Easter Message: (March 23, 2998)
Easter Message: 2008
The New Gardener
Text: John 20: 11-18
When I saw the image of the tree, barren, with its branches drooping, my mind went back to being in Grade 3.
Our teacher had given us an assignment to grow tomatoes in an empty egg carton. I remember filling it with soil, planting the tomato seeds, watering them, and hoping to see something would grow. Green sprouts emerged, but no tomatoes. Eventually the sprouts just drooped over like a weeping willow. I was mystified. I had been good about watering my tomato plants regularly… not just once a day, but every hour… and sometimes every ten minutes… (Looking back, I realize I must have been given bad seeds. At home Sakiko is charge of the plants).
When I was in Grade 7, I had a classmate named James who lived right next door. He and his family were about to go away on vacation, and he asked me if I would take care of his fish. He had about 6 fish in his little tank and while he was away on vacation two of them coincidentally died on my watch. I hated having to fish them out of the tank with a net and flush them down the toilet, wondering if my friend would notice that a couple of his fish were missing when he got home! He didn’t seem to mind--but his parents did wonder why all the fish food was gone.
The death of a plant… or the death of a couple of fish… can trouble even an insensitive kid like me.
I remember well the day when the dog I took care of everyday while I was living California, the dog who scratched on my door each morning at 5 something… Some of you looking at me wondering, too much dog food? Too much water? This time, I had nothing to do with it. The dog was old. Losing a pet is like losing a member of your family.
Just over a week ago, Audrey Orton, a member of this community and friend died of cancer. Audrey had a big heart. She was the founder of our Oasis ministry--a ministry that offers lunch and place to connect for the homeless and the underemployed. We miss Audrey.
Have any of you experienced the loss a beloved pet, a friend, a family member?
If so, you may know something of the feelings that Jesus’ friends had when their mentor and leader, Jesus Christ, died on a Roman cross…
In the Gospel of John, Chapter 20:1-2, 11-18 we read that…
1-2 Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was moved away from the entrance… (Pause: can you imagine going to the grave of your mom and dad or friend… and finding it empty a few days later).
11-13But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus' body had been laid. They said to her, "Woman, why do you weep?"
13-14"They took my Master," she said, "and I don't know where they put him." After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there. But she didn't recognize him.
15Jesus spoke to her, "Woman, why do you weep? Who are you looking for?"
(She was certain that Jesus was dead, even when he appeared before her again with the same body and voice… the nail wounds in his wrists, she didn’t recognize him).
She, thinking that he was the gardener, said, "Mister, if you took him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him."
16Jesus said, "Mary."
Turning to face him, she said in Hebrew, "Rabboni!" meaning "Teacher!"
17Jesus said, "Don't cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, 'I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.'"
18Mary Magdalene went, telling the news to the disciples: "I saw the Master!" And she told them everything he said to her.
I can’t imagine any experience greater than the one Mary had on that first Easter morning.
She had assumed like everyone else, that Jesus was dead… She sees this person who she thinks is the gardener… (and BTW as G.K. Chesterton has said in way she was right as the man was God was Gardener, God the gardener of the new creation, he had just ushered in) and asks him, “Where have you taken his body?” Then he calls her name… “Mary” and the curtains lift from her eyes and she sees it’s him…. What wonder, what Awe she experiences. It’s Surreal. To good too be true… she’s waiting to wake up as from a lucid dream!
The reason that we, with Mary, and now some 2 billion other people around the world celebrate Easter is because Jesus Christ rose from the dead that first Easter and is alive.
Jesus Christ through his death on the cross--as a perfect sacrifice for our sins--conquered death for us.
God affirmed that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was a sufficient payment for our sins and therefore enough for the door to eternal life to be opened to us—how did God affirm what Jesus did on the cross was enough for our sins to be forgiven and for us to be given eternal life? By raising Jesus from the dead.
Jesus through his death conquered death for us. This is why poet George Herbert said Death used to be an executioner but Jesus Christ has made him just a gardener. 2x
Because Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose again, he conquered death. Death is no longer some skeleton dressed in back… but has become a friend who at the right time will open to door to a greater and everlasting life for us.
