A few weeks ago I was able to take Austin down for his Enzyme Replacement Therapy infusion treatment down at the Westchester Medical Center Children’s Hospital. The hospital is beautiful and spacious but the infusion suite, where kids are able to receive their chemo treatments and the like, is rather humble in its appointments. There’s an office, a couple of bathrooms, the room where the kids are accessed so they can receive their medicine as well as three rooms where children and their families can hang out, or rest while the treatment is taking place. Now when the suite was designed, this may have been enough space, but at this point, there are many mornings when parents arrive with their kids to discover a whole lot of other families who are also receiving treatment. When Austin was younger, the wait was not a big deal: we’d leave him in his stroller and he was just fine.

However, now that he has become more mobile as an almost three year old, this concept of doing nothing, is a concept that he despises. So I let him out and off he ran to see what he could see and meet who he could meet.

The room that Austin ultimately went into has a big kitchen set in it: it also was occupied by Jamal, and his mother. Jamal couldn’t have been older than four but he and Austin were looking at each other eye to eye. Initially they just watched each other, doing their own thing but not really interacting. But eventually, a car pushed by Austin went careening off a table and Jamal picked it up and pushed it back. Then it was on. Within 30 seconds the two young boys were side by side running through the infusion suite, oblivious to the reasons why they were there, only knowing that in that moment they had met someone whom they clicked with. They were yelling and laughing, which caused almost everyone who was watching them to smile. A young boy with a genetic disorder, playing with a slightly older boy who was anemic and awaiting a pint of blood; both in the infusion suite of a children’s hospital: it’s not exactly the place where you would expect to encounter the presence of God and yet in their interactions the recreating presence of God was absolutely on display.

We don’t get to choose when and how the power of God flows in and through the world. This was a reality that Mary and the disciples were reminded of on that first Easter morning. I’m sure that if it was up to them, they would have liked to seen the recreating power of God show up a few days earlier on Good Friday. I’m sure they were thinking this because if that would have happened then their Master, their friend, would not have had to face the torturous death that he suffered. The tomb is open and empty, and yet there is Mary, standing outside the tomb crying, because she is not yet able to conceptualize how the presence of God is moving to recreate her world. She can’t see or hear it, because the ways of the world were just so distracting, so deafening.

She leans over, looks inside the tomb and is greeted by two angels and yet the ways of the world have conditioned her to the point that she can’t stop thinking, "where is the body of my friend?" She turns around to see the resurrected Jesus, but she does not recognize him. Again, the noise of the world is so strong that it is shutting out the possibility that the recreative power of God is at work.

It is only after Mary is shocked back into reality, as Jesus utters her name, that she begins to see that where her mentality was locked was not reality, but in fact an existence where the recreation of God had an incredibly difficult time being experienced. The Easter resurrection was happening right in front of Mary and she was not able to see what was going on.

I don’t know about you, but I’m sure that I had more than a few moments when I was in the presence of God and didn’t know it because I was so burdened down with what the world was telling me that I should be paying attention for. Again, I think of those two little boys running around a hospital. I’m sure that there were a few folks, Jamal’s mom, and a few nurses in specific, who weren’t able to see how God was flowing through their actions. What they saw was two sick kids who might end up hurting each other if they didn’t slow down. That’s the way of the world.

However, I am here to say that in their play, those two little boys were showing to others that despite their various illnesses that they were alive: by playing together this one dad was able to see, not illness but life. That is the way of God.

The recreation of God is happening all around us in a multitude of ways. It’s just that we have become so accustomed to the ways of the world that the ways of God become so much harder to take in. Like we talked about a few minutes ago, the fact that it’s cold outside causes many of us to be distracted from the message of Easter because it doesn’t feel like Easter. That’s the way of the world, not the way of God. The power of God is not limited because it’s chilly outside. The power of God is not limited by the way of the world. We just need to become open to how God is speaking, to how God is present in our lives.

For example, and this is a strange example, a few days ago I was watching the newest video release by the movie star Will Smith. It’s called ‘I Am Legend’ and it details one scientist’s crusade to try and develop a vaccine to counteract a manmade disease that has killed off almost the entirety of the world’s population.

The first 2/3rds of the movie are, in my opinion, just fun science fiction fare with Smith living in Manhattan with no one else but his dog, and of course the mutated humans who are now blood thirsty killing machines. Like I said, good sci-fi fare.

However, the last third takes a drastic shift as Smith’s character is rescued from the mutants by an uninfected human. After Smith gets over the fact that he is actually talking to another human, his rescuer tells him why she came, "God told me to come." I literally stopped the DVD and backed it up. God had made an appearance. Smith’s character gave this, you’ve got to be kidding me look and his rescuer continued, "No one wanted this to happen, but when it did, the world became so much quieter. The quieter it became, the clearer I could hear God and God told me to come here, to find you. God needs me to be here with you."

As the rest of the movie plays out, albeit under the visuals of modern day sci-fi glory, what you have is her assessment of what she heard God’s plan to be ultimately confirmed.

Right there in the middle of a Will Smith movie is the premise of our sermon for today: God is still speaking, it’s just that we need to be willing and able to listen to what is being said. Simply put, the recreation of God is at work in our lives here and now. Will you be open to taking in how that is happening in your life? Or will you act as if God is not moving because the world tells you it doesn’t happen anymore? Mary didn’t think that it was going to happen in her life. Little did she know that the resurrection was happening right in front of her. There in a children’s hospital, where death and illness seem to hold such sway, I was able to see how precious life is as two boys played as only two toddlers can. And right in the middle of one of Hollywood’s big movie’s a message to listen. God is speaking and what is being spoken is helping to recreate the world that we know. Don’t you want to be a part of it? Let us listen and become witnesses to God’s recreative power.

Holy God, on this great and glorious Easter morn, we are able to be reminded of how You are at work in the world, in our worlds. Help us to be open to how You are moving so that we might be able to be reminded of Your presence and how we might respond to Your presence. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.