There’ll Be Dancin’ In The Streets
Act 3:1-19 Luke 24:36- 48
Callin’ out around the world
Are you ready for a brand new beat?
The summer’s here, the time is right
For dancin’ in the street.
It’s the greatest of resurrection hymns!
I was travelling along a busy but windy road when I got stuck behind the white line marker.
A huge juggernaut of a thing rumbling along at a stately five miles an hour.
Renewing the white line in the centre of the road by means of a funny little spray gun thing jetting out from somewhere near its right wheel.
I was next in line to overtake and the traffic was piling up behind me.
I kept edging out into the centre of the road to see if it was possible and then ducking back in just behind the white line marker.
I was feeling under pressure from the drivers behind.
“Look at that ditherer” I could here them saying.
After a mile or two of this, finally there was a straight stretch with no traffic coming the other way and I overtook the great beast.
As I drew alongside the driver’s cab of the white line marker, I was surprised to find myself on the receiving end of a torrent of abuse.
They shook their fists at me most angrily and one shouted out that I was a bloomin’ nightmare – but they didn’t actually use the word – bloomin!
I could not work out what I’d done wrong.
I’d been cautious. I’d been careful. I hadn’t put anyone in any danger!
Surely I couldn’t have been expected to crawl along behind that vehicle for ever!
When I reached my destination, I discovered the truth of it.
I glanced at my tyres and they were completely white!
Splodged all over with white line marker paint.
Just as they had sprayed their paint on the road to freshen up the direction, so I had rubbed it all off onto my tyres a split second later.
Rendering their work useless.
We are in the days when the company of heaven is holding it’s breath for as long as possible.
Jesus is risen, but what is the earth going to do about it.
It doesn’t seem promising to begin with.
Women run screaming from the tomb in fear.
The men believe nothing and resolve to stick to their day jobs.
Meetings are held behind locked doors.
As evening falls, everyone goes home in gloom and despondency.
Only gradually, slowly and gently, does Jesus weave his way back into their lives.
At their meal table – is that He who breaks the bread?
As they work at their boats – who is that on the far shore?
As they walk home – who is the stranger who joins them?
“Are you ready for a brand new beat…the summer’s here, the time is right…!”
The hymn starts to take shape as he makes his presence felt in ordinary places.
Easter Day is wonderful. We come piling into church, and for an hour or so we might even make the hymn our own.
Then the church goes quiet. There’s a thing called Low Sunday a week later.
If we’re not careful we turn Easter into a day, when it’s meant to be a season.
An eternal season actually.
Jesus has painted fresh directions upon our world.
New lines along life’s way, for people to follow and be inspired by.
There is a danger that we absorb the reality of Easter, keep it for ourselves rather than exploit it for the sake of the kingdom, or we quickly rub off the effect of it, as we hold fast to the familiar and the predictable alongside this strange talk of empty tombs and shattering rocks.
“Calling out around the world....are you ready for dancin’ ....for dancin’ in the streets”
What is the essence of this joy, for Easter can just become a feel good factor with no real substance. Maybe that’s why we soon move on.
It’s all about the way God meets us in new and exciting ways
He meets us by offering new life when previously only death seemed possible.
He meets us in situations we thought were ordinary – but now have the capacity to be extra ordinary.
He meets us in every expression of love we can muster up and celebrates along side of us.
He meets us in every expression of hate and shows us how we might redeem the outburst.
He meets us – if we want him to.
if we just let the fresh marks become rubbed off, he will let us, and heaven will let out it’s breath with a sigh.
“All we need is music, sweet music, they’ll be music everywhere
There’s be swingin’ swayin’ and records playin’ and dancin’ in the streets”
And when the dancing began there was a right old kerfuffle!
Once they realised it was Jesus, there was no holding back those first disciples.
They became determined to make a difference as the locks on their double locked doors with personal security code – flew open.
Onto the streets they came on the day of Pentecost and many lives were changed and then just after that, came the moment for the Martha Reeves and the Vandella’s song.
Peter and John spied a lame man outside the Beautiful Gate , they cleared their throats and uttered words they would never have dared to think of
“In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, walk”
And the man did not walk, he leapt and praised and danced.
He danced in the streets, he took the fresh, white marks of resurrection life and sharpened them by his life.
Callin’ out around the world are you ready for a brand new beat….
I went to the barbers in London Road and took the Church Times with me, to read whilst I waited. I left it on the seat when my turn came to go to the chair
A young lad with a Manchester United shirt came into the barbers and idly picked up the Church Times and began to read.
I had not left it open at the front page, so he might have thought it was “The Sun”
“Can I keep this” he said to the barber when his turn came.
The barber just shrugged his shoulders “If you want” he said.
I said not a word, but I left the paper for him and as I left I saw that he had turned to read an article about third world poverty.
Not much is it compared to a lame man walking and things like that, but the resurrection song takes shape in our lives in tiny little ways to start with.
“Are you ready for a brand new beat”
So if you go from this sermon thinking , well that was all very well, but….can I challenge you?
During this next week we’re going to print off double the number of parish magazines as usual and next Sunday everyone will be invited to take two copies , one for yourself and another one to share. Give that other one to a neighbour or a friend. Leave it at the barbers or on the train next to all those “Metros”, see our magazine as a white line marker, which we will not let just get rubbed out, and when we write for “Platform” see that the style of our magazine is not just a list of coffee mornings and jumble sales, but actually is an Easter publication whatever the season.
“Summer’s here, the time is right” – this is the song of Easter people like us!
RH 26.4.09