We can know that if our lives are linked to Jesus Christ’s--our own death will not be the end, but simply a doorway into a new and greater life.
The German pastor Dietrich Bonheoffer who was martyred because of his opposition to Hitler and the Third Reich wrote before his execution: Death is the supreme festival on the way to freedom.
When we understand this truth deeply in our own heart… we become people who are truly alive and free.
Ernest Becker, the professor who taught here in the Vancouver area and won the Pulitzer prize for his ground-breaking book, The Denial of Death. Argued in that book that every fear we human beings experience can be traced back to our fear of death.
We try to compensate for that fear by trying to do something lasting…build something…writing something… …accumulate money, begin a family. It is when our fear of death is conquered through being tied to Jesus Christ that we become we can be truly alive and free.
C. S. Lewis said that a person who is not truly ready to live life on earth, until he or she is ready to live in heaven--because until the big question of “what about eternity?” is settled, we will not be able to truly be live, we will not be truly free.
Easter means that not only is our power of death at the end of our life destroyed, but the power of the “small deaths” that we experience while we live is also destroyed. So we can fully live while we live…
The poet George Herbert said,
Death used to be an executioner but Jesus Christ has made him just a gardener.
Throughout our lifetime we experience little deaths—pain and loss sometimes through our choosing, often because it’s imposed on us—these losses can threaten to drain away our life, but when our lives are tied to Jesus Christ, the one who died and rose again, our small deaths become a gateway to new life that is fuller, deeper, richer, freer.
One of the books, I’ve been going through lately is the memoirs of a candidate for the presidency of the country just South of us, entitled Dreams from My Father.
Barack describes how, as a young man, he was working as a community organizer on the south side of Chicago with pastors.
He recalls how he met an African-American minister who talked about his former gambling addiction, another black pastor who described his years as a successful executive and a closest drunk,.
Each the pastors talked about how the corruption of the world had entered their hearts, how they had struck bottom and experienced the shattering of pride…. and then their rising again with Christ…
Now, you need to know that they weren’t using Barack as a sounding board to unload their burdens, they were impressing upon him was that it was these dark experiences, that gave them the insight, the credibility, and the authority preach the Gospel.
Child preachers may be cute and while losing your favorite sponge bob toy with your Happy Meal may be devastating for a child, how does that compare to the death you are currently experiencing?
As I thought about my own troubled youth, getting involved in drugs and partying, and shoplifting and joyriding and some of my mistakes of young adulthood, I think of how like those ministers on the south side of Chicago, God can take my mistakes, my small deaths and resurrect them and bring life and fruit from them because death is no longer an executioner, but Jesus Christ him a gardener, the one who tills the soil our hearts so that we can bear fruit…
I think of my own mentor whose life was the result of the union of two unwed teenage lovers in Ontario. The mother gave him up for adoption. He grew up in Ontario and then after high school, went on to university in Chicago. He met his future wife there. They went to have a son… whom they named son whom they named Sandy. Sandy handsome, very bright, athletic, and wanted to be a minister of the Gospel. When Sandy was just 21 and a student at University of North Carolina, he died of a rare heart disease. The bereaved father, out of his sense of deep loss… went on to become a mentor to other young men and women who aspired to be ministers of the Gospel (of which I am one).
Because of Easter, through death comes life. Death used to be an executioner, but Jesus Christ has made him just a gardener, one who tills the soil of our hearts so that through our deaths we experience greater fruitfulness and life.
On Thursday at Audrey’s memorial service, during the open mic sharing time, Neil Remple shared how he had been in a small group for people with life-defining illnesses with Audrey Orton. Audrey as I said was battling cancer. He described how an art therapist led them through a painting exercise. Neil said Audrey had never really painted before, but described how she had painted a landscape with mountain and lake beautiful sky and bright colors, then smeared over all that with her finger using grey--but the on the top of the grey, she then painted a radiant cross… What do you think that represented? Neil shared how smearing the beautiful landscape with grey represented her cancer… but the radiant cross symbolized how her cancer became door through which she drew closer to Jesus Christ.
