn to My favorite Easter book written by my favorite theologian, Dr Seuss, and it's called on beyond zebra. And it begins like this, said Conrad Cornelius O'Donnell O'Dell, my very young friend who was learning to spell, A is for ape, B is for Bear, C is for camel, H is for hair, onto Z is for zebra. I know them all well, said Conrad Cornelius or Donald O'Dell, from beginning to end, from the start to the close. I mean, everyone knows z is as far as the alphabet goes. Then he almost fell flat on his face on the floor when I picked up the chalk and drew one letter more, a letter he'd never dreamed of before. In the places I go and the people I see, I couldn't survive if I stopped at z so on beyond zebra, it's high time you were shown that maybe, just maybe, you don't know all there is to be no on Easter we celebrate, we celebrate that the worst things in life are never the last thing that love will always have the last word just when we think z is as far as the alphabet goes, God picks up the chart and draws one letter more, a letter we've never dreamed of before. I am so glad you've joined us, and I pray that we might open our hearts to the hope of one that or more, for ourselves and for our world as We celebrate Easter, Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Indeed.

Unknown: 5:49

Greetings, friends. My name is Sharon Edwards and I have just recently joined first Presbyterians pastoral team. Please join me in prayer. Risen One. On this day of mystery and surprise, we are reminded of how much we long for certainty, predictability and answers. When we become so certain of our own certainty, we fail to see that there is so much more than what we see when we find our strength only in answers and predictability, we fail to experience you in the beauty of The questions, and forget to open to your wisdom, source of love on this day, resurrect us from self interest that denies the value and needs of others. Lift our diminishing hope as we survey the world's pain, we lift up to you, those who are still weeping in the garden and who are still living in the pain of Good Friday, pour in us your gusto giving grace, so as We are filled with your transforming love, we may also pour out ourselves to this thirsty world, source of life. We thank you for sunrises and new flowers and the relationships that remind us of the rhythms of life and death that are held tenderly in your care. Raise us from our tombs of liturgy and apathy on this new day, breathe new life in us and in the earth that your vitality and creativity may continue to power our lives for the good of all source of hope, push back the stone of despair, restore our ancient union with you and all of life, refresh our moment by moment. Call to embrace your constant presence. May we seek you and see you an all enfolding and encompassing source of life and love and hope together, we say amen.

Steven: 8:52

This past week was called Holy Week, but if we jump straight from Palm Sunday to the joy of Easter, we miss how unholy the events around the last days of Jesus' 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 him out for a few pieces of silver, betrayed Him with a kiss. They rested 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 heal and and forgive. All he did was hang around with outcasts and people who lived on the margins and. All he did was tear down walls, build bridges, welcome everyone to eat with him at the table, especially those the religious leaders said were 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 him, mocked him, the ones who drove the nails into his hands, and inexplicably said, bother, forgive them. This man, Jesus, who many believe 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 intense grief, a week when violence and justice, suffering death claimed victory and broke the hearts and spirits of those who followed 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. Han la Motte wrote, 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 light could throw at us. 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, with so much suffering and trauma, so much bitterness and hate. You know, it was hard to imagine the cycle of revenge and retaliation 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 that. A different story than the one they were living was possible. They proposed a project of reconciliation, and the projects create. The project courageously stated that those imprisoned 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 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 win. 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 by 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. Easter is not about trying to explain the unexplainable. Easter is 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 that now these days, more than ever, you know, if we have faith that love has the last word, we'll 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 you. 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, we'll 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 tomb 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 it's Jesus. When he calls her by name, Jesus said to her, Mary, and 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 name, 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 in. And prove to this world that love will always have. The last word, may it be, so, Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Indeed. Friends on this Easter, may we bet our lives on one thing, love. Love is stronger than anything the world can throw against us. Go in the peace and the love of the risen Christ, and May the love that we bring to this world bring hope and peace to others. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Indeed Happy Easter. Friends, thanks for joining us, and I hope you enjoyed this Easter celebration. The mission of First Presbyterian is to live the spacious and radical love of Jesus so that all might have a chance to flourish in this world. We exist to serve Jesus by serving others being a presence of hope, healing and love, when and where it is needed the most. Your generous gifts help us prove to those trapped in tombs of despair and hopelessness that there is a love stronger than whatever it is they are facing. Your generous gifts help people believe a new story is possible for their lives. You can scan the QR code on your screen. You can give online@bandfp.org or simply send a check. There are so many in this world who are feeling defeated, you know, really believing that that z is as far as the alphabet goes. I invite you to imagine God has placed the chalk in your hand, and God is asking all of us, with our generosity, with our love, to write, to write one letter more, a letter the world right now has never dreamed of before, may we prove With our lives that love will always have the last word Happy Easter. You.