“Good morning. The Lord is risen!” my Uncle Bob would say to everybody on Easter morning. “He is risen, indeed!” my cousins would answer. They spoke those words with joy and confidence, then went off to church to further celebrate the victory of life over death, salvation over sin. Easter Sunday is the culmination of the period in the Christian calendar that begins more than 6 weeks earlier with Shrove Tuesday.

That day before Lent begins, better known as Mardi Gras in the United States, is a day of feasting, dancing, carnival – a generally wild celebration, a release of the pent-up energy after the long winter and before the disciplined fasting of the Lenten season. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday and lasts for 40 week-days. On Ash Wednesday, the faithful attend church and have ashes smeared on their forehead, as the priest or minister says, “From ashes you came and to ashes you will return.” Lenten discipline requires an intentional program of spiritual self-assessment, repentance, and a redirection of one’s life energies towards spiritual health.

All of this is done in preparation for Holy Week, the most solemn and significant celebrations of the Christian church year. The story of Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday. According to Carl Seaburg’s history of Easter, to which I am indebted for this summary, Palm Sunday has been celebrated since before 1000 CE. On this day, according to the Gospels, Jesus made his triumphant entry into Jerusalem. He rode on a small donkey, and he was met by cheering crowds who strewing palm leaves on the dirt path in front of him. For Jesus to go to Jerusalem was a courageous act. He knew that the authorities were looking for him.

They feared his inordinate influence, and his message of radical love. Mostly they feared his radical critique of the economic and political corruption of the time. He could have hidden safely in the outback of the Roman Empire, but he chose to go to Jerusalem where his message could be heard by many more people. He knew that he risked arrest and death by crucifixion, but he didn’t care. He was a man with a mission. Palm Sunday celebrates that trip to Jerusalem, and all that it represents.

The week between Palm Sunday and Easter is a series of ritual remembrances of the last week in Jesus’ life. On what we now call Maundy Thursday, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, to illustrate to them what true servant leadership is about. Maundy Thursday is named for the Latin phrase novum mandatum, a reference to the new commandment Jesus gave his disciples at that last meal together. “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.”

The rest of the story is familiar to you. Jesus is arrested, betrayed, by Judas, one of the disciples. He is brought before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who is politically shrewd enough to realize that he needs to distance himself from the drama that is playing out. He famously washes his hands of the situation and turns it back to the local authorities. Jesus is condemned and on Friday he is crucified. What we call Good Friday may originally have been called God’s Friday.

For Christian believers, the death of Jesus is part of a plan, his willingness to go to the cross is essential for future salvation. So it is not Bad Friday, even though it is sad. And then, finally, comes the miracle of the Resurrection, and the grand celebration of Easter. “Christ the Lord is risen today, Hallelujah!”

That is the orthodox Christian story. Now let’s consider how Unitarian Universalism has treated that story. From our early Christian roots we have focused on the human Jesus, not the divine. We seek wisdom in his teachings, not the miracles attributed to him. In times past we called ourselves the religion of Jesus rather than the religion about Jesus.

It has always struck me as odd that, given our embrace of the life and teachings of Jesus, we totally ignore Lent and Palm Sunday. Those are the humanistic parts. Lent acknowledges the universal human tendency to fall away from our ideals, and our need to remind ourselves of what we can be when we are at our best. Palm Sunday is a celebration of justice over power, truth over spin, the power of the common people over the undeserved power of the rich and might.

But, we ignore all of that, and we ignore Good Friday, except perhaps to comment on how strangely it is named. Then we celebrate Easter by mushing it all together with Passover and the Spring Equinox, creating the spring version of Christmakwanzukah – maybe we could call it Spreastquionx? I have two objections to this practice. One is that it is reductionist in the worst sense, and removes almost all of the power from all of the stories. Second, it is disrespectful to all three traditions – the pagan, the Jewish, and the Christian.

As I said in my sermon last week (which I realize most of you didn’t get to hear at all, and those that did probably don’t remember a word of it), when we talk about one of the sources of our faith being wisdom from the world’s religions, we have to be careful how we use that wisdom. There is a tendency to generalize, to reduce all the religions to their common denominator, but too much is lost with that approach. To respect the integrity of every faith, including Christianity, is to retain the particularities. So I pushed for separate Winter Solstice, Hanukkah, and Christmas Eve services here. This spring we celebrated the Spring Equinox and Easter separately also. That, to me, is a healthy move towards restoring both the respect for and the power of those distinct traditions.

So, Unitarian Universalist Easter. If you take out the resurrection, there isn’t a lot left to work with. We do take out the resurrection; that is a necessary part of choosing rational over supernatural religion. But we are left with what I have often thought of as the ‘tweet, tweet, tweet’ version of the Easter hymn. “Lo the earth awakes again, tweet, tweet, tweet, hallelujah.” Same tune, different words. And they just don’t have the punch of the risen lord. So we wrestle with the Easter Story.

I was reminded of that struggle when I read an interesting article about New Hampshire a week or so ago. As you know, I’m heading that direction in a couple of weeks to candidate at South Church in Portsmouth, so I’m taking a particular interest in all things New Hampshire these days. It seems that there is a move to change the state slogan on the signs welcoming tourists to the state. Instead of “Live Free or Die” they have been putting “You’re Going To Love It Here” on the signs.

“Live Free or Die” is a powerful statement of independence with deep historical roots. True, it is a bit in-your-face. But it captures some of the spirit of the Granite State. “You’re Going To Love It Here” just doesn’t communicate the same spirit. That is the way I have felt about the UU version of Easter, until this year, here in Frederick. Then the story changed.

Let’s look at our unique Easter story. It starts on Palm Sunday. Last week, as you know, we arrived at church to discover that somebody had taken their life in our parking lot. I have more information about her this week that I’d like to share with you. (Information deleted for web version of sermon. ROF)

I guess you could say that for us, Palm Sunday was Good Friday – a day of death and confusion. I was talking with my Pastoral Counselor last week, and he said that as a community, we are living on Saturday - the forgotten day of holy week – the day when everybody walked around stunned, asking each other, “How could this have happened? What do we do now?”

But this is Easter Sunday, not only for Christianity but for us. And this year in Frederick Easter’s message is a powerful one, no “tweet, tweet, tweet” for us. We came together this morning, even though for some of you it was hard to drive up the driveway. Even though for some of you, the suicide brought back unbelievably painful memories of past losses or current pain and doubt. We came together in this sacred space, at this sacred hour, to reaffirm our faith in each other, in this religious community, and in the spirit of life itself.

So, what Easter hymn would be most appropriate for our gathering – we who are sadder but wiser, still believers in the good news of Unitarian Universalism? I suggest a Leonard Cohen song, entitled “Hallelujah.” The song is about King David, that incredibly flawed hero of early Israel. “I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch, But love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah.”

That’s our Easter hymn. Nothing about Christ the Lord being risen from the dead. Nothing about nature’s glory, though we certainly pay homage to the beauty of spring. But this year, we sing with joy and confidence about the ability of perfectly imperfect human beings to triumph over despair and rise to life once again. “Hallelujah, hallelujah.”