Because of Jesus Christ, through death comes life…
Are you familiar are with the name Diana Ortiz? If you know her, you know her story is pretty shocking.
Dianna was born and raised here in North America, but became a missionary to Guatemala to teach poor children how to read. One autumn she was abducted at gun point then raped and tortured in a notorious military interrogation centre in Guatemela. She describes that process in her memoirs… The Blind Fold’s Eyes… It’s a story of her harrowing experience in South America…
She describes her experience of “death”--and a slow and painful process of rebirth. Because of her connection to Jesus Christ, she has been able to use her traumatic suffering to help others. She helps women heal from their wounds of torture. She also works as a human rights activist to bring an end to torture in our world.
She writes: What I endured is the suffering of millions of women around the world. What I now live is a testament to my rebirth…
In life, before our final death and resurrection, we will experience many small deaths, deaths that will be painful, deaths that will leave scars, deaths that will cause us to grieve. But Easter tells us that while death used to be an executioner, Jesus Christ has made him just a gardener, a gardener who tills the soil of our hearts, bringing life and fruit.
Kahlil Ashanti (his wife is Lydia) is an actor in our community whose story is really is of story of passion. It is a story of death and new life. I have asked Kahlil to come and share part of his story with us.
KAHLIL
In 1992 at age eighteen I decided that joining the U.S. Air Force would be the perfect solution to escape and hopefully forget a childhood of severe physical and mental abuse. My family couldn’t afford to send me to university so the military gave me a chance to start over. Ten days after graduating from high school I was ready to put my escape into action, packed and ready to go. The night before I left for boot camp my mom casually informed me that the man who had abused me my entire life wasn’t my real dad. She insists that she told me before but says I probably just forgot. My identity crumbled right before my eyes.
Although we attended Baptist churches for most of my life I wasn’t raised to have a relationship with God. As the oldest of four siblings I was raised to believe that he was up there somewhere and as long as you believed that you were good to go. After living in Germany and then Japan until age ten we settled in Davenport, Iowa. These would prove to be the worst years of my life. My step-dad was a former Army drill sergeant and I was raised as if I was in the Army. The purpose of the military is to break you down so they can build you back up into a soldier, kind of like killing your individuality to resurrect you into a team player. My step-dad took this many steps further. My closest sibling was my brother who was two years younger than me. The slaps across the face, the knuckles to the forehead, punches in the chest-constant berating and being told we were useless, stupid and would never amount to anything were just a few of the daily rituals of my childhood. Whenever I was smacked I wouldn’t stay down but my brother struggled to get back up. I remember one of my step-dad’s favorite tactics was to punish us by forcing us to stand at attention for over ten hours at a time. He would fall asleep on the couch as my brother and I stood there with a belt across our feet, placed there so that if we moved the sound of the buckle would wake him and incite more beatings. When you stand in one place and in one position for extended periods of time your body begins to settle and it feels like your spine actually begins to lock. It’s extremely painful--I have read this same tactic was used at Guantanamo Bay to torture suspected Al Qaeda terrorists. So there we were: I was nine and he was seven standing there sometimes in complete darkness-from 6pm until 7am the next morning in one place, too petrified to move. The only thing that got us into more trouble than the sound of the buckle moving was crying. If we showed any sign of weakness the consequences were severe. Whenever my brother would start wimpering I would do whatever I could to keep him from crying. One night I started doing cartoon characters. Bugs Bunny, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Fat Albert. Even impressions of the man lying on the couch. This always did the trick and seeing my little brother’s big brown eyes light up and hearing him laugh told me I was on to something. I never had to practice or even think about it, I just did it. Of course this wasn’t always ideal because my brother’s laughter was much louder than his crying so most of the time his laughter was muzzled by my hand over his mouth.
