Easter Sunday NL3 John B. Valentine
Luke 24:1-12 April 20, 2025

“REALITY CHECK”

Good morning! .... Happy Easter! .... Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

Seriously folks ... I’m glad you’re here this morning!

• Be you a most-every-Sunday worship attender ...
• Or a first-time visitor ...
• Or an out-of-town guest ...
• Or maybe just someone who’s curious about “What’s the big deal about Easter?” ...

I’m glad you’re here!

Because today is the day we celebrate that event which forever changed human history ... and I’m not just talking about “other human’s” history ... I’m talking your history ... and mine!

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Actually ... I thought that ... this morning ... in honor of it being Easter Sunday and all ... I‘d swap out the usual sermon for a bit of pastoral “show and tell”.

And so ... since it’s my turn for “show and tell” ... I brought my requisite ‘trinket from home’ ... right here.

You see ... a number of years ago now ... I was gifted with this object ... this curiosity ... this piece of art ... as it were.

Actually ... though I know that most of you can’t see it ... this is a map... a map of the world.

Now granted .. . this map isn’t any too big ...

It’s got the whole world .... ALL on a single page.

• It’s not the sort of map that I could effectively use for a large-group presentation ...
• It’s not particularly colorful ...
• It certainly isn’t interactive ... like the maps you can access on your phone nowadays ...

But ... back in the day ... this map was state of the art!

You see ... believe it or not ... this map was published more than four hundred years ago ... in the year 1600 ... in the city of Amsterdam ... by a cartographer named Matthias Quad.

That means it’s OLD ... really old.

And its age makes it fairly “rare” ... as maps of the world go.

But what ... to me ... make this map “Show and Tell”able ... is that it is wrong.

If you were to look closely at it ... and study it for a bit ... you’d start to notice some things.

It’s depictions of Europe and Africa and Asia are all pretty much good to go ... but:

• According to this map ... Australia is connected to Antarctica ... and

• According to this map ... South America is shaped pretty much like a circle ... and

• According to this map ... the place wherein we live ... the West Coast of North America ... is pretty much just a guess ... and

• If you look really closely ... out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean is an island called St. Brendan’s Island ... a place that doesn’t actually exist.

Now ... if you were to use this map to navigate your way around the world ... parts of it would make perfect sense.

But ... in some other ways you’d be in a whole lot of trouble ... because this map is utterly in error.

And ... were you to follow its guidance in undertaking certain adventures ... you might find yourself hopelessly lost ... or maybe even dead!

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Now the reason I brought this map to “Show and Tell” today is to remind you that you brought a map to worship this morning too.

No ... don’t go rummaging through your purse or your pockets ... that’s not the kind of map I’m talking about.

No ... the kind of map I’ve got in mind is the kind of map that is in your mind ... your “mental map” ... your “cosmology”... your way of looking at the world ... your grand map of reality ... as it were.

Your way of looking at things ...

• That sets out your presuppositions ...
• That defines your expectations ...
• That tells you what is ... and what isn’t ... real ...
• That tells you what is possible ... and what’s believable ...
• And that tells you what is beyond the realms of possibility and believability.

What reality map DID you bring with you this morning?

Specifically I want to know:

∙ What does your reality map say about yesterday?
Is there forgiveness for yesterday ... or does the weight of the past simply add to the burdens of today?

∙ What does your reality map say about today?
Does what you do and how you live today make any difference at all in this world in which we live?

∙ And what does your reality map say about tomorrow?
Is there hope for tomorrow ... or ... as Eric Hoeffer once conjectured ... is life really “just a short bus ride to death ... and all of our fussing and feuding just arguing about our seats on the bus?”

WHAT DOES YOUR “REALITY MAP” LOOK LIKE?

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You know ... every time I read or hear or ponder Luke’s account of the Easter story ... it gets me to thinking about the “reality map” that Jesus’ friends were operating with on that first Easter morning.

They’d spent the past two or three years of their lives ... learning from Jesus about a different kind of “reality map” from the one that they’d grown up with.

You see ...

The map they’d all grown up with insisted that might makes right ... that the powerful take what they want ... that the first are first and the last are ... last.

