We Aren't Meant to Dwell in the Grave - New Life & Being Home

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
April 5, 2026
Easter
Colossians 3:1-4
Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Matthew 28:1-10

Yesterday, I was reflecting on Good Friday, on the crucifixion of Jesus, and while I often feel rather somber or a little sad when thinking on Jesus’ death, I instead felt a sense of gratitude for Jesus’ crucifixion. Gratitude and peace, rather than the emotional turmoil of cry night. Now, if you haven’t heard me mention cry night before, that’s the night at various youth camps, or even adult camps, where the leaders get all the youth to cry about all the bad things they’ve done and how they were the ones who killed Jesus. 

Ok, the idea of taking our sin seriously is a good one, and leading people to repentance for their sin, helping people see the damage they have done, also good. Emotionally manipulating tired teenagers to ensure a tearful response to Jesus’ crucifixion and death, however, may not be the best approach in the world. Also, while tears, sorrow, and guilt are totally appropriate responses to Jesus’ crucifixion and death, they are not the only appropriate responses. 

Yesterday, on Holy Saturday, thinking of Jesus in the tomb, I felt a profound sense of gratitude. Jesus died to join with us in death. God experienced death to join with us in death. So, I felt gratitude, rather than guilt. When my dad died, he was not alone in death. God was with him in death because in Jesus, God died a human death so that even in death, we are joined with God.

So today, on Easter Sunday, as we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection, returning to life from the dead, I find that I can trust Easter because of Good Friday and Holy Saturday. I can trust in Jesus’ resurrection because Jesus joined with us in death. I can trust in new life after death because Jesus walks with us in death.

At the same time, with resurrection life, we don’t really dwell on the death. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb, and the angel who was there told them, to go take a look at see that Jesus wasn’t there, but after that, they weren’t supposed to hang around the tomb, turning it into a shrine, and praising God there. No, they were told to go away from the place of death, meet Jesus, and live new life. 

“Jesus died for our sins.” “Jesus died for our sins.” “Jesus died for our sins.” We hear that over and over, and yes, that is true, but what’s really important is Jesus lived. Jesus came back from the grave to keep on living. So, we are not meant to dwell in the grave. We are meant to live. Beyond the grave, past the grave, after all the many deaths in our lives, Jesus’ resurrection tells us to mourn death for a time and then to leave the tomb behind and move forward into new life.

Now, what will that new life look like? Well, resurrection after our physical deaths, new life in God’s eternal kingdom, end of time type resurrection, we’re talking joy, bliss, huge banquet, surrounded and enveloped in love, tears no longer will fall type of new life. 

Regarding our lives, here on earth, we suffer various deaths throughout our lives, and the new life of resurrection happens for those deaths too, and that’s going to look different for all of us, each time that new life happens, but there are some things that seem to mark the new life of resurrection.

When Mary Magdalene and the other Mary left the tomb, they were filled with joy at the news Jesus had given them. New life of resurrection is marked with joy. That doesn’t mean that the two Marys, happy for the rest of their lives. Even after they saw Jesus, they had times of sorrow in their lives. The new life of resurrection is still life. There will be times of happiness, times of sorrow. 

In fact, former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said, “God doesn’t want us to be happy.” See, of God wants us to be happy, then we deserve happiness, and happiness becomes an end in itself. Rather than happiness as a result of relationships, or achievement, or growth, we desire happiness just because we want to feel happy. 

That sounds like addiction. Archbishop Williams noted the problem of expecting happiness from anything and everything in our lives. Relationships are supposed to make us happy. A concert or a game is supposed to make us happy. Then if it doesn’t, we end up resenting it. After 10 years of marriage, does that person make you happy? Well, one, it’s not their job to make you happy, so really asking, “Does this person make me happy?” is the wrong question. A better question would be, after 10 years of marriage, do you feel at home? That’s joy, and joy rumbles along underneath in our lives, even with challenges and trials on the surface. 

