Easter: Turning Points

Easter Sunday, April 12, 2009
“Easter: Turning Points”
Mark 16:1-8, 9-12

One day a chicken was eating its lunch under
a tree and an acorn fell on its head. The
chicken concludes, “The sky is falling.” She
decides to tell the king. On the way the chicken
meets other animals and they all join in the hysteria:
“The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”
Kinda describes our time, doesn’t it?

This world is a mess.
This world is filled with goodness.
This world is falling apart at its seams.
This world is in the hands of God, it cannot fail.
The earth is a sentient earth, it will somehow
correct itself.
So which is it?

It just depends where you stand.
It just depends on how you look at things.
Let me give you an example.
There was this wife who always tried her best
to give her husband a good welcome after he
came home after a hard day at the office. She
also gave her time to her five children. One day,
however, things didn’t go so well. When her husband came
home, she said, “Guess what dear? Of our five
children, four of them didn’t break an arm today.”

If something goes wrong, it is our job to find a way
to fix it. One week before Easter, our church
had painted the children’s chairs in the classroom.
On Easter morning, after the church service, I found
out that one of the girls came to church in her new
Easter dress and sat on the newly painted chair. She
got paint on her dress and her mother was not happy,
no, not all. Guess where I went that afternoon? To
visit that mother. After that visit, things were okay.
Thanks be to God.

There are a lot of things wrong with this world.
But…look at it this way. There are a lot of things
right with this world. This is the Easter story.

Jesus chose just twelve guys, a motley crew—fishermen, 2
a tax collector, a zealot, a doubter, two ambitious
brothers, and one with no deceit. Let me turn to
Matthew chapter 10, verses 1-4.

These are the names of the twelve apostles: first
Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew;
James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John;
Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the
tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus;
Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.

With only twelve disciples, Jesus laid the foundation to
change the world. That was 2,000 years ago. This tells me
that God is a patient God. God’s plan is to save every soul
and change every heart. And there are 7 billion of us and more
to come. How do we change the world? One soul at a time.

According to Mark, Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of
James, and Salome went at early dawn to anoint the body
of Jesus with their spices. While the women were walking
to the tomb, they were saying to each other, “Who will roll away
the stone for us? When they arrived at the tomb, they were amazed.
The stone had been rolled away. When the entered the tomb, they
met a young man sitting at the right side and they were afraid..
The young man said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are
looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, he is
not here. He is risen!” That is the good news of Easter. Jesus
is now alive. The women were told, tells the disciples that
that they will see him in Galilee.

For the women and the disciples, this was a Turning Point.

How do we change the world? One soul at a time.

Dr. Paul Gentuso was a brilliant student in medical school.
He believed in evolution more than he did in God.
In fact, he doubted the existence of God. When he
was studying the anatomy of the hand, he first removed
the skin, he isolated the tendons and muscles and he
worked his way to the bones. The tendons were
aligned in tendon sheaths, like lubricating pulleys,
allowing the hand to work in a tireless, effortless
fashion. The hand was perfectly designed to carry out the
work it was called to do from lifting a small object
or lugging a tree trunk.

3


This experience was the turning point for Paul Gentuso. Each
tendon was perfectly aligned along the axis of each
finger and each finger moved in coordinated fashion
when tugged by individual tendons. Gentuso says,
“It became obvious to me that there was a Creator who
had intelligently designed and created the human hand.”
This was the first time in his adult life he could say
he believed in a Creator Dr. Paul Gentuso became a
Christian and a missionary physican in Cote d Ivoire,
Africa, formerly Ivory Coast, and a resident doctor in
Nashville, Tennessee.

Is Herb Specker here? Herb will you stand for a moment
please?
Over a year ago, around November, Herb was a very
sick man. It looked like we were going to loose him.
I got word that he was giving up. I shared with the
Administrative Board that no one in our church should
feel that way. We prayed for him and we decided to
help him hold the line. We surrounded him with our love.
Herb has a strong will and he didn’t give up. He got
better. In January 2008, he came to church and he said
to me, “I plan to make it through the year.” This is an
Easter story. This is April 12, 2009. Hallelujah!

Today in this world, there is a lot of waste:
The waste of time, the waste of value,
and the waste of materials, and the waste of spirit.

The Easter message is clear.
Life is a precious gift.
All the suffering, all the imperfections, and all
the wrongs were taken to the grave. Everything is made New!
So think about your life.








The Dash by Linda Ellis, 1996 4

I read of a reverend who stood to speak
at a funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
from the beginning…to the end.

He noted that first came the date of her birth
and spoke of the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
that she spent alive on earth
and now only those who loved her
know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we can own,
the cars…the house…the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard,
are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left
that can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough
to consider what’s true and real
and always try to understand
the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger
and show appreciation more
and love the people in our lives
like we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect
and more often wear a smile
remembering that this special dash
might only last a little while.

So when our eulogy is being read
with your life’s actions to rehash,
would you be proud of the things they say
about how you spent your dash?