But Jesus showed them this map that was radically different ... a map whereon the last become the first ... the lost become found ... and the least become the greatest.

But then Jesus died ........ and the past three years of their lives ... and ‘reality map’ which he’d shared with them got thrown in the trash ... tossed in the grave right along with him!

And there was nothing left for them to do but go back to their fishing nets ... back to their tax tables ... back to their kitchens ... and try to forget.

You see ...

∙ He’d spoke of abundant life ... but now he was abundantly DEAD!

∙ He’d promised a new kingdom ... but kings don’t get killed next to criminals!

∙ He’d spoke of God as being as personal and present as his Father ... but precisely when he needed God most ... God disappeared!

Now Jesus was dead ... and everything he’d stood for and hoped for was dead right along with him..... OR WAS IT?

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You see ... “Early on the first day of the week ... while it was still dark ... this group of women ... Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James ... came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed ... that the grave was empty ... and that ... Jesus was risen from the dead!”

• According to these women’s reality maps ... and most of our own reality maps for that matter ... the only reason graves go from “full” to “empty” is because somebody takes away the body.

• According to their reality maps ... “Dead was dead” ... People don’t “rise from the dead!” ... “Life ends at the grave.”

But based on what they saw and they heard and they experienced there that morning ... THEIR OLD REALITY MAPS JUST DIDN’T WORK ANY MORE.

They just didn’t allow for something that they now knew to be true!

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Funny thing about reality maps ...

Once they’re shattered ... you can never put them back the way they were.

Once a stone gets rolled away ... the world can never go back to just the way it was.

∙ At one time people thought the world was flat ...

But then Columbus went sailing ... and a stone was rolled away ... and our understanding of the shape of the world was forever changed.

∙ At one time people thought the world was the center of the universe ...

But then Galileo went and built a telescope ... and a stone was rolled away ... and our understanding of our planet in the grand scheme of things was forever changed.

∙ Heck ... there was a time when people in THIS country thought that the Constitution and the Courts could rein in any Administration with authoritarian leanings ...

But that stone got rolled away a couple of months ago and our nation is literally in uncharted territory ... with a whole lot of folks saying that they feel ‘disoriented’ by it all.

In a similar way ... there was a time when people thought death was the end ... that what you see is all you get ...

But then Mary went to the tomb ... and a stone was rolled away ... and Mary discovered that that reality map that she’d learned of from Jesus ...

That map that Jesus had shown them ...

That map whereon the last become the first ... and the lost become found ... and the least become the greatest ....... and the dead became alive .......

That map that had been tossed in the grave on Friday ...

It jibed with a truth that Mary and Joanna and Mary Magdalene now knew with all their hearts!

You see ...

Once that stone was rolled away ... DEATH WASN’T ... AND ISN’T ... THE END ANY MORE.

Once that stone was rolled away ... MEANING DIDN’T ... AND DOESN’T ... END AT THE GRAVE ANY MORE.

Once that stone was rolled away ... TOMORROW ... AND TODAY AND YESTERDAY ... TOOK ON .... AND TAKE ON ... A WHOLE DIFFERENT MEANING.

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Remember how I told you that the wrong reality map can kill you ... but the right one can set you free?

I got to thinking this week about some of the folks I’ve gotten to know over the years who have had their reality maps radically redrawn.

• I was reminded of a woman who was once told by her doctor that she probably didn’t have but a couple of months to live ... but who worshipped faithfully among us for more than a dozen years after that.

• I pictured a fellow who was homeless and friendless and pretty much hopeless ... who knocked on a church door and found himself a family and a support system and a place to call home.

• I think about a couple whose reality map said that their relationship was over and that their marriage was “irreconcilable”... whose reality map was redrawn by a God who said “There’s hope for you ... and you together as a couple ... yet.”

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Easter means you’d better check your reality map ...folks.

∙ If it doesn’t account for a God who can raise people from the dead ...

∙ If it doesn’t allow the possibility that the Creator of the Universe actually cares about you ....

∙ If it doesn’t permit forgiveness for yesterday ... and hope for tomorrow ...

Maybe it’s time that you get a new map!