So, a resurrection life is a life marked with joy, and a life marked with joy is a life marked with hope, with love. A life of joy is a life which accepts sorrow not as the end or the final way we will feel, and a life of joy does not expect happiness to be the way we will feel all the time. A life of joy finds fulfillment in relationships, feeling at home. A life of joy is a life of hope and love, feeling at home during times of happiness and sadness.

Another mark of the new life of resurrection is that there are barriers that are no longer present in the new life. In the new life of resurrection, the two Marys were the first apostles. The first two people Jesus appeared to and sent to tell about his resurrection were Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, as Matthew calls her. In the new life of resurrection, women were leaders in the church, until men decided they didn’t want that, relegated women to lesser roles and determined since Jesus was a man, only men could lead the church. They were looking to the old life of power struggle and one group trying to be more holy and more blessed than the other.

In the new life of resurrection, we are all blessed by God because we are all made in God’s image, and we have all been united to God through every part of our lives through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Truth is, we know from scripture that we already were all blessed by God, we already were all made in God’s image, and we already were all united to God. We just wouldn’t believe it. In the new life of resurrection, Jesus invites us to accept our blessedness, to accept the image of God in which we are made, and to accept our unity with God and one another.

Finally, in the new life of resurrection, there is unexpected blessing. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went from the tomb in joy because the angel had told them that Jesus had been raised from the dead, and suddenly, unexpectedly, Jesus met them, showed them that he truly had been raised, told them not to be afraid, and placed on them the mantle of apostles to the apostles. Unexpected blessing.

That meant letting go of the past, letting go of their former life and embracing this new life of apostle to the apostles. That meant a death for them, a death of their old life in embracing their new life. 

For us, whenever a loved one dies, whenever the path we thought our life would take dies, whenever the assumed future that we think we will have dies, we are encouraged to let go of the past, to let go of our former life, learn to embrace our new life. 

A young man I know is headed down a dark path of addiction and stealing, and it may already be too late for him to avoid jail. His parents have had to call the police as he keeps stealing from them and despite all their good efforts, he just keeps at it. For them, the death is letting go of the thought that they can help their son get off this path when he simply won’t choose to get off. For them, the death is accepting that their son may end up spending time in jail and may end up spiraling even further after that. For them, this means letting go of whatever future they thought they would have with their son and accepting the future that will come because of their son’s actions. 

What will new life look like? They don’t know, and they are mourning. They are looking to the future with hope of some kind of resurrection, with no expectation of what that will be, and right now they are mourning. 

We get to mourn. We get to return to the tomb, just as the Marys did, but we don’t stay in the tomb. We don't stay with cry night. We move forward into the life of resurrection that is coming. It may take longer than three days, and it won’t be happy all the time, but new life after death can be joyful. New life of resurrection is a life with joy rumbling beneath the surface. New life of resurrection is a life in which we look around after a time and realize, “I’m home.” New life of resurrection is life in which some of who we were and the ways we knew were right may not be anymore, and the new life of resurrection is life in which we find unexpected blessing. 

Unexpected blessing like God choosing to die with us so that we are not alone even in death. Unexpected blessing like Jesus being resurrected so we can look to the future with hope and joy. Letting go of the past, releasing our fear of death, we can embrace the new life of resurrection and find that we are home.

Freedom: Killing the gods That Bind Us

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston
January 18, 2026
2 Epiphany, Baptism of Jesus
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Psalm 40:1-12
John 1:29-42

“Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” That’s what John the Baptist testified about Jesus when he saw him walking by. John had seen the Spirit of God descend and remain on Jesus, and God had told him that that person, the one on whom the Spirit remained, that person would baptize others with the Holy Spirit. That person would be revealed as God’s Son. 

Calling Jesus God’s Son, the one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit, was calling Jesus much more than a child of God with special prophetic or healing abilities. Jesus was the Word of God, which was God, which spoke creation into existence. So, who is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world? God. God is the Lamb of God, because the human being, Jesus of Nazareth, was God who had become human. So, that means that the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world was God acting together with humanity. 