Very soon this talent manifested itself at school and as I grew older my confidence on stage improved but my confidence in person did not. I don’t know what its like being a teenage boy today but back then it was really tough because I wanted to be good at something. I quickly realized that making people laugh was the perfect way to make friends. And it was the only thing I was good at. Living in Iowa meant that there weren’t too many people of color and unfortunately stereotypes were rampant. I never had the natural athletic talent of any of the other kids but when they were picking teams for basketball that didn’t matter. They always fought over who got the ‘brotha’. He looks like Martin Lawrence but he probably plays like Michael Jordan. Boy were they in for a surprise. I’m five foot eight. Needless to say basketball wasn’t my thing. I always had to work twice as hard as the other kids just to prove myself.
My time in the military flew by and again the comedy seeds that God had planted during those fateful nights of my childhood were being sown in many wonderful ways. My job in the Air Force was performing stand-up comedy for the troops in war zones, touring the world with a performing group called Tops In Blue (www.topsinblue.com). From 1994-1996, I performed in 17 countries and 46 states each year. And for the first time in my life I realized that my step-dad was wrong. I was worth something.
Four years in the Air Force convinced me that the military life wasn’t for me. I had had the opportunity to see every Air Force base in the world more than once. From 1997-2000 God blessed me with my own show at Caesar’s Palace, performing comedy/magic/dinner theatre in English and Japanese three shows a night, five nights a week. At age twenty seven I moved to Los Angeles to fulfill my dream of becoming an actor on the big screen and I figured the best place to start would be an acting class but living out of my truck and working four minimum wage jobs wasn’t my idea of following my dreams. Just when I thought God had forgotten me I got an offer to take an acting class in exchange for setting up and cleaning the studio. A respected character actor was one of my first acting coaches, although this was an invitation only class after hearing my story he said ‘if you tell this story it will change your life’. In these classes my first exercise was to get on stage and show what I could do. I’m thinking this is gonna be a breeze. Comedy time. Before I began as I stood there in front of the class of 80 people he said the only rule is you can’t be funny. Oh crap. The result of this exercise was a one-man show called Basic Training where I re-tell the story of my childhood through 19 of the most influential characters in my life. No props, no costume changes just me and a chair. Through the death of my childhood innocence God sowed the seeds of comedy. Through the death of my comedy facade God sowed the seeds of an award winning one-man theatrical show that has sold out all over the world. By sharing the worst moments of my childhood and being completely honest with the audience about how it affected me, God has shown me healing. He has also been the author of my marriage. I met my wife Lydia while performing the show here in Vancouver in September 2004. Basic Training is now in development as a feature film with 20th Century Fox, a television series with Second City/NBC Universal and a book deal with several US and UK publishers vying for the rights. In late April 2008, Basic Training will open Off Broadway at the Barrow Street Theatre in New York City. ‘Death used to be an executioner but Jesus Christ has made him just a gardener.’ Because of God’s grace in my life the garden is looking better every day. Thank you. http://www.kahlilashanti.com/
Copyright 2008 Kahlil Ashanti
Closing Comments:
Death used to be an executioner, but Jesus Christ has made him just a gardener. It may be that you have experienced death in some way: the death of your innocence like Kahil, death of a dream, and the death of relationship, the death of a certain kind of idea of the way your life was supposed to be. Though that death may be very painful and worthy of grief and mourning, because of Jesus Christ that death is no longer needs to be an executioner, but just a gardener. If your life is tied to Jesus Christ, the one who died and rose again, from death will come life, and then at the end of your life death will simply be a portal into the greatest festival of joy and freedom you have ever known.
Jesus extends his hands to you and says, "I am the resurrection and the life. I you believe in me, entrust your life to me, you will live, even though you die; 26 and if you believe in me you will never die.
If you jump and commit your life to Christ, you will experience a kind of death, every commitment is a renunciation... if you commit to university, a relationship, to having children, those are renunciations… but if you jump and commit your life to Jesus Christ, you will experience death, but also resurrection, not only at the end of your life but also throughout your life as well.
