Latest / St. Paul Podcast / Easter Sunday, 4.5.2026

Transcript

Easter Sunday, 4.5.2026 · St. Paul Podcast

0:06
SPEAKER_00: Hi everyone and welcome to the St.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: Paul Podcast.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: My name is Mark Needhammer, senior pastor at St.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: Paul Lutheran Church, located in Davenport, Iowa, part of the Greater Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Right here, each week, you will find beautiful music and a message of hope and good news to guide your life.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: I am hopeful that this podcast can inspire you and help you on your journey of faith as you grow in love and trust in our God.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: In worship we had an amazing celebration, a wonderful brass ensemble, the choirs, both the chorale and the youth choir, sang beautifully.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: Kites were flying, the place was brimming with joy and delight.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: It was a magnificent day.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: And, of course, we got to hear again a very familiar story Jesus rising from the dead, leaving a tomb empty.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: If you've been in a church at all in your life, you may know this story fairly well.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: This year we heard it from Matthew's gospel, which has a few unique details.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: But that's the challenge.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: Many of us know the story well.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: We don't hear what makes each account unique.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: So take a listen to what Matthew had to say about the Easter story and see what you notice.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: And suddenly there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descending from heaven came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: But the angel said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who is crucified.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Come and see the place where he lay.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: Then go quickly and tell his disciples, he has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: There you will see him.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: This is my message for you.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: So they left the tomb quickly, with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: Suddenly Jesus met them and said, Greetings.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: And they came to him and took hold of his feet and worshipped him.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: Go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: There they will see me.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: I love that the joy of Easter, both the risen Jesus as well as the promise that he will be with all of us, happen in locations other than at that tomb.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: The tomb was just there pointing to something more, something in the future.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: So here's my sermon this year on nostalgia and the invitation to walk into God's future.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: It is a beautiful day to be together, isn't it?
7:19
SPEAKER_00: Not just the slightly cool but wonderful weather outside, but that we're all here.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: I know I say this a lot, but our being together in this building, doing these things that we're doing is kind of the dream for what our community and our communities could look like.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: All of us, diverse in many ways, together in one building, taking intentional time to sing and pray, to give thanks to God, to remember that we're not in control of much, if anything, in our lives.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: We're here to listen to the word of God and hear forgiveness.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: It's just a joy to celebrate this day, the resurrection of our Jesus, of our Lord Jesus, together.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: I want to start this sermon time by showing you a few pictures.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: Let's call it a trip down memory lane.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: And as they come up, I would ask you to think about how any of these pictures, we're gonna see quite a few, how any of them make you feel, if you have any sort of response to them.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: So, Todd, if we could put that first one up there.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: They're a little I hear some laughing already, that's good.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: That top right, that typewriter.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: If there's ever been a picture you can hear, that's it.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so we're going moving ahead a generation.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: Be kind, rewind at the top.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, on the bottom picture, these guys are wearing suits and not flannel shirts.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: That's another thing.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: Uh Todd, if we could go to the next one.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: That dog and duck hunt.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: I didn't like that dog.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: In sync.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: I thought about doing the in-sync bye-bye-bye dance.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: You don't know, but nobody needs to see that.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: And one more.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: Who lives in a pineapple?
9:13
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not gonna sing that either.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna go there.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: All right, thank you, Todd.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: Hearing some laughing and some chatter as those come up, I'm guessing that some or many, a few of those images made you feel something.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: They made you smile as you remembered those things, whether it be the Beatles on late-night TV or Subway Surfer, whatever that is.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm aging myself a little bit here.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if these throwbacks made you feel that little twinge of happiness from another time.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: For many people, nostalgia is an incredibly powerful force.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Seeing these pictures, some of you probably didn't just remember those things, you were probably transported to another time, to a room you haven't been in in a while, to a younger and different version of yourself.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: That's the power that these core kinds of memories have over us.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: I remember so fondly those days in elementary school where I would get off the bus at home after a long day of playing the organ trail on the computer and dying of dysentery.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: I'd get to my house and I'd be the only one there.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: Both my parents worked.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: So I'd go inside, and I knew I had a couple hours before my parents got home, so I'd beeline it to the pantry.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: And I would get either, or so I would tell my parents, a Pop Tart, not the frosted kind though.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm not an animal.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: I'd get a normal Pop Tart.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: I'd get one of those handy snack things with the red fake cheese spreader on it.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: I'd go into the kitchen and I'd make some chocolate milk with that metal can of Nesquick, the kind you have to put the spoon under and lever it up.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: But you'd try to mix it up and it never mixed.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm seeing some nodding too.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: It left that chocolate sludge on the bottom, which was the best part, so you just chug it for the sludge.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: Snacks in hand.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: I know that by the time all of that is ready, I could go into the TV room and ducktails would be starting right at that time.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: I hope you all are gonna sing Jesus Christ who's risen today after church, but now you'll probably sing DuckTales.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: At least you elder millennials and younger Gen Xers might uh have related to some of those things.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: I think nostalgia is powerful because it takes all of us into a time where things were more simple.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's because it's a time that we all felt somewhat safe, where our lives were often easier.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: And remembering times like that are really fun.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: They remind us when we felt alive, really alive.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: Or do they?
12:08
SPEAKER_00: There are at least two problems with this sort of nostalgia, though.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: At least two, probably a few.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: Those nostalgic moments really were never of a simpler time.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: It was a different time, with different issues that we probably weren't aware of, different complexities.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: I never questioned why both my parents had to work.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: Was it medical bills or ridiculous mortgage interest rates?
12:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: I was blissfully unaware.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: The other problem is that as much as me we may want to, we can't live in those memories.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: Which means we may find ourselves unable to see the new life and the new ways that God is bringing grace into today.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: Nostalgia is great until the song ends or the show goes to credits, and most profoundly when we realize that that version of yourself doesn't exist anymore, even if many of us try to keep going back there.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: These memories of another time are magnetical.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: That's why we listen to the same music day in and day out.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: That's why we turn on friends every night to on repeat.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: That's why we watch the same things day after day.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: That's why we tell the same stories when we're with our coffee group or get our large families back together.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: That's why everyone knows that your team would have won state if Coach would have just put you in the game.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: So we try to keep the past alive because that's where we feel the best.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: There are fewer challenges then, but there's also nothing new to learn, nothing to discover.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: There's no more people to encounter, no new ways to see God bringing life into the world.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if this is part of what's going on in this Easter story, at least in Matthew's version that we just heard a moment ago.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: We hear about these women, the two Marys, some of Jesus' closest friends, disciples by another name.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: And they go to this tomb just as many of us go to the graves of our loved ones who have died.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: They went there to remember and probably to tell some stories too.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: When we do that, we go to grieve and to hold tightly to those past memories of love.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful and deeply human thing to do.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: To go to the place of memory.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: But for those two women, those two Marys on that one fateful day, what happened to them defied expectation.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: An angel appears and declares that Jesus isn't there, he's been raised.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: And they were not expecting this at all.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: All they were expecting was to sit at the grave of their friend and cry.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: And probably to share some stories.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: Remember when we were all at Mary and Martha's house and Mary made that Martha made the fantastic dinner and Mary didn't do anything?
15:20
SPEAKER_00: Remember when we were all hungry that one day and we just had a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread, and yet we all were full?
15:27
SPEAKER_00: That was cool.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: Remember when Lazarus walked out of the tomb?
15:32
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember when?
15:35
SPEAKER_00: The women were shaken to their core at this Easter moment for obvious reasons.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: But then they come to an amazing sort of realization that moves them from their grief and memory into a new and unimagined, if not impossible, future.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: It was as if the women went to the tomb to feel where they last experienced life, only to discover that there isn't life there anymore.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: It's not in the tomb.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: The life they were pining for was not behind them at all.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: It was not where they were expecting.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: But invites us forward, inviting us to notice what we were looking for all along.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: The abundant life Jesus gives is not behind us in a song or a show or anything like that.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: Life is found following in the path of a God who came to bring peace and joy to creation, not to rewind our lives like a playlist or live in the reruns.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: God has written a new song for us all to sing.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: And then the grace of that earthquake around those women produ uh the that that earthquake produced that stone rolling away and the angels descending.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: That moment is that true life, that life everlasting, life in relationship with our God that is given to you, to each of you, and not in a way that only dwells in memory, but compels us forward.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: The resurrection propels us forward in our lives to discover new relationships and new purpose, new moments of grace.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: It propels us into new ways of living and loving, new opportunities to forgive old hurts, to accept forgiveness too.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: Life is springing up all around you, my friends.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Newness blooms, mercy overflows, things we will never see if we stay put in a memory.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: Resurrection forces us to not take the conflicted status quo of the world and sometimes of our families as gospel, but instead make visible the world of peace, justice, and reconciliation that God intended from the beginning.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: That's the interesting part of Matthew's Easter story, I think.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: The women didn't experience resurrection joy at an empty tomb.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: They got the news there, but then they ran ahead.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: They ran towards their people, into life, into the arms of a living God.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: They had heard something incredible and had to make it known, and on the way to their new future they met Jesus.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: They ran from the place of death, themselves raised to life with eyes open to encounter love and forgiveness anew each and every day.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: But we can't get stuck there.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: The life that you long for is not behind you in your best memories.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: It's waiting for you in the new life that is yours, in what God is doing next.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: Happy Easter, my friends.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: Gathered into one by the Holy Spirit, let us pray, as Jesus taught us.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: Your kingdom come.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: Give us today our daily bread.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours now and forever.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: As our celebrations of Easter begin, I hope that you all look back on your lives so far, giving thanks for all that God has done in them.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: But don't forget to look forward to the new expressions of God's love and new ways of experiencing grace.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus Himself has gone ahead of you and he will meet you on the way.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: Happy Easter, my friends.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: I hope you've enjoyed this podcast, and thanks for your support of the ministries of St.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: Paul Lutheran Church.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: Our commitment to endeavors that lend hope to other people stretches across the country and around the world.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: We hope that in a good way you feel a part of that reach.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: Tune in next Thursday for another edition of the St.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: Paul Podcast.