Easter Sunday (NL3) John B. Valentine
Luke 24:1-12 April 4, 2021

“SLOW DOWN ... YOU GO TOO FAST!”

It’s Easter Sunday.

Jesus Christ is risen! (He is risen indeed!)

In honor of which muddle-headed ol’ Pastor John wants you to think about ...... “traffic calming.”

I kid you not.

Here we are ... gathered though distant ... to celebrate what we declare to be the singularly most significant event in the whole of human history ...

And I want to draw your attention to one of my absolutely favorite subjects ...... TRAFFIC-CALMING.

You see ...

It had to be a decade or so ago now that yours truly went off and got himself appointed to the Moraga Traffic Safety Advisory Committee ... TSAC ...

This cabal of folks who gathered to advise the Town of Moraga on issues related to traffic ...

• Car traffic ... bike traffic ... pedestrian traffic ...
• Local traffic ... school traffic ... all that stuff!

And one of the first things I had to do as a part of the Traffic safety Advisory Committee was read this big ol’ notebook about the subject of “Traffic Calming.”

• Speed bumps ...
• Speed humps ...
• Speed lumps ...
• Speed tables ...
• Speed cushions ... and all that!

Umpteen measures dreamed up by civil engineers to limit the speed of traffic and deter non-necessary travel ... to get you and me to SLOW DOWN!

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Now ... I know ... in a certain way we might say that COVID-19 has been the ultimate ‘Traffic Calming Device” ...

Because ... for the past year ... traffic on the local streets has been downright tolerable!

• More people are out walking and biking ....

• Less people are out driving ....

• No one has been racing to get to work or get to school ... or get home from work or get home from school ... because no one is going off to work or off to school in the first place.

But if you think that our streets are going to remain this calm moving forward ... I suspect you are woefully mistaken.

It’s only a matter of time before Moraga Way out here once again becomes a parking lot on weekday mornings with the O.I.S. and Miramonte traffic ...

It’s only a matter of time before you won’t again be able to find ANY parking in downtown Lafayette ...

It’s only a matter of time before Moraga again becomes that favorite cut-through for commuters trying to avoid traveling on Highway 24.

It’s only a matter of time before we’ll have to start begging ... imploring ... EVERYONE again to please slow down ... so that we don’t have to!

Because my key learning while serving on TSAC was and is that everyone wants everyone else to slow down ... because everybody else drives too fast ....

But we certainly don’t want anyone telling us that its is OUR behavior behind the wheel that needs modifying!

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But check this out ...

During my stint on TSAC ... I happened upon a study of the history of “traffic-calming” ...

One which claimed that “the science of traffic-calming” got its start in the Dutch town of Delft back in the 1960's ...

Because local residents were frustrated by all the commuters who were turning neighborhood streets into short-cuts.

So you want to guess what the first traffic-calming devices were??

Potted plants and sofas! REALLY!

The folks in the city of Delft apparently got so frustrated by the cut-through traffic in their neighborhoods ...

that they just started parking old sofas and big ol’ potted plants out in the street ... to FORCE drivers to slow down!

Which got me to wondering ...

Were those sofas really the first “traffic-calming devices” ...

Or was it perchance A BIG OL’ ROCK NEXT TO AN EMPTY TOMB?

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You see ... a little bit ago ... we heard anew the story of how this gaggle of women go to the tomb of Jesus ...

• only to discover the perplexing reality that a stone been rolled away and a tomb has been emptied ...

• and they then go from being ‘perplexed’ to being ‘terrified’ when a couple of curious messengers show up ... asking “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

• at which point they go flying back to tell the disciples what it is that they’ve seen ...

• and then Peter goes flying the other way to check it out for himself.

But then ... when Peter gets there ... and sees:

• the rolled away rock ....

• and the empty tomb ....

• and the linens all by themselves ...

IT SEEMS AS THOUGH THE RACING STOPS ...

For the text simply says that Peter “went home, amazed at what had happened.”

Peter seems to slow WAY down ... when he gets to that empty tomb and that rolled away stone.

For his life has just been changed forever.

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But you know ... from what I can tell ... the reaction Luke recounts Peter as having had to that rolled-back rock wasn’t intended to be unique just to him.

No ... from what I can tell ... that’s ... I think ... what Luke the gospel-writer anticipates may well happen to us when we come up against the reality of that rolled back rock and that empty tomb ...

And I think that that’s what God INTENDS happen to us when we come up against the reality of that rolled back rock and that empty tomb ...

Force us to slow down and change directions.

Oh sure ... lots of the time ... lots of us try to plow our way past the Resurrection by proceeding as though there’s nothing there at all.

We say:

• “I’m going to carry this burden myself ... it’s mine to bear.”

• “I’m going to stay with this guilt a while longer ... I’m getting used to it now.”

• “I’m not about to forgive her, no matter what she does. She done me wrong.”

• “If there was a God, then my suffering would not have happened.”

And ... unawaredly ... we keep smacking into that big ol’ rock and really getting nowhere at all.

Now ... to be sure ...

• This isn’t just a call to “slow down” or “simplify our lifestyles” ... like a physician or a psychologist might urge us ...

• This isn’t just about stopping to smell the roses ... or the coffee ... or the Easter ham ...

• This isn’t just a temporary intrusion into our daily realities ...

This IS about slowing down long enough to reflect on the events of this day and to realize how they reshape the whole of our reality.

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So my prayer for you today is this:

That you will see in this Resurrection Rock ... this empty tomb ... a speed bump on your life’s journey.

That you won’t try to drive through it with reckless abandon ...

That you won’t try to drive around it in utter ignorance ...

That you won’t turn around on account of it in despair.

But rather that you will treat it as the “traffic-calming device” that it was intended to be by the One who engineered its existence ... and your existence ... in the first place.

That you will SLOW DOWN the pace of your existence and ALTER YOUR DIRECTION enough to accommodate Him!

You see ...

• The reality of the Resurrection means that our lives ought not be lived at a hectic, frenzied pace that leaves to room for reflection .

• The reality of the Resurrection invites us to turn our lives in his direction ... to try to carry forward his love and mercy and righteousness in our own words and deeds.

• The reality of the Resurrection challenges us to live in trust that God has the power to overcome the worst that the world has to offer.

• The reality of the Resurrection calls us ... like Peter ... to embrace the tasks this risen One sets before us.

That Resurrection rock is a speed bump ... folks.

I can only tell you this.

If you DON’T acknowledge its existence as you race through life at eighty miles an hour ... you’ll be SORRY!

FOR IT’S EASTER SUNDAY MORNING ... AND THAT STONE HAS BEEN ROLLED AWAY.

JESUS CHRIST IS RISEN! (He is risen indeed!)