That’s pretty much been God’s M.O. kinda since forever.

When God called on Abraham to make a sacrifice and to trust God in that process, Abraham did as God instructed, thinking he would have to sacrifice his son. Instead, God provided a lamb for the sacrifice. God was working together with humanity so that we would begin to see God as trustworthy. 

When the people of Israel were slaves in Egypt, God was with the people and had them make sacrifices of lambs, eat them quickly, and mark their doors with the lambs’ blood so that God would only attack the Egyptians and then lead the people of Israel out of slavery. 

The lamb provide to Abraham, the paschal lambs of the Passover, Israel itself seen as a lamb, all little lambs of God which God used in working with humanity to heal us and free us from bondage. All of those are ways that Jesus is the Lamb of God for us, as John proclaimed, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Here is the Lamb of God who frees us from bondage.

John the Baptist saw Jesus, trusted God, and proclaimed to others who Jesus was.

Andrew, Peter, and their friend all began following Jesus as soon as he was proclaimed to them, and during good times and bad, they continued following him. That kind of devotion really only comes when you’ve actually been freed from whatever it is that binds you. Following and continuing following through good times and bad comes when you have actually been freed.

The fact that Andrew, Peter, and their fried would follow Jesus immediately when they were told, “Jesus is the Lamb of God,” or “Jesus is the Messiah,” that makes sense. Any good snake-oil salesman can get people to follow them pretty quickly. Find people who are vulnerable and suffering; promise them healing and wonders, a new life without pain; get them to give up something in order to follow you; and you can probably get some followers pretty quickly. 

Now, with folks like this, you’ve usually have to give up cash to follow people them. Some are selling various cure-alls. Some are selling some newfangled religion where you gotta give a good amount of money, or if you give enough money then god will reward you with even more. Some are simply selling drugs so you can feel better for a minute while they get rich off your misery. 

All of these charlatans and snake-oil salesmen can get a pretty good following pretty quickly, so long as they’re charismatic, smooth-talking, and willing to exploit people’s suffering and vulnerability.

They just can’t usually get people to follow them for their whole lives because people eventually find that they haven’t actually been freed from anything. They’ve followed, they’ve given money, and they’ve remained chained to whatever it was that bound them before, or they’ve become enslaved to the very thing they were being sold. Take this; feel better. Have some drugs; feel better. Oh, and keep giving me money; have this; feel better. Feel worse; give me money; have this; feel better. Feel worse; become enslaved; give me money; have this; feel better; stay enslaved. 

What we find with Jesus, what we find with the Lamb of God who is God is that Jesus wasn’t selling anything. He did heal a lot of people. He brought good news to a lot of folks who were suffering and vulnerable. He taught how to live a life of freedom and joy. He freed people from their sins and fears so they could live a life of freedom and joy. 

Jesus is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world; he offers us freedom from all of the thousands of ways we can end up bound and enslaved.

As I said earlier, one way Jesus is understood as the Lamb of God is as the Paschal Lamb, the lamb of the Passover. That’s from back in Exodus when the people of Israel were freed from slavery in Egypt. When God told the people of Israel to kill lambs to eat and to mark their homes, it wasn’t just random animal. The lamb was the form and symbol of one of Egypt’s primary gods. So, when the Israelites took lambs into their homes, killed and ate them, and put the lambs’ blood on their doorposts, they were killing Egypt’s gods. “We are no longer your slaves,” they were telling the Egyptians, “because we have just killed your god.” We have been freed from bondage, freed from the false god you put over us, and we will now follow God, walk in his ways, and be freed from you forever. 

When John called Jesus the Lamb of God, John was declaring him to be the one who will free us from bondage. Jesus frees us from slavery to whatever has us chained and enslaved. 

