Imagine with me a young boy spending the summer on his grandfather’s farm. He has chores to do, but as soon as they are done he loves to roam in the woods and hills nearby. He spots an eagle soaring in the sky, follows it to its nest on the edge of a cliff and sees its mate sitting on the nest. And it’s the highlight of his day to watch the eagle soaring. He hoped the egg would hatch in time for him to see the baby before he has to go back to the city.
One day he finds the eagle dead on the ground, shot by a foolish hunter. It breaks his heart. He goes to the cliff where the nest was, and it’s empty. He waits for the mate to return, but something has happened and she doesn’t return.
He climbs up to the nest and finds a single, large, eagle egg. Very carefully he takes it down. He has no idea how to care for it, so he carries it very carefully to his grandfather’s hen house and quietly slips it into one of the nests beside the chicken eggs. The hen just accepts it as her own, even though it is quite a bit larger.
The boy had to return to school before it hatched, but the old hen did her job and hatch it did. And so the great eagle was born into a chicken coop and didn’t know who it really was.
It was hard for an eagle to live like a chicken. The chickens had beaks that worked great for pecking bits of grain off of the ground or out of a feed tray. But his big eagle’s beak, with the upper part curling over the bottom part, just couldn’t pick up single grains very well.
The chickens, on their long, skinny legs, could chase a grasshopper across the yard and catch it for a tasty meal. But the eagle’s legs were short and it couldn’t keep up. And it didn’t really like grasshoppers anyway, or the grain that the chickens liked so much, either.
Before long he was getting too big for the door in and out of the hen house and too big for the nesting boxes. And life was miserable.
But one day a great eagle spotted him from high in the sky. It came down and perched on a tree top nearby and called out to him. The sound of the eagle’s cry struck something in his heart. But it took him a while to figure out where it came from because all his focus had been on the ground before. Chickens don’t look up.
The visiting eagle swooped lower, perched on the fence and called out again. Then it even landed on the ground right in front of the first eagle. The real chickens scattered in fear, but our eagle’s head was spinning to see this great bird that was so different, yet so much like him. The visiting eagle squawked again and took off. And without even thinking our eagle flapped its wings and entered into a whole new dimension of life. Soon it was soaring in the sky. Soon it was catching fish in the river. His beak was just right for tearing the fish into pieces, the fish tasted so good to him and his wings were perfect for soaring. And soon he was building a nest high in a tree that was the right size for him. This was where he belonged. He had come home.
And I announce to you that nobody in this room has to live like a chicken anymore. Our horizons can be much broader than the limits of the chicken yard. We were created to soar to the heights. And Jesus Christ came down into our narrow, unfulfilling world and raised us up with him to new life.
Our scripture for this Easter comes from the letter of the Apostle Paul to the church in Ephesus, Ephesians 2:1-7.
1 You were dead through the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. 3 All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us 5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-- by grace you have been saved-- 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Verses 5 and 6 of our text list three things that the resurrection of Christ means for us today. He made us alive together with Christ. Can you repeat that after me? He made us alive together with Christ. He raised us up with him. (repeat) He seated us with him in the heavenly places. (repeat) What in the world do those mean?
First, he made us alive together with Christ. Think about it for a few minutes and every one of us can recognize the deadness of this world. The deadening low self image that we carry for the times we have done wrong and known it. The deadening, frustrating distance between us and God. The fears inside us that block us from really reaching out as we would like. The battles we face to discipline ourselves to make time to spend with God so that we can really walk in love.
The risen Jesus is here to bring spiritual life today in this room. In his death and resurrection he has set it up that our sins can be forgiven and their weight taken off of our shoulders. He has modeled for us what we can be like, a high and noble calling as servant of all. He has bridged the gap between us and God by coming into this world and leaving his Spirit here to come right into our hearts, closer than any mere human can come. If we will respond to his invitation and accept the gift that he offers, he will take us from a living death to real life.
There is a lot of talk in recent years about a kind of spirituality without Christ. “I can be spiritual without any particular idea about God.” But I don’t know how you can be truly spiritual without opening your heart to the ultimate Spirit, the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ. And I know it just isn’t in me to cut through the deadness in my own soul and the confusion of the world around me alone. Jesus Christ has been to heaven and back. Jesus Christ makes us whole. Why try to do it on your own?