Pray
(The sermon can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio)
The New Gardener
Text: John 20: 11-18
When I saw the image of the tree, barren, with its branches drooping, my mind went back to being in Grade 3.
Our teacher had given us an assignment to grow tomatoes in an empty egg carton. I remember filling it with soil, planting the tomato seeds, watering them, and hoping to see something would grow. Green sprouts emerged, but no tomatoes. Eventually the sprouts just drooped over like a weeping willow. I was mystified. I had been good about watering my tomato plants regularly… not just once a day, but every hour… and sometimes every ten minutes… (Looking back, I realize I must have been given bad seeds. At home Sakiko is charge of the plants).
When I was in Grade 7, I had a classmate named James who lived right next door. He and his family were about to go away on vacation, and he asked me if I would take care of his fish. He had about 6 fish in his little tank and while he was away on vacation two of them coincidentally died on my watch. I hated having to fish them out of the tank with a net and flush them down the toilet, wondering if my friend would notice that a couple of his fish were missing when he got home! He didn’t seem to mind--but his parents did wonder why all the fish food was gone.
The death of a plant… or the death of a couple of fish… can trouble even an insensitive kid like me.
I remember well the day when the dog I took care of everyday while I was living California, the dog who scratched on my door each morning at 5 something… Some of you looking at me wondering, too much dog food? Too much water? This time, I had nothing to do with it. The dog was old. Losing a pet is like losing a member of your family.
Just over a week ago, Audrey Orton, a member of this community and friend died of cancer. Audrey had a big heart. She was the founder of our Oasis ministry--a ministry that offers lunch and place to connect for the homeless and the underemployed. We miss Audrey.
Have any of you experienced the loss a beloved pet, a friend, a family member?
If so, you may know something of the feelings that Jesus’ friends had when their mentor and leader, Jesus Christ, died on a Roman cross…
In the Gospel of John, Chapter 20:1-2, 11-18 we read that…
1-2 Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was moved away from the entrance… (Pause: can you imagine going to the grave of your mom and dad or friend… and finding it empty a few days later).
11-13But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus' body had been laid. They said to her, "Woman, why do you weep?"
13-14"They took my Master," she said, "and I don't know where they put him." After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there. But she didn't recognize him.
15Jesus spoke to her, "Woman, why do you weep? Who are you looking for?"
(She was certain that Jesus was dead, even when he appeared before her again with the same body and voice… the nail wounds in his wrists, she didn’t recognize him).
She, thinking that he was the gardener, said, "Mister, if you took him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him."
16Jesus said, "Mary."
Turning to face him, she said in Hebrew, "Rabboni!" meaning "Teacher!"
17Jesus said, "Don't cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go to my brothers and tell them, 'I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.'"
18Mary Magdalene went, telling the news to the disciples: "I saw the Master!" And she told them everything he said to her.
I can’t imagine any experience greater than the one Mary had on that first Easter morning.
She had assumed like everyone else, that Jesus was dead… She sees this person who she thinks is the gardener… (and BTW as G.K. Chesterton has said in way she was right as the man was God was Gardener, God the gardener of the new creation, he had just ushered in) and asks him, “Where have you taken his body?” Then he calls her name… “Mary” and the curtains lift from her eyes and she sees it’s him…. What wonder, what Awe she experiences. It’s Surreal. To good too be true… she’s waiting to wake up as from a lucid dream!
The reason that we, with Mary, and now some 2 billion other people around the world celebrate Easter is because Jesus Christ rose from the dead that first Easter and is alive.
Jesus Christ through his death on the cross--as a perfect sacrifice for our sins--conquered death for us.
God affirmed that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was a sufficient payment for our sins and therefore enough for the door to eternal life to be opened to us—how did God affirm what Jesus did on the cross was enough for our sins to be forgiven and for us to be given eternal life? By raising Jesus from the dead.
Jesus through his death conquered death for us. This is why poet George Herbert said Death used to be an executioner but Jesus Christ has made him just a gardener. 2x
Because Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose again, he conquered death. Death is no longer some skeleton dressed in back… but has become a friend who at the right time will open to door to a greater and everlasting life for us.