There are two things in particular which tend to bind us, and those are our past and our future, also known as our sins and our fears. We harm others and ourselves, and guilt turns to shame, and we become chained to the past, chained to our sins. We are anxious about the future, worried about what is to come, and we become chained to fears. 

We also become chained to our sins and our fears because we get so used to the ways of life of our sins and our fears that we forget how to live any other way. 

Something bad happens, get angry.

You’re afraid? Get angry, or get small and hide; push everyone away.

You believed that snake-oil salesman and got hooked on drugs, alcohol, sex, and now you’re trapped, chained by the false cure you were sold.

You think that money, power, or lots of stuff with fix you, and so you keep chasing after more and more, bound to a quest you can never fulfil. 

A thousand other ways we all become enslaved to our sins and our fears.

Jesus says, “Follow me,” and “I will become in you a fountain of eternal life.” (John 4:7-15) Rather than chain us with our sins, Jesus forgives us of our sins. Rather than frighten us with what is to come, Jesus says, “Do not be afraid.” Rather than, pay me enough, and I’ll give you what you want, Jesus says, “Come to me, you who are weary and worn out, and I will give you rest.” Jesus didn’t say I will sell you rest, he said, “I will give you rest.”

Now, following Jesus does not mean you will have a life where nothing bad ever happens. Life still happens, and sometimes life is not great. There are still plenty of bad things that happen to Jesus’ followers. Even to those who believe completely in Jesus, bad things still happen in life. Anyone who says believing in Jesus means no suffering ever, is selling something. Only salesmen, trying to get your money, promise no suffering, ever. 

What Jesus promises is freedom. Freedom from sin. Freedom from fear. Freedom from the thousands of little gods that enslave us. Jesus is the Lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world. Jesus is God and humanity joined so that nothing can separate us from God. We need not fear the future because we are one with God even beyond death. We need not be bound by the past because Jesus has forgiven us and allowed us to walk now in freedom. Jesus has allowed us to be reconciled with one another, forgiving each other, and trusting in God’s judgment, rather than our own, so we need not be bound by our hurt and our resentment. Jesus has freed us as we trust in him and follow in his ways. “Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

"To Hell with this, I'm gonna live!"

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets
January 21, 2024
3^rd after Epiphany, Year B
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Psalm 62:6-14
Mark 1:14-20 

“To Hell with this, I’m gonna live!”

One of my favorite movies is Serenity, which y’all’ve heard me talk about before. It’s a sci-fi film, many centuries in the future, with a rather sinister galactic government over all the planets and the good guys, a crew of 8 people living on a space freighter, doing various legal and not quite legal jobs. On the ship, you have the captain and others, including the ship’s mechanic, Kaylee, and the ship’s doctor, Simon. Kaylee has had a crush on Simon since they met, and it has gone unrequited for a long time.

So, at one point in the movie, the whole crew is about to be attacked by a hoard of vicious creatures, and things are not looking good for our plucky band of heroes. The captain and a couple of good fighters look like they have things pretty well handled, but everyone else, including Kaylee and Simon…they don’t really have a clue what they’re doing. Assuming they are all going to die, Simon finally professes his love for Kaylee. At that moment, she goes from terrified and fumbling with her weapon to cocking her gun and saying, “To Hell with this! I’m gonna live!”

In Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth, Paul wrote, assuming that they weren’t all about to die, but that their lives were about to be drastically changed by the second coming of Jesus. Like many in the early church, Paul seems to have believed that Jesus would be coming again within their lifetimes. So, he was telling the church to act accordingly, as though the present form of the world was passing away. Paul was obviously not entirely accurate with that belief, as we see the world is still turning as it was back in the first century.

His advice to the church, however, was still sound. Far from giving up on everything, throwing up their hands and saying, “Well, I guess nothing much matters anymore,” Paul’s message was a little bit more of Kaylee’s “To Hell with this! I’m gonna live!”

