After a long winter’s fast, how can we help but say that word again.  For Christ is risen and new life floods our souls as it floods this very space.  The new altar hangings shout out their Alleluias with vibrant colors and shapes.  The flowers shout out their Alleluias.  The banners, the glistening silver, the glowing light through the stained glass windows – all proclaim Easter life and joy.  And if such inanimate objects as these are alive with alleluias this morning, how can we be any less? 

The recent movie, Night at the Museum, is a parable for new life that is reflected even by inanimate things.  It is a parable for the life we know because of Easter.   It may seem like a strange movie to cite in an Easter sermon, but stick with me and we’ll see where it leads.

The main character in the movie is a man named Larry, whom most people think of as a loser.  He gets a job as the night watchman at the Museum of Natural History in New York.  During his first night on the job, bizarre things begin to happen.  Larry nods off for a moment and when he wakes up, the platform for the tyrannosaurus rex skeleton is strangely empty.  Soon the skeleton is chasing him through the halls, great jaw snapping.  In the hall of African mammals, stuffed lions prowl and roar.  Neanderthal manikins walk about in confusion, trying to make fire with sticks and stones.  In the diorama room, tiny cowboys and tiny Roman soldiers go about their work.  Even stone statues move and speak, which would make our own Stuart very happy.  All of the objects in the museum come to life at night when no one is there to see them.

Because of Easter, we celebrate life in the nighttime of death.  Though we can’t see our loved ones who have died, though we can’t see that great company of saints who have passed on before us, yet we know that they live.  Because when God raised Christ to new life, Christ broke the gates of death once and for all.   As he rose, it’s as if he tore those gates right off their hinges.  Death could not hold the living Christ.  And, because of the power of God’s great love, death cannot hold those whom Christ loves, either.  The living Christ invites everyone, everyone, into that that heavenly realm where there is no crying, no pain, but fullness of life, fullness of growth, fullness of joy with God forever.  Even in what we experience as the dark nighttime of death, there is light and life in Christ.

Night at the museum was not like that heaven, though – not at first, anyway.  The tiny Mayans in the diorama room attack Larry with their poison arrows.  A monkey wreaks havoc.  The tiny Romans and tiny cowboys argue and bicker.  Larry lets them run free if they promise not to fight, but the next time he enters the room they are at full scale war with each other.  “Why?” Larry asks.  “Why are you fighting when I gave you your freedom.”  “We’re guys,” they answer.  “It’s what we do!”

It’s what we humans do.  It’s the whole story of our relationship with God, told in Holy Scripture.  God creates the world, creates humanity, and gives humanity our freedom.  God asks that we love God and love one another, but gives us free will.  And we use that freedom to war against one another and against God.  We use the freedom God has given us to struggle for power and to compete for what, if it weren’t for our selfishness, would be ample natural resources.  God sends prophets and teachers to show us how to live.  We follow them for a while, then turn back to our foolish ways.  Finally, God sends the Messiah, the Christ.  This Christ teaches a message of non-violent rejection of the power-hungry ways of people, and he lives his message out in his life.  He chooses even to die rather than fight violence with violence.  He breaks the cycle of violence, saying in his acceptance of the cross, “The violence stops with me.  I will not participate in it.”  He even forgives those who kill him.  “We’re guys, it’s what we do.”  We’re human beings, it’s what we do.  But in his death and resurrection, Jesus shows us another way, a costly way of radical obedience to God, of resisting violence and choosing life instead.

The figures who come to life every night at the museum soon learn how to choose life.  One of them is a life-size figure of Teddy Roosevelt.  When Larry encounters a significant problem in the museum, he goes to Teddy and asks him to assume leadership.  “You built the Panama Canal,” he says.  “You were the 26th president of the United States,” he argues.  Surely you know how to solve problems, he implies.  “No,” the living figure answers.  “Teddy Roosevelt did those things.  I’m just wax.  I was made at a manikin factory in Poughkeepsie. I don’t even have the courage to talk to that beautiful woman,” (referring to the manikin of Sacagawea.) 