We can know that if our lives are linked to Jesus Christ’s--our own death will not be the end, but simply a doorway into a new and greater life.
The German pastor Dietrich Bonheoffer who was martyred because of his opposition to Hitler and the Third Reich wrote before his execution: Death is the supreme festival on the way to freedom.
When we understand this truth deeply in our own heart… we become people who are truly alive and free.
Ernest Becker, the professor who taught here in the Vancouver area and won the Pulitzer prize for his ground-breaking book, The Denial of Death. Argued in that book that every fear we human beings experience can be traced back to our fear of death.
We try to compensate for that fear by trying to do something lasting…build something…writing something… …accumulate money, begin a family. It is when our fear of death is conquered through being tied to Jesus Christ that we become we can be truly alive and free.
C. S. Lewis said that a person who is not truly ready to live life on earth, until he or she is ready to live in heaven--because until the big question of “what about eternity?” is settled, we will not be able to truly be live, we will not be truly free.
Easter means that not only is our power of death at the end of our life destroyed, but the power of the “small deaths” that we experience while we live is also destroyed. So we can fully live while we live…
The poet George Herbert said,
Death used to be an executioner but Jesus Christ has made him just a gardener.
Throughout our lifetime we experience little deaths—pain and loss sometimes through our choosing, often because it’s imposed on us—these losses can threaten to drain away our life, but when our lives are tied to Jesus Christ, the one who died and rose again, our small deaths become a gateway to new life that is fuller, deeper, richer, freer.
One of the books, I’ve been going through lately is the memoirs of a candidate for the presidency of the country just South of us, entitled Dreams from My Father.
Barack describes how, as a young man, he was working as a community organizer on the south side of Chicago with pastors.
He recalls how he met an African-American minister who talked about his former gambling addiction, another black pastor who described his years as a successful executive and a closest drunk,.
Each the pastors talked about how the corruption of the world had entered their hearts, how they had struck bottom and experienced the shattering of pride…. and then their rising again with Christ…
Now, you need to know that they weren’t using Barack as a sounding board to unload their burdens, they were impressing upon him was that it was these dark experiences, that gave them the insight, the credibility, and the authority preach the Gospel.
Child preachers may be cute and while losing your favorite sponge bob toy with your Happy Meal may be devastating for a child, how does that compare to the death you are currently experiencing?
As I thought about my own troubled youth, getting involved in drugs and partying, and shoplifting and joyriding and some of my mistakes of young adulthood, I think of how like those ministers on the south side of Chicago, God can take my mistakes, my small deaths and resurrect them and bring life and fruit from them because death is no longer an executioner, but Jesus Christ him a gardener, the one who tills the soil our hearts so that we can bear fruit…
I think of my own mentor whose life was the result of the union of two unwed teenage lovers in Ontario. The mother gave him up for adoption. He grew up in Ontario and then after high school, went on to university in Chicago. He met his future wife there. They went to have a son… whom they named son whom they named Sandy. Sandy handsome, very bright, athletic, and wanted to be a minister of the Gospel. When Sandy was just 21 and a student at University of North Carolina, he died of a rare heart disease. The bereaved father, out of his sense of deep loss… went on to become a mentor to other young men and women who aspired to be ministers of the Gospel (of which I am one).
Because of Easter, through death comes life. Death used to be an executioner, but Jesus Christ has made him just a gardener, one who tills the soil of our hearts so that through our deaths we experience greater fruitfulness and life.
On Thursday at Audrey’s memorial service, during the open mic sharing time, Neil Remple shared how he had been in a small group for people with life-defining illnesses with Audrey Orton. Audrey as I said was battling cancer. He described how an art therapist led them through a painting exercise. Neil said Audrey had never really painted before, but described how she had painted a landscape with mountain and lake beautiful sky and bright colors, then smeared over all that with her finger using grey--but the on the top of the grey, she then painted a radiant cross… What do you think that represented? Neil shared how smearing the beautiful landscape with grey represented her cancer… but the radiant cross symbolized how her cancer became door through which she drew closer to Jesus Christ.
