Have you ever gone to a movie where people did not leave at the end of the show? Where people sat in silence and thoughtful reflection as the credits rolled? One movie in which I and others in the theatre did not leave our seats was “Schindler’s List.” I hope you have seen it. If not, I urge you to view it.

The movie is based on the true story of a man whose life was changed. Oscar Schindler was not a saint; far from it. He was a corrupt businessman trying to make some quick and dishonest money during the Nazi period. He used Jewish slave labor to manufacture shoddy military supplies. But something happened to him. He saw a little Jewish girl being rounded up for the death camp. More and more he saw his Jewish workers as people, people of worth. So he concocted elaborate schemes to protect his workers and keep them from deportation and death. Once he saved his people at the very gates of Auschwitz.

Why did we sit in silence after the movie ended? Perhaps, it was because we were overcome by the awful power of evil in the death camps. Perhaps, it was because we were still trying to grasp the incredible power of goodness at work in Schindler’s life which was more powerful even than death. But for me there was one more dimension to my response. Through the lens of my Christian faith I believed that in this movie I was also witnessing the power of the One who raised Jesus from the dead. Even in the face of the horror of Nazi death camps, that power of life and love is set loose in this world where it can change the most unlikely people. It can also change you and me. That is why I sat in prayerful silence in the darkened theatre.

Is that too solemn and serious a beginning for an Easter message meant to celebrate the joy of the good news of Christ’s resurrection? If so, then perhaps we need to be brought down to earth by the wisdom proclaimed by that great American philosopher, Yogi Berra, who famously observed: “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” Of course, Yogi was talking about the eternal mystery of baseball which never is over until the last out of the last inning. In the course of his long and illustrious career, Yogi saw many games whose outcome was changed at the last minute in the most unlikely ways.

As in baseball, so in Easter. The Easter message is about an ending which isn’t final. The story of Jesus’ life, the story of human life, the story of your life and mine isn’t over ‘til it’s over. The implications of that Easter faith are simply staggering. If God, the Supreme Director of the universe, has the final say after the petty play of this life is over, then things are not always as they appear to be.

That is what those first followers of Jesus learned. As far as they were concerned, Good Friday marked the end of the story. Actually, many of them ran away before the story was over. Only a few of the women had the courage to stay in Jerusalem in order to perform the last sad duties of preparing Jesus’ body for final burial. The women had not the slightest doubt that the story was over. All that was left to do was pay a final farewell.

“Endings are important,” a funeral director told me years ago. He was right, of course. Too often our death-denying culture tries to keep us from the reality of death. But death is real for all of us. We lose people we love very much and our grief must be expressed. When we try to deny our grief and suppress our tears, we delay a necessary and normal process which someday we will have to accomplish with even greater difficulty. The women on that first Easter morning did what each of us should do when we lose someone we love: they wept as they walked to the tomb. Mary Magdelene and one of the other women named Mary were on their way to do what Emily Dickinson called the “solemnest of industries; the sweeping of the heart and putting love away…” For them the story was over.

But in the place of death, the women hear the astonishing announcement of life: “Don’t be afraid; I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised as he said.” In the place of death Easter shouts a new word altogether: Emmanuel, God is with us then, now and always. God is in Christ healing the world and bringing us to new life, joyful life, abundant life. God is found not above the world nor outside our experience, but in the midst of the life we live… God embraces us, loves us, and cherishes us, dwelling in our hearts and minds, in our questions and doubts, in our hopes and dreams, in our pain and sorrow, in our joys and victories.

In the eighth chapter of Romans, Paul struggles to find words to express this mystery. He comes to an astonishing conclusion: “All things – the good and the bad, the lovely and the ugly, the sweet and the bitter – all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to God’s purposes.” Susan Howatch in “Absolute Truths” has found another way to express Paul’s thought: “All things intermingle for good.” Like one of those kaleidoscopes we loved as children, all the pieces of our lives are there as well as all the pieces of our faith. In the end all these intermingle within a larger divine reality. Our lives contain beautiful patterns which God is always creating.

To believe in Easter is to stand bravely before the twin mysteries of the cross and the empty tomb, and to turn away from neither. Even the hardest life contains a basic goodness. Within the most searing pain there is a redemptive presence. Among the shattered fragments of our  dreams lie everything we need to start again. This is what it means to believe in Easter: to know that nothing is wasted, nothing is without significance, and nothing ever ceases to be precious. To believe in Easter means to love life with a desperate love and to know in spite of all evidence to the contrary that God will make everything come out right in the end.

The story is told that at the time Christians were being martyred in the amphitheater, a Roman Centurion with mocking voice said to one of the Christians waiting his turn to die, “Well, where is your carpenter now?” To which came the reply of Easter faith, “He’s gone to build a coffin for your emperor.”

In the end, all things work for good. Everything intermingles and comes together and it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed!

Thank God. Thank God. Amen.