Sometimes in our lives it’s as if we’re made of wax.  Sometimes we are powerless and feel vulnerable and have no courage at all within us.  Grief will do that to us.  Pain and physical illness will, too.  Sometimes it’s easy for us to understand the words of the Psalmist who said, “My heart is like melting wax within me.”

The risen Christ gives us new life in the midst of those circumstances. Christ turns our hearts of wax into living hearts of love.   Because the wonder and fullness of eternal life doesn’t begin when we die – it begins right here and right now.  It begins when we discover the presence of Christ in our midst, when we choose to live as he lived, when we strive to follow in the way he leads.

The living Christ is present in the midst of our grief and pain and suffering, offering us the priceless gifts of healing, strength and courage.  Christ didn’t promise to take away our pain.  He didn’t promise that if we live in him we would never hurt again.  In fact, he said that if we follow him we will know suffering as he did, for a student is not above the teacher. But Christ promised to be with us in our suffering and pain.  Christ promised to be there in our hurt and grief and emptiness.  He promised to help us embrace and befriend our pain in order to make us whole.  Its like the little girl who was asked what she would do if she saw a monster.  Her parents thought she would say she’d scream and run away.  But she said, “If I saw a monster, I would make friends with it; ‘cause if it had a friend, it might not want to be a scary monster anymore.”  The risen Christ heals our pain, our emptiness, our brokenness – and what won’t be healed he teaches us to befriend so that it is not a scary monster anymore. 

Ultimately, that’s what happens at the museum.  Through a series of trials, the characters grow in strength and courage – the human characters and the wax ones, too.  By day the museum displays are still and lifeless, but by night they join in one big party in the museum rotunda, a party at which the monsters are no longer monstrous.  All the living join in one great celebration, like the heavenly banquet that we will one day know, and which we already taste in the Eucharist or whenever we share in community with others.

Night at the Museum may seem like a strange place to find a reflection of resurrection life.  But Christ is alive, and because he lives, we can finds hints and signs and reminders of life in him everywhere we turn.  So look for Christ every day, everywhere.  Seek life in Christ and you will find it.  For Christ is alive and lives forever.  And in him we live, too – not only after we die, but right here and right now, right in the middle of all the muss and mess of this world.  God loves us that much.  So how can we keep from shouting, “Alleluia.  Alleluia.  Alleluia” 

        Amen.

Acts 10:34-43

Then Peter began to speak to them: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ--he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."

Isaiah 51:9-11

Awake, awake, put on strength,

O arm of the LORD!

Awake, as in days of old,

the generations of long ago!

Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces,

who pierced the dragon?

Was it not you who dried up the sea,

the waters of the great deep;

who made the depths of the sea a way

for the redeemed to cross over?

So the ransomed of the LORD shall return,

and come to Zion with singing;

everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;

they shall obtain joy and gladness,

and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Psalm 118:14-29 or 118:14-17, 22-24 Page 761, BCP

Confitemini Domino

14

The LORD is my strength and my song, *
and he has become my salvation.

15

There is a sound of exultation and victory *
in the tents of the righteous:

16

"The right hand of the LORD has triumphed! *
the right hand of the LORD is exalted!
the right hand of the LORD has triumphed!"

17

I shall not die, but live, *
and declare the works of the LORD.

18

The LORD has punished me sorely, *
but he did not hand me over to death.

19

Open for me the gates of righteousness; *
I will enter them;
I will offer thanks to the LORD.

20

"This is the gate of the LORD; *
he who is righteous may enter."

21

I will give thanks to you, for you answered me *
and have become my salvation.

22

The same stone which the builders rejected *
has become the chief cornerstone.

23

This is the LORD'S doing, *
and it is marvelous in our eyes.

24

On this day the LORD has acted; *
we will rejoice and be glad in it.

25

Hosannah, LORD, hosannah! *
LORD, send us now success.

26

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; *
we bless you from the house of the LORD.

27

God is the LORD; he has shined upon us; *
form a procession with branches up to the horns of the altar.

28

"You are my God, and I will thank you; *
you are my God, and I will exalt you."

29

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; *
his mercy endures for ever.

Colossians 3:1-4

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

Luke 24:1-10

On the first day of the week, at early dawn, the women who had come with Jesus from Galilee came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again." Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles.