If anyone asks you what the sermon was about today, just say it was about “smorgasbord.” I can’t spell it, but I know what it means. An emotional smorgasbord living in hungry hearts and souls. All waiting to be enjoyable eaten. 

Easter’s Spring is a newness for everyone. Whether gainfully employed, unemployed or retired – something new awaits each of us.

Pagan or Believer, this day has an impact on us all. For pagans this is only a seasonal change. For us believers, it’s a constant religious reversal, a constant wake-up call. A pagan smorgasbord is a Big Mac. For us, it’s a juicy steak at an overpriced restaurant. 

Spring slowly leans into a warm summer and doubt rapidly leaps toward hope.

Employed, unemployed, retired?

For those employed and imbued, their old tasks bring a new perspective or a different twist. If they’re able to see it, there’s a morsel of change in each minute of their work day. 

For those unemployed like I was, it’s, “Oh, it’s 2:10; no, now it’s 2:11; wrong again, it’s 3:00 p.m.” That cocktail adage, “It’s 5:00 somewhere” back then for me began at 4. An unemployed priest’s endless days at home with two loving cats who wonder to themselves, “Why-Is-He-Still-Here?”

Easter hope. It’s substantial. The substance of hope can be experienced and felt in all parts of your life. Whether a new grandchild enters the world and even hearing a cancer diagnosis.

Wishing is such a fluid word. Wishing is for the Packers and Brewers. Hope and hoping touches deep depths where words are useless. Jesus didn’t whimsically wish for the good of people to emerge, he died for the peaceful benevolence of hope. Abiding within us throughout our lives. 

For us retired, well, you’re all on your own clock. A calmness emerges when time appears to have nothing but time. When the morning hours could very well duplicate nighttime. But through creative human ingenuity and an obvious human need, time takes on a natural daily division that becomes livable, worthwhile and doable. 

In addition to a calmness, it is coupled with patience. Imagine patience in the golden years of retirement? Instead of fighting with time, when time always wins, patience becomes a learned discipline; a gift. 

Preoccupied with a doctor’s appointment a month from now? It doesn’t hurry nor change time. It only hurries and upsets an anxious timeless mind. Hence, that special new guest is welcomed into your retirement life – patience. We are all already a patient to how many doctors so why not put on and wear the mantle of patience. Nurse it, care for it, protect is as much as a young child because it is now a member of your single family. 

Calmness, patience with a heavy dose of humor. All sandwiched inside hope. Laugh away those accumulating years and savor the present patience and peace that only faith provides and fulfills. Laughing at yourself makes looking in the morning mirror so much more fun. 

The Body of Christ, food of transition, we are about to receive is the beautiful bounty of the bounty Jesus freely offers to us. Unfortunately, Jesus was wrong with his final words, “It is finished.” His resurrection is never finished. It becomes wonderfully complete with and through our embracing acceptance. 

Again with Jesus.  He only experienced one Easter. Poor guy. We’re exposed to Easters as often as we open ourselves to its daily invitation. We so often think of the word hope as something about to happen instead of something that has happened within and around us. Easter is not about planning, waiting and anticipating… Easter happened folks and is happening within our lives.

A shared meal is a transition time from the completion of the past day toward a hope-filled tomorrow of challenges and rewards.

It’s only finished when the meal is enjoyed and savored by all present. This emotional smorgasbord is only finished when we complete the gifts, talents, and treasures that God entrusts to us to make even the darkest of a winter’s night into a wellspring of hope.

Let’s eat.