Easter Day
Listen to the Sermon April 5, 2015
Read the Sermon for April 5, 2015
Tag: Easter
-
Many Paths to Easter Faith
How do you feel about your faith this Easter? St. John’s account (John 20:1-18) of the experiences of those first disciples on that first Easter morning offers an important message: not everyone takes the same path to faith in the Risen Christ. In this account of the resurrection, the responses Simon Peter, the "Beloved Disciple", and Mary Magdalene are carefully interwoven. In their responses, the writer is able to show how faith in Christ's resurrection is generated in different ways.
Some people come to an Easter faith on the basis of evidence. And the process of gathering external evidence can take time! Peter arrived at the tomb second, but entered it first, looked around, saw everything and yet nothing. Then, he left. There is no evidence that what he saw generated any faith in him at all. All Peter took away from the empty tomb was a personal confirmation that indeed, Jesus' body was not present, just as Mary had reported. It took some time for Peter’s faith to develop because he required the additional evidence that came as the Risen Christ appeared to the Apostles over the next few weeks.
Other people come to their Easter faith in a relational way. The disciple whom Jesus loved ran with Peter to the tomb and arrived first, but he entered the tomb after Peter. He saw the same things Peter saw but his response was different. When he entered the tomb "he saw and believed." But he did not know what to do with his belief. He, like Peter, returned home. He believed Christ is risen. But what are the implications of the Resurrection for him? He seems to have come to understand the implications as he participated in the community of believers. Some think that it is this "beloved disciple" who wrote the gospel attributed to St. John. This gospel is characterized by both an understanding of love divine that is both deep and broad. Long after the first Easter, this writer remembered that Jesus had said, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you," and "love one another, just as I have loved you…I have told you this so that my joy will be in you, and your joy might be complete."
Mary Magdalene represents faith formed yet another way. The empty tomb, rather than even hinting resurrection, saddened Mary with the thought of Jesus' body being stolen. Even the appearance of two angels does not break her sorrow. In fact, the voice and the appearance of Jesus do not at first stir her to belief. Only when he speaks her name does she believe. Mary comes to faith through the word of Christ and by that word she must be sustained. She cannot resume her old relationship with her Lord. When Jesus says to Mary, "Do not hold on to me," he wants Mary to understand that "the past is prologue." There is much more to faith than what has gone before. Mary’s path to an Easter faith is no more normative than any other. We don't know whatever happened to her, but we do know what happened to her message. It spread around the world until it reached us.
Not everyone takes the same path to faith in the Risen Christ. There is not one normative way. Some respond to a word, others to evidence, and others to a relationship. But whatever the path, and whether sudden or slow, it is always faith that removes the distance between the first Easter and our own.
I’ll see you in Church!
-
About the Paschal Candle
At the beginning of the Great Vigil of Easter a "new fire" is ignited and blessed with this prayer:
O God, through your Son you have bestowed upon your people the brightness of your light: Sanctify this new fire, and grant that in this Paschal feast we may so burn with heavenly desires, that with pure minds we may attain to the festival of everlasting light; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Paschal candle is the first candle to be lighted from this sacred fire. The flame of the Paschal candle symbolizes the eternal presence of Christ, the Alpha and the Omega, the Light of the World in the midst of his people, the Light which darkness has never overcome.The Paschal candle is sometimes referred to as the "Easter candle" or the "Christ candle." The term "Paschal" comes from the word Pesach, which in Hebrew means Passover, and relates to the Paschal mystery of salvation. The tall white candle may also remind us of the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night that led the Israelites in their Exodus from slavery in Egypt.
The minister may trace symbols on the Paschal candle.These symbols may include the cross, five grains of incense embedded in five red wax nails,the Greek letters Alpha and Omega, and the number of the current year.
The worshiping assembly then processes into the dark church led by the Paschal candle. The candle is raised three times during the procession, accompanied by the chant "The light of Christ" to which the congregation responds "Thanks be to God". Following the procession, a prayer known as the Exultet is chanted, traditionally by a deacon, but it may be chanted by the priest, a cantor or a choir. The Exultet concludes with a blessing of the candle:
Holy Father, accept our evening sacrifice, the offering of this candle in your honor. May it shine continually to drive away all darkness. May Christ, the Morning Star who knows no setting, find it ever burning–he who gives his light to all creation, and who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.