When we lived on the edge of Chicago we got an I-Pass transponders for when we travel on the toll roads. Mostly they stay asleep on your windshield, but when you come to the toll booth, they hear a beep that calls them to wake up and send out the code that identifies your account.
We can go through weeks, months, perhaps our whole lives without ever waking up, without ever looking up, to God, blind to the wonder of the amazingly beautiful creation all around us.
The risen Christ calls to our hearts. Wake up! Meet your destiny. Know who I created you to be. But his message is much more than a beep. It calls out to us everywhere, not just at toll booths. His message is that he died for us and rose again. If we have any life in us at all, that should stir us deeply to respond. Jesus made us alive with him. Say it with me. Jesus made us alive with him.
Just as that poor eagle rose to a new life, Jesus wants to raise us to a higher dimension of life. When the eagle though he was a chicken, he lived a two dimensional life, flat on the ground. But the wild eagle taught him to think three-dimensionally, to see all of space above and the possibilities of flying, of perching safely high in a tree, of being able to hunt from high in the sky and then swoop down on prey.
We can find ourselves all caught up in the daily grind, focusing on little more than feeding ourselves, providing for ourselves, making ourselves comfortable. And all that has an important place, but that’s a very flat, one-dimensional life. How long has it been since you had a real encounter with God, where your heart was stretched, your hope replenished, your drive to live a holy life was empowered?
Jesus lifts us up to a life of love and service. He wants us to know the thrill of speaking to our creator God and hearing his voice in return. He wants us to know the satisfaction of serving others. He wants us to be filled with a passion for the work of God. That’s who we are. That’s what we are designed to do. It is in Christ that we find our destiny.
Jesus taught us the paradox that those who struggle to find their own lives by self centeredness will lose them. (Matthew 10:39) And those who will lose themselves in service to God and his creation are the ones who will really find themselves. The resurrected Jesus is here to lift us up from being self-centered, earth bound drudges to a life of passion and joy in love and service.
The risen Christ is here to make us alive, too, to raise us up, and thirdly, to seat us with him in the heavenly places.
That third one can be more than a little strange sounding to our culture. But I think we can understand it with a little background. In his letter to the Ephesian church, Paul assumes that they understand that there are very nasty forces out there in the world, forces that cause division between races, forces that cause division between social classes, forces that can make it hard to maintain faith in God, forces that degrade our souls, forces that destroy marriages and family life, forces that take God’s wonderful, beautiful plan for men and women to live together and demean and corrupt it. Ancient people believed that there were forces like that. Can modern people believe such things, too? Just watch TV for one evening, scan the tabloids at the grocery store checkout, read your newspaper.
Paul called these forces ‘principalities and powers.’ He didn’t define them precisely, but I think we all recognize that there is something out there and we would all struggle to try to define it. And many of us feel hopeless before it.
On the cross Jesus defeated the principalities and powers. He gave himself into their hands. They did their worst to him. But he defeated them and rose again in glory.
But Paul gives glory to Jesus Christ because he lifts us above the evils of this world and seats us with him on his throne in heaven. This isn’t space travel. This is the gift of authority to make a difference in this world, to overcome evil. He gives us the gifts of prayer, a call to service, a deep understanding of the dynamics of sin and salvation, the power of love
No servant of the God who created heaven and earth should feel weak or hopeless. There may be some here today who feel like you have been living the life of a chicken, with eyes focused down on the earth, with horizons as narrow as a chicken yard.
Read the stories of what happened when Jesus walked this earth. It was very important to the writers of the four gospels that the whole world learns what Jesus did. Let those stories stir your heart and lift you to see who you were created to be.
Dare to talk with him. Today, while your heart is stirred, tell him all your longings. Putting them into words helps you keep those longings and dreams focused in your mind.
Join us for worship every Sunday. Get into a class and use your class sessions to learn how to soar with Jesus. He is risen. He has made us alive together with Christ. He has raised us up with him. He has seated us with him in the heavenly places. All glory be to Christ, our risen savior, now and forever. AMEN
