Tag Archives: resurrection

The Good Lord’s Decision (The 2nd Sunday of Easter, 4/27/2025)

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Readings

After a very full Holy Week in which it’s easy for the brain to go on overload, this Sunday, a.k.a. “Low Sunday,” is a welcome opportunity to catch our breath and ask what all that was about. That pretty much sets the agenda for this sermon.

In our first reading we heard Peter address the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem: “The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus… God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.” That’s the core of Easter: the divine decision to raise Jesus, to vindicate Jesus.

At Jesus’ baptism Luke recounts: “And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” Some time later, as some of Jesus’ disciples watched him talk with Moses and Elijah, that same heavenly voice: “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” Wistful thinking? A trick of the wind? God’s raising Jesus from the dead: the exclamation point!

But why raise Jesus after three days rather than waiting to sort everything out at the Last Judgment? Because there’s work to be done on earth now, and it’s not only Jesus’ work. The poorneed good news now; the Pilates, Herods, Caiaphases of this world are—shall we say—underperforming. Recall Peter’s words: “that he might give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.” It doesn’t take much unpacking of those words to see that they include the disciples, Peter’s audience, and us. That’s seconded by our second reading from Revelation: “To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father…”

Recall what we heard on Maundy Thursday: [Jesus:] “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” “This is my body that is for you… This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” Without Easter we wouldn’t be recalling those words, or at best recalling them as another example of crazy hopes cancelled by a Roman cross. With Easter: even that cross is part of their fulfillment (“and freed us from our sins by his blood”).

In other words, Easter is God’s decision regarding Jesus and God’s decision regarding us. Rather than fire and brimstone, going full momma bear, the offer of repentance and forgiveness. The Easter Vigil—one of the jewels of the 1979 prayer book revision—makes this clear in including the renewal of our baptismal vows “by which [as the BCP puts it] we once renounced Satan and all his works, and promised to serve God faithfully in his holy Catholic Church” (p.292). God raises Jesus and then turns to us: whose side are you on?

Back to our reading from Revelation: “To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.” That’s what the baptismal vows are about, not one more card among many (driver’s license, Social Security card, MasterCard, etc.) but as the guide for how we use all the rest.

Peter: “And we are witnesses to these things.” Witnesses. Not the judge, not the jury, not even the bailiff. Witnesses, who by definition are not expected to know anything beyond their own experience, and not even expected to understand that. “God raised Jesus from the dead, and this is what Jesus has been doing among us:” that’s more than enough to keep us focused.

Witness, of course, often happens as much by action as by word, and two examples from today’s readings are worth noticing.

Recall again Peter before the Council. He doesn’t mince words: “Jesus, whom you had killed.” But God exalted Jesus as Leader and Savior not for payback, but for repentance and forgiveness—precisely what Peter offers to the Council members. Bless him, Peter’d learned something from Jesus.

Then today’s Gospel reading. There are two surprises in that second encounter between Jesus and the disciples. The first is that Jesus shows up again. The second is that the other disciples were still willing to be in the same room as Thomas. For a whole week they’d been all “Alleluia!” and Thomas “I need some evidence.” The disciples witnessed to Jesus’ resurrection also by not writing Thomas off. Bless them, they’d learned something from Jesus. Given the Church’s history of splitting over much smaller issues, if we’re looking for a way of witnessing to Jesus’ resurrection this isn’t a bad place to start.

In these two examples Easter is an invitation to dial back our fear, whether of external enemies (Acts) or of potential internal enemies (the Gospel). It’s Jesus whom God has exalted as Leader and Savior, not whoever is currently claiming those titles. Even the State looks a little different when the Crucified doesn’t stay dead.

Easter: The Lord God’s decision: Jesus got it right. Jesus’ project is just getting started, and Jesus has no interest in doing it alone. “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” We celebrated that at the Easter Vigil; as we hear the stories from Acts and approach Pentecost we have the opportunity to wonder afresh what else it might mean. Joyous Easter!

“And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (Easter Sunday, 3/31/2024)

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Readings [Isaiah, Acts, Mark]

Alleluia. Christ is Risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.

What a strange ending for a Gospel, yes? We’ll spend most of our time wondering about that, but first a word about our other two readings.

“On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.… he will swallow up death forever.” That captures one of the key dimensions of our Eucharists, and I’ll be using part of it as the Offertory Sentence this Easter season. The mother of all feasts—and each Eucharist is a preview.

And the text contains an important tension that we’ll notice in Peter’s speech. “On this mountain” (not any old mountain) “for all peoples.” Easter’s good news is for everyone; it’s rooted in what God did at a particular moment in human history.

Or, as Peter puts it, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality.” God loves the Roman conquerors no less than the Jewish conquered. Isaiah captured it: “On that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the LORD of hosts has blessed, saying, ‘Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage.’” And this God who shows no partiality offers salvation to all through Jesus of Nazareth, for “All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” But recently—the last couple centuries—we’ve found it challenging to hold the “no particularity” and Jesus as the source of forgiveness together. Here we might learn from Peter: Easter: good news for all peoples, not just the Christians.

The ending of Mark’s Gospel: readers have long found it perplexing. Perplexing enough that later manuscripts added a variety of “better” endings. The ending at v.8 is odd enough that some wonder if the original ending was lost very early. But Mark seems to like curve balls, so it’s worth wondering what it might mean that he ended with this curve ball.

“So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” Mark’s portrayed these women in a positive light, encouraged us to empathize with them. And as we hear v.8 we may respond “No, please don’t get stuck there.” And if that’s the reaction