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[Sermon] Not the Same Jar

Pastor Hector Garfias-Toledo



We tend to imagine resurrection as a kind of divine undo button — death reversed, Eden restored, the broken made as if it never shattered. But the Risen Christ shows up with nail marks in his hands. The resurrection body is not unmarked; it is mended. Drawing on the ancient Japanese art of kintsugi — in which broken pottery is repaired with gold — Pastor Hector explores what it means to live as people who have been put back together, not erased. Perfection, we discover, is not the absence of fracture. It is the presence of God in the break.


Sermon Transcript

From YouTube's automatic captions, lightly edited by AI for readability.


Grace to you and peace from Abba — father, mother, creator, our parent — and the Lord Jesus Christ, our risen Lord. And the people of God said, "Amen."

 

We are getting there, David. By the end of the service, I know — you know, it's always really hard for me when there is a good new young worshippers message and a gospel reading that speaks by itself, to come and have to say something else that has not already been said. Because I think that the story that we have today is a story that speaks by itself, and is powerful, and we only need to hear it one more time to remind ourselves of this great, powerful love of our God in Jesus Christ, our savior.

 

Last Thursday, when David and I were working on that jar — that, yes, I broke. Everybody knows that I did it, and it went like all over the place, and it's recorded now. Everybody saw it on YouTube. So, what can I — I cannot hide that.

 

When we were putting that together, I was thinking — when we were putting all these shards together — I was thinking about the attention that you need to pay, the focus that you need to have, and the care that you need to put in putting this jar together. And I was thinking about this image of the Menor, our Lord, putting our lives together. And as we were putting the pieces together, we realized that there were small missing pieces, which reminded me of our lives — when we lose some memories, some relationships. As the jar started to take shape again, we noticed that, though it was looking like it was before it was shattered, it wasn't exactly the same.

 

Our society, our world, tends to think that resurrection is about being what we used to be before — just coming to life and continuing to be the same. But if we pay attention to the story in the gospel that we listened to today, Mary Magdalene wanted to see and experience Jesus in the same way that she knew him when Jesus was walking with them. But in the midst of that confusion, in the midst of trying to figure out what this experience was with her, Jesus engages in a personal and intimate relationship and conversation with Mary Magdalene.

 

And to me, this is the mystery of the resurrection. It is not — it is not that we will be alive again or go back to business as usual. It's a mystery. A mystery where the people of God, the people, are put back together by the gold of God's sticky love — not until we die, but every day in our life. And I think that is the important and powerful part of the resurrection: it is not something that we are waiting for sometime in the future where something may happen. Resurrection is happening right here, today.

 

Just think — look around. The power of the resurrection is bringing together this group of people in this room, and in the next room, and those who participated online today, or the next day, or later today, or next month. The power of the resurrection is the love and the grace of God that continues to bring these shards, these lives that are broken.

 

Maybe today, you and I, as we are gathered in this place, are coming with little pieces that are missing in our hearts. A relationship that is broken, that is hurting. The loss of a loved one. A diagnosis that maybe is telling us that we don't have much time in this world. The loss of a job. The violence in our communities. The financial crisis in our families.

 

And it is the power of the resurrection, my siblings in Christ, that is bringing us together. And we look like that — we can see the fractures. And yet we are here as one.

 

Luther used to say that you and I, in the resurrection, are drowned every day and we rise again. Every day. We see the fractures where we disagree, where we have hurt each other. We see the shards in our families, in this congregation, and in our communities. The journey of being shattered and renewed is an ongoing process in our life, an ongoing journey. The scars that we see in each other are the proof of God's faithfulness — that regardless of where we are in our faith journey, God seeks us, finds us, and puts us together in the Lord Jesus. God rebuilds us and embraces us in the reality of living in a world that, in many cases, hurts us every day.

 

"I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you. Again, I will build you and you shall be built," said the prophet Jeremiah.

 

Resurrection is transformation and wholeness. And if we pay attention to the story in the gospel, we can see that — from Mary, from being a woman, she becomes Mary. Jesus, from being the gardener, becomes Raboni, teacher. The weeping is transformed into joy. The despair is transformed into boldness. And death is transformed into life. From the shattered shards to the new being.

 

This is a clear example of the transformative power of the resurrection — it is not a reset button for us to try to be what once was, but to live in the new reality of a revealed, mended jar: united, glued by the sticky golden love of God. In Jesus, God binds us to one another with a love that does not go away, a love that gathers these shards. God's everlasting love is manifested in God's relentless desire to mend our lives every day, every moment, no matter where we are, my siblings in Christ. It is not to be the same, but to be more than we could ever imagine.

 

The gold, the glue, holds us together, but the cracks remain. And that's not a failure — that's a testimony. God doesn't need us to be unbroken. God works with the breaks. That is God's news for people who know they will never be the jar they were before.

 

And this is the good news, my siblings.

 

Even when we are shattered, the Lord knows us by name. We are known. We belong. We are made whole because he lives. We can face today and tomorrow and the days to come.

 

He is risen.

 

Hallelujah. Amen.

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