Whether Jesus’ return and the fullness of God’s kingdom comes today, or in another couple thousand years, or even further off than that, the Kingdom of God has still come near, and so we get to live. The Kingdom of God is all around us, alive and well in thousands and millions of ways, all the time, every day.  God’s kingdom is alive and well even in things as simple as marriage and relationships, in joy and sorrow, in buying stuff, and in regular old dealings with the world.

Paul was writing about these things as though the world were about to end, and so he said, for those who had wives to live as though they had none. I can think that might mean, “don’t have kids” because, why would you if the world was about to end. There are all kinds of ways that if you were married, you could live as though you weren’t, some of those probably more helpful than others.

Thinking of marriage as it has been in some times and places, we can think of ancient times and of wives as not being owned by their husbands but there being a bit of a possessive aspect to that relationship. In that sense, it seems like Paul was saying, “Husbands, you can let go of your wives a little bit, rather than holding them as possessions. You can be equals as it is in God’s kingdom, equals without being given in marriage, as it is in the resurrection.”

The same seems true of the rest of Paul’s advice on how to live. Hold on lightly to possessions. They won’t go with you when this life is over, and we have to spend time in our lives working in order to get the money to buy possessions, so we’re literally spending our lives to get possessions. Paul raises a good question, then. How much of your life do you really want to give up in acquiring stuff?

Those who are mourning and rejoicing, Paul said, be as though you were not. Ok, we can’t just not be sad or not be joyful, nor would it be helpful to, but we can, again, hold on lightly to those times of mourning and rejoicing. Times of rejoicing will come to an end, and it’s ok when they do. We continue on, and there is still much beauty in life, even in times when we’re not particularly rejoicing. Times of mourning too, don’t have to last forever. We can after a time of sorrow, give that person or dream that we’ve lost over to God, and we let person go, let that dream go, let that life that we had go.

There is still plenty of life after mourning and sorrow when we are open to receiving it.

Hold on lightly. Even though The End may not come right away, it could come at any moment, and an end may also come at any moment. So, hold on lovingly but lightly. Holdin on with a tight grip is living in fear: fear of losing, anger at having lost, attacking any who seem like a threat. To that tight gripped, fearful life, Paul is teaching us to say, “To Hell with this; I’m gonna live!”

The end or an end may come at any time, so hold on lightly. By holding on lightly, we get to love people without possessing them.

By holding on lightly, we get to possess our things but with an open hand.

By holding on lightly, we get to open our hands to receive the beauty of the world and people around us.

Receiving the beauty of the world and people around us, and holding on lightly, we get to receive both joy and sorrow and not hold on to them forever, because there’s far too much living to do to be stuck fearfully clinging to people and stuff and even life itself.

There’s far too much life to live to waste time clinging to things in fear.

We’ve got a baptism today, and “To Hell with this, I’m gonna live,” is not exactly in the baptismal covenant, but it probably should be. What do we say at the beginning? I renounce Satan and all spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God. I renounce all evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God. I renounce all sinful desires which draw me from the love of God. Then, I turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as my savior. I put my whole trust in his grace and love. I promise to follow and obey him as my Lord.

If that’s not saying, “To Hell with this, I’m gonna live,” I don’t know what is.

We’re declaring in our baptism that we’re gonna live. We’re declaring that we’re going to hold on lightly to the world around us and seek to love, rather than possess. We’re declaring that we’re going to mess up and that we’re even going to hold on to those screw ups lightly. Then, when we do mess up, we’re declaring that we’re going to ask God’s help to turn around again, to open up our hands, to let go of what we’re possessing and to receive from God the beauty of this life once again.

That’s the life of Baptism, the Way of Jesus, the life of the kingdom of God, for the kingdom of God is all around us, all the time. It may be tomorrow, or centuries, or millennia from now before Jesus comes and fully brings about God kingdom. However long or short it is, in the meantime, we get to live. However imperfectly it may be, we get to live God’s kingdom in our lives right now. Rather than wasting time clinging to fear, we get to open our hands and live.