Because of Jesus Christ, through death comes life…
Are you familiar are with the name Diana Ortiz? If you know her, you know her story is pretty shocking.
Dianna was born and raised here in North America, but became a missionary to Guatemala to teach poor children how to read. One autumn she was abducted at gun point then raped and tortured in a notorious military interrogation centre in Guatemela. She describes that process in her memoirs… The Blind Fold’s Eyes… It’s a story of her harrowing experience in South America…
She describes her experience of “death”--and a slow and painful process of rebirth. Because of her connection to Jesus Christ, she has been able to use her traumatic suffering to help others. She helps women heal from their wounds of torture. She also works as a human rights activist to bring an end to torture in our world.
She writes: What I endured is the suffering of millions of women around the world. What I now live is a testament to my rebirth…
In life, before our final death and resurrection, we will experience many small deaths, deaths that will be painful, deaths that will leave scars, deaths that will cause us to grieve. But Easter tells us that while death used to be an executioner, Jesus Christ has made him just a gardener, a gardener who tills the soil of our hearts, bringing life and fruit.
Kahlil Ashanti (his wife is Lydia) is an actor in our community whose story is really is of story of passion. It is a story of death and new life. I have asked Kahlil to come and share part of his story with us.
KAHLIL
In 1992 at age eighteen I decided that joining the U.S. Air Force would be the perfect solution to escape and hopefully forget a childhood of severe physical and mental abuse. My family couldn’t afford to send me to university so the military gave me a chance to start over. Ten days after graduating from high school I was ready to put my escape into action, packed and ready to go. The night before I left for boot camp my mom casually informed me that the man who had abused me my entire life wasn’t my real dad. She insists that she told me before but says I probably just forgot. My identity crumbled right before my eyes.
Although we attended Baptist churches for most of my life I wasn’t raised to have a relationship with God. As the oldest of four siblings I was raised to believe that he was up there somewhere and as long as you believed that you were good to go. After living in Germany and then Japan until age ten we settled in Davenport, Iowa. These would prove to be the worst years of my life. My step-dad was a former Army drill sergeant and I was raised as if I was in the Army. The purpose of the military is to break you down so they can build you back up into a soldier, kind of like killing your individuality to resurrect you into a team player. My step-dad took this many steps further. My closest sibling was my brother who was two years younger than me. The slaps across the face, the knuckles to the forehead, punches in the chest-constant berating and being told we were useless, stupid and would never amount to anything were just a few of the daily rituals of my childhood. Whenever I was smacked I wouldn’t stay down but my brother struggled to get back up. I remember one of my step-dad’s favorite tactics was to punish us by forcing us to stand at attention for over ten hours at a time. He would fall asleep on the couch as my brother and I stood there with a belt across our feet, placed there so that if we moved the sound of the buckle would wake him and incite more beatings. When you stand in one place and in one position for extended periods of time your body begins to settle and it feels like your spine actually begins to lock. It’s extremely painful--I have read this same tactic was used at Guantanamo Bay to torture suspected Al Qaeda terrorists. So there we were: I was nine and he was seven standing there sometimes in complete darkness-from 6pm until 7am the next morning in one place, too petrified to move. The only thing that got us into more trouble than the sound of the buckle moving was crying. If we showed any sign of weakness the consequences were severe. Whenever my brother would start wimpering I would do whatever I could to keep him from crying. One night I started doing cartoon characters. Bugs Bunny, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Fat Albert. Even impressions of the man lying on the couch. This always did the trick and seeing my little brother’s big brown eyes light up and hearing him laugh told me I was on to something. I never had to practice or even think about it, I just did it. Of course this wasn’t always ideal because my brother’s laughter was much louder than his crying so most of the time his laughter was muzzled by my hand over his mouth.
