Easter Sermons
Survey of Easter Sermons
The Easter season is a perennial challenge for religious liberals. If the idea of a literal resurrection doesn’t make any sense to us, and we’re not eager to celebrate the politically motivated execution of innovative spiritual teachers, what are we to do with this holiday? There is always the temptation of what my colleague Paul Carnes once called the “upsy daisy theology” of springtime, affirming the comfort of longer, warmer days, and the general cuteness of things. But this ignores the reality of both human suffering and the moral ambiguity of the natural world. I find this annual paradox always provocative, leading to a deeper exploration of both the religious narratives of our culture, and the sometimes difficult realities of what the earth is up to during this phase of its cycle.
Listed below are some of the sermons in which I have wrestled with this conundrum over the years. The reader who seeks a resolution to it will be disappointed, but if your goal is a more profound sense of wonder, and reverence for life as it is actually given rather than as we would wish it, I welcome you as a companion on the vernal journey. Kendyl Gibbons
