Compact Florescent Light bulbs or CFLs have hit store shelves just about everywhere.  If you have not taken the plunge and bought a couple of these and given them a try you have certainly at least noticed them in the store intrigued by their curly shape.  These little wonders use 75-80% less electricity than their incandescent counterparts.  If you don’t relish the chore of changing light bulbs no worries these bulbs only need changing once about every ten years.  If every one of the 100,000,000 homes in America swapped out just one regular light bulb for a CFL the energy saved would eliminate the equivalent pollution of 1.3 million cars on the road, or save enough electricity to power a city of 1.5 million people or roughly the output of two power plants.  Consider also the fact that the average American home has between 50 and 100 light sockets in it.  Imagine the difference if every home changed out 10-20-30 or more regular bulbs for CFLs. 

While CFL sales are picking up pace they are not catching on nearly as fast as one would think given the benefits for consumers and for the environment.  The only reason for this I can figure is we are in a rut; we are content with the old light bulbs.  We understand them.  Over the past 100 years of using them we have grown quite accustomed to their appearance is seems rather natural to us, and now this new light comes along even for all its benefits it sure does looks funny.  Some CFLs take a couple seconds to warm up and we don’t have that kind of time to wait we want our light and we want it now.  This revolutionary thing has happened in our world that has the potential to save our planet, save us from all kinds of pollution and well we act as if it is not big deal. 

            In some ways I think Easter, the celebration of Jesus resurrection, impacts a lot of us about the same as the CFL.  God has done this amazing thing in raising Jesus from the dead.  Never before had the world seen anything like this.  Not only did God raise this Jesus but the Holy Spirit has let us in on a little secret that this resurrection is for all of us.  Through Jesus’ resurrection from death to life we are promised the same.  This is amazing good news but do we embrace it, do we make use of this good news in our daily living?  My guess is that for many of us we have become comfortable with the way things are, we like the world as it is, and as far as this resurrection thing goes it’s nice but we don’t pay it much attention; at least not 364 days out of the year. 

            Darkness hung over the events of Good Friday as Jesus was nailed to that cross and died.  It was still dark when Mary Magdalene first came to the tomb and saw the stone had been rolled away.  So she ran to tell Simon Peter and the beloved disciple what she had discovered.  Even as the two of them ran for the empty tomb they were still in the dark, they were puzzled about what it all meant.  They peered in and then went in the tomb and still it did not dawn on them that the Son had risen.  When they left Mary was alone still surrounded by the darkness of Good Friday now confounded and made even darker by not knowing what had happened to the body of her Lord.  That is until she was confronted by two angels who said “why are you weeping?”   “They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him.”  Still in the darkness of pain and grief she turned around and saw a man whom she supposed to be a gardener but finally her eyes were lifted from the darkness to behold the light of the risen Christ standing before her.  His body, which last she had seen lifeless, had been transformed, made alive; the Son had risen indeed.  Mary went and announced to the disciples “I have seen the Lord” which was indeed great news and needed to be shared.  The old way of life was over and a new way of life was begun for Jesus and for us all.  The light of Christ had not been permanently extinguished just transformed and this transformed light has the power to transform everything, transform you and me, and change everything. 

            In spite of this amazing good news we come to church on Easter Sunday not really expecting much at all.  Like consumers of light bulbs stuck in a rut we are comfortable with our traditional Easter packaging.  “Jesus is alive and went to heaven so we can go to heaven when we die.”  It’s the same thing we heard last year that’s great and then our thoughts can go back to the ham in the oven or grandma’s famous cheesy potato casserole, or the mountain of candy at home.  A Sunday School teacher asked her class to write one sentence each on “What Easter means to me?”  One little boy wrote “What Easter means to me is egg-salad sandwiches for the next two weeks.”  If the only difference Easter makes in our lives is egg-salad sandwiches for the next two weeks then we have missed the point, we have failed to see the light, and it is no wonder we don’t have much expectation surrounding this day. 

          God’s redeeming work set about with the resurrection of Christ on that first Easter morning is not simply about biding our time till we die so that we can go to heaven and be with Jesus.  No the world was way more transformed by the resurrection of Christ than that.  The good news of the risen Son, the light conquering the darkness is not only is Christ raised, not only are we assured that some day we will be raised with him, but already the transforming power of Christ is working within us so that we are empowered to begin living the resurrection life right now.  God has taken our very lives and made them new.  This resurrection light of Christ has a significant life changing, life altering impact on you and me.  In his book, Jesus Christ for Today’s World, Jurgen Moltmann pointed out that “Christ’s sufferings are not exclusive: they are not just his sufferings. They are inclusive — our sufferings too and the sufferings of the time in which we are living. His cross stands between our crosses, our brother’s cross, as a sign that God himself participates in our suffering and takes our pains on himself. The suffering Son of Man is so much one of us that the unnumbered and unnamed, tortured and forsaken human beings are his brothers and sisters.”  “No suffering can cut us off from this companionship of the God who suffers with us. The God of Jesus Christ is the God who is on the side of the victims and the sufferers, in solidarity with them.”           

          I don’t know about you but one of my least favorite things to do is to wait at the baggage carousel for my luggage to arrive.  I made the connection did my bag?  Will it arrive or not?  Will it be in one piece or not?  At the carousel you are hopeless you and you bags are at the mercy of a long chain of events that has already played out one way or another you just don’t yet know how.  Now let’s turn that idea around.  When Mary arrived at the tomb it was still dark she was in a hopeless situation.  Little did she know at that moment a chain of events had already played out and though she did not yet know it the Son of Righteousness had already risen.  It wasn’t dark it was light she just hadn’t seen the light.  So it is with our lives.  We go through various moments of life sometimes feeling as though we were in the dark sometimes feeling helpless but an event has already played out according to God’s plan whether or not you know it, whether or not you choose to live as if it were true, God has already claimed you and redeemed you, made you new, restored your relationship with God and there is nothing you can do to change it.  Jesus is risen indeed and we are raised with him.  This is earth shaking exceedingly good news.  We may choose to be excited about it and live into this new reality or we may choose to stay in our little rut and live as if nothing has changed, but either way our new reality is that we are claimed by Christ and raised with him.

              Easter morning is the reminder that we are made new, that this life altering, life changing thing we call the resurrection of Christ really did happen and the world will never be the same.  Therefore let us live as those who have been made new.  Not simply count the days till we are taken up into heaven, but actively live in the transforming light of Christ here and now with the power of God that energizes us afresh each day and each moment to live as Christ lives.  Easter is more than two weeks of egg-salad it is an ongoing reality that continues beyond the historical event. 

            Imagine the difference that could be made if everyone replaced even one regular light bulb with a CFL.  Imagine how different our world would be, how much better our lives would be.  Now imagine how different things would be if everyone not only believed but truly lived as though the resurrection was true as if it was more than two weeks of egg-salad.  Imagine how our homes, our workplaces, our very lives would be reshaped.  How many dark places in life would be lit with the light of love.  It may look a little different than the life you are used to but the benefits far out weigh the drawbacks. So let it be.  So let it be with me and with each of us.  Amen.