Very soon this talent manifested itself at school and as I grew older my confidence on stage improved but my confidence in person did not. I don’t know what its like being a teenage boy today but back then it was really tough because I wanted to be good at something. I quickly realized that making people laugh was the perfect way to make friends. And it was the only thing I was good at. Living in Iowa meant that there weren’t too many people of color and unfortunately stereotypes were rampant. I never had the natural athletic talent of any of the other kids but when they were picking teams for basketball that didn’t matter. They always fought over who got the ‘brotha’. He looks like Martin Lawrence but he probably plays like Michael Jordan. Boy were they in for a surprise. I’m five foot eight. Needless to say basketball wasn’t my thing. I always had to work twice as hard as the other kids just to prove myself.
My time in the military flew by and again the comedy seeds that God had planted during those fateful nights of my childhood were being sown in many wonderful ways. My job in the Air Force was performing stand-up comedy for the troops in war zones, touring the world with a performing group called Tops In Blue (www.topsinblue.com). From 1994-1996, I performed in 17 countries and 46 states each year. And for the first time in my life I realized that my step-dad was wrong. I was worth something.
Four years in the Air Force convinced me that the military life wasn’t for me. I had had the opportunity to see every Air Force base in the world more than once. From 1997-2000 God blessed me with my own show at Caesar’s Palace, performing comedy/magic/dinner theatre in English and Japanese three shows a night, five nights a week. At age twenty seven I moved to Los Angeles to fulfill my dream of becoming an actor on the big screen and I figured the best place to start would be an acting class but living out of my truck and working four minimum wage jobs wasn’t my idea of following my dreams. Just when I thought God had forgotten me I got an offer to take an acting class in exchange for setting up and cleaning the studio. A respected character actor was one of my first acting coaches, although this was an invitation only class after hearing my story he said ‘if you tell this story it will change your life’. In these classes my first exercise was to get on stage and show what I could do. I’m thinking this is gonna be a breeze. Comedy time. Before I began as I stood there in front of the class of 80 people he said the only rule is you can’t be funny. Oh crap. The result of this exercise was a one-man show called Basic Training where I re-tell the story of my childhood through 19 of the most influential characters in my life. No props, no costume changes just me and a chair. Through the death of my childhood innocence God sowed the seeds of comedy. Through the death of my comedy facade God sowed the seeds of an award winning one-man theatrical show that has sold out all over the world. By sharing the worst moments of my childhood and being completely honest with the audience about how it affected me, God has shown me healing. He has also been the author of my marriage. I met my wife Lydia while performing the show here in Vancouver in September 2004. Basic Training is now in development as a feature film with 20th Century Fox, a television series with Second City/NBC Universal and a book deal with several US and UK publishers vying for the rights. In late April 2008, Basic Training will open Off Broadway at the Barrow Street Theatre in New York City. ‘Death used to be an executioner but Jesus Christ has made him just a gardener.’ Because of God’s grace in my life the garden is looking better every day. Thank you. http://www.kahlilashanti.com/
Copyright 2008 Kahlil Ashanti
Closing Comments:
Death used to be an executioner, but Jesus Christ has made him just a gardener. It may be that you have experienced death in some way: the death of your innocence like Kahil, death of a dream, and the death of relationship, the death of a certain kind of idea of the way your life was supposed to be. Though that death may be very painful and worthy of grief and mourning, because of Jesus Christ that death is no longer needs to be an executioner, but just a gardener. If your life is tied to Jesus Christ, the one who died and rose again, from death will come life, and then at the end of your life death will simply be a portal into the greatest festival of joy and freedom you have ever known.
Jesus extends his hands to you and says, "I am the resurrection and the life. I you believe in me, entrust your life to me, you will live, even though you die; 26 and if you believe in me you will never die.
If you jump and commit your life to Christ, you will experience a kind of death, every commitment is a renunciation... if you commit to university, a relationship, to having children, those are renunciations… but if you jump and commit your life to Jesus Christ, you will experience death, but also resurrection, not only at the end of your life but also throughout your life as well.
Pray
(The sermon can be heard on line at: www.tenth.ca/audio)
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