It is customary for the Paschal candle to burn at all services during the Great Fifty Days of Easter as well as at Baptisms and funerals. It reminds us of the presence of the Risen Christ and his call to the Baptized to bear his light in the world. At Christ Church Cranbrook, we also light the candle atop the enormous and ornate marble Paschal Candlestick in the Narthex at the entrance to the Baptistry. It is an exact replica of the Paschal Candlestick in the Capella Palentina, Palermo, Sicily.
During these fifty days and whenever we see the Paschal candle burning, let it remind us of the words of Jesus:
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:14, 15).
Enjoy this hymn from our Hymnal 1982, sung by the Choir of All Saints' Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills, California. May your Easter life be flooded with light and my you reflect that light wherever you may be.
I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light
I want to walk as a child of the light;
I want to follow Jesus.
God set the stars to give light to the world;
The star of my life is Jesus.Refrain
In him there is no darkness at all;
The night and the day are both alike.
The Lamb is the light of the city of God;
Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.I want to see the brightness of God;
I want to look at Jesus.
Clear Sun of righteousness, shine on my path,
And show me the way to the Father.Refrain
I’m looking for the coming of Christ;
I want to be with Jesus.
When we have run with patience the race,
We shall know the joy of Jesus.Refrain
I’ll see you in Church!
-
“Hail the Day That Sees Him Rise” – Feast of the Ascension
Almighty God, your blessed Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, ascended far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his promise, he abides with his Church on earth, even to the end of the world; through the same your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Today is the Feast of the Ascension. The Ascension (Luke 24:44-53 / Acts 1:1-11) is probably not the best known of the feast days in the Church’s calendar, but it is one that takes on increasing depth and importance the more you think about it and experience it. In this feast, we are drawn into an event that has cosmic significance.
The Ascension is not about gravity, or the physical location of heaven, or any of that. It is about God. In fact, even though it comes toward the end of the season of Easter, the Ascension is most closely related in meaning to Christmas. At Christmas we celebrate the Incarnation, God becoming flesh and living among us.
What was begun at Christmas is brought full circle and proclaimed again in a different way at the Ascension. In the Incarnation, what it means to be God became fully a part of what it means to be a human being. In Jesus, the human and the divine become united in the person and life of one man. In the Ascension, this human being became fully a part of who God is.
It was not the spirit of Jesus, or the essence of Jesus, or the divine nature of Jesus, or the invisible part of Jesus, or the idea of Jesus, or anything like that, that ascended to the Father. It was the resurrected body of Jesus: a body that the disciples had touched, a body that ate and drank with them, a real, physical, but gloriously restored body-bearing the marks of nails and a spear. This humanity has become a living, participating part of Divinity.
The Ascension tells us that it is a good and holy thing to be a human. It is so good and holy a thing that God became human. The fullness of God now includes what it means to be a human being.
So we are able to approach God with confidence and with joy. Because we are not only dealing with the Creator of the universe and the Sovereign of all time and of eternity; we are also drawing near to the One who lived our life, has shared our fate, who knows us, and cares about us.
St. John Chrysostom expressed it in this way: “Through the mystery of the Ascension we, who seemed unworthy of God's earth, are taken up into heaven…Our very nature, against which Cherubim guarded the gates of Paradise, is enthroned today high above all Cherubim.”
Charles Wesley's Hymn for Ascension Day is also quite a beautiful expression of the meaning and implications of the Ascension.
Amen.
-
One Thing in the Universe That is Not Up to Us
Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, ‘Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’ And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. – Luke 24:36b-42
An advertisement for a guest speaker at a Houston, Texas church announced that the speaker’s topic was “Activating the Presence of Christ.” That put me off and I’ll tell you why. The presence of Christ is not something that is “activated” by individuals or even groups of individuals. You don’t “make” Christ present in your home or workplace and I don’t “make” Christ present in the bread and wine at the Altar.
God’s presence isn’t dependent upon our subjective awareness. We can be grateful for that! In a world where we can control and manipulate so many things, it is really a comfort to know that God, the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of all life, is constantly fulfilling the covenant promise to be with us no matter what. The divine presesnce is not dependent upon our consciousness. It may be the one thing in the universe that is never “up to us.”
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung discovered a statement to this effect among the Latin writings of Desiderius Erasmus. Erasmus, the Renaissance scholar and humanist, said the statement had been an ancient Spartan proverb. Jung popularized it, having it inscribed over the doorway of his Zurich home to remind those who entered that "awe of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Psalms 111:10). The phrase is also inscribed upon Dr. Jung’s tomb. Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit. (Bidden or not bidden, God is Present.)
We are all aware of the idea that God in Christ never forces his way into our lives. That theme, and the related theme of the free will of the individual, are artistically expressed in Holman Hunt's famous painting, "The Light of the World." The latch on the door is on the inside, not on the outside where Christ, the bearer and embodiment of light, stands knocking. But note that Christ is present. His presence may be acknowledged, welcomed, resisted, denied, or ignored, but not “activated.”
Luke 24:36b-42 is one of several readings used in the Easter season that provide an account of the Resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples. Jesus stood among them and spoke to them. They were startled and thought they were seeing a ghost. There was no knocking at a door. There was no “activating” his presence. He was there by his own will. Moreover, this gospel writer and others go out of their way to make it clear that this was no ghost. He was corporeally present. He invited them to touch him, he ate with them, and they heard his voice.
No doubt by the time the epistles and gospels were written, several decades following the resurrection, it was important to the bearers of the apostolic witness to counter certain Christological positions that were gaining in popularity. The Gnostics and others believed in a docetic Christ. In their thought, Christ only appeared to have lived and died, since a god would never defile himself by taking on human flesh and blood. Others taught that the resurrection appearances were “spiritual” experiences and tried to reinforce the Greek notion of the immortality of the soul, wherein we are just passing through.
Christians believe in the resurrection of the dead, not into a spirit world. Luke’s resurrection appearance is a way of saying “no” to a spirituality that says the body and all things physical are inferior and evil. The resurrection completes the incarnation and declares in the clearest of terms that God values and loves all that God has created.
The Risen Christ continues to be present with us in physical ways, principally in the Eucharist. The season of Easter was always used in the early church as the time to instruct newly baptized people in the sacraments, which they were now able to receive. This practice is still carried on frequently in the contemporary church. It is helpful, because all of us need to be reminded of the meaning of our sacramental relationship with God in the Eucharistic Meal. We come here not to “activate” the presence of Christ, but to experience him in the table fellowship. Then, we are sent into the world to be an extension of the experience of Christ’s living risen presence to others in touchable, tangible, real ways that make a difference.
St. Augustine, a fourth century bishop in North Africa, put it this way in an Easter sermon: "You are the body of Christ. In you and through you the work of the incarnation must go forward. You are to be taken; you are to be blessed, broken, and distributed; that you may be the means of grace and the vehicles of the eternal charity."
It is true today. As we know Christ we understand that we are to make Christ known when we walk out of the church into the mission field at our doorstep. We have been fed so that we can feed others who are hungry, as are we, for that which satisfies the deepest hungers of our lives.
-
Easter is more than a day.
During the forty days of Lent each year we spend time getting ready for the celebration of Easter. There is fasting, self-denial, prayer, intensified devotion, scripture study, and other disciplines designed to cleanse our hearts.
Then, comes the big celebration. Easter. Like so many Christian holy days, Easter seems to disappear the next day as life returns to "normal." But Easter should be more than that to us! It certainly was to those early disciples. Easter is more than a day!
Easter is a season of celebration. The Risen Christ walked among his disciples for forty days after his resurrection. He taught them, ate with them, prayed with them, and loved them. Before he was taken up into heaven, he promised to send the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. The promise was fulfilled on the fiftieth day when they were in Jerusalem celebrating the Jewish feast of Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks. In Greek, it is called Pentecost. Pentecost is seven weeks, or fifty days, after the observance of Passover and commemorates the spring wheat harvest. This feast has also been associated with the remembrance of the giving of the Law to Moses. As the law was written on tablets of stone, the Spirit would write God's law upon the hearts of believers. When Moses came down from the mountain, he found God's people worshipping an idol and 3,000 of them died. When the Spirit was given, the disciples were obediently waiting in Jerusalem. 3,000 people were saved! The New People of the New Covenant were empowered by the Life-giving Spirit to be Christ's Body in the world, proclaiming to all the Easter message that Christ is alive.
Easter is a lifestyle. We are Easter People! As those early disciples in Emmaus and Jerusalem and in Galilee experienced the living presence of the Risen Christ, so we recognize that he stands among us today. To paraphrase Jesus, "believing is seeing." When we gather to hear the Word and share in the Holy Meal, it is usually easy to experience his presence "enthroned upon the praises of his people." The challenging part comes when we disperse. When Christ's Body touches the world through you and me when we are apart from one another, do you suppose the Living Presence is felt?
Easter is our only hope. St. Peter writes, "By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…" There is a lot of help out there for people with all kinds of needs. But Christians believe that beyond help, people need hope. So what if you are physically or emotionally well. Life is just not complete without hope. The Easter faith gives the world hope.
So, don't let Easter fade like the blooms on your Easter Lily! Easter is more than a day; it is a season, a lifestyle, and a faith that fills our lives with hope.
-
Dearly Anointed Ones
For many centuries, Easter was the principal date for Baptisms. The season of Lent was the time of preparation for baptismal candidates and a time for the faithful who are already baptized to remember their own formation as followers of the Risen Christ.
Following the the Sacrament of Holy Baptism with water and in the name of the Holy Trinity, the Bishop
or Priest places a hand on the person's head and makes the sign of the cross with Chrism, a fragrant oil that has been blessed by the Bishop as Apostle and chief missionary of a diocese. During this action, the following words are said: "N., you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ's own for ever." And the people respond, "Amen."
We usually have plenty to say about the significance of water in Holy Baptism, but we seldom mention the significance of Chrism. Our English word Chrism is derived from the Greek word χρίσμα, meaning ointment or anointment. The same Greek word is the root for "Christ" and means "anointed one" – Jesus is the Anointed One.
The Episcopal Church liturgy for consecration of this oil provides a brief but helpful explanation. However, since the consecration of Chrism is reserved to the Bishop, the liturgy usually happens only once a year at a time when few people are present to witness it. Yesterday, at Grace Cathedral in Topeka, Bishop Wolfe presided over a service that included consecration of Chrism. We heard the Bishop give this introduction:
Dear Friends in Christ: In the beginning, the Spirit of God hovered over the creation; and, throughout history, God, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, he empowered his people to serve him. As a sign of that gift, the priests and kings of Israel were anointed with oil; and our Lord Jesus was himself anointed with the Holy Spirit at his Baptism as the Christ, God's own Messiah. At Baptism, Christians are likewise anointed by that same Spirit to empower them for God's service. Let us now set apart this oil to be the sign of that anointing.
The Bishop then placed a hand on the vessel of oil and prayed
Eternal Father, whose blessed Son was anointed by the
Holy Spirit to be the Savior and servant of all, we pray you to
consecrate this oil, that those who are sealed with it may
share in the royal priesthood of Jesus Christ; who lives and
reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.So, in Holy Baptism our sins are washed away. We are included in God's covenant, joined with the Risen Christ, and given the seal (guarantee) of the Holy Spirit, who will continue to work in us. When we rise from the waters of Bapitsm, we receive an outward anointing that assures us of our inward
anointing. This act establishes our true identity. We are royalty, the adopted sons and daughters of the Sovereign of the Universe! We are "marked as Christ's own for ever."
Living into that identity is an opportunity for daily epiphanies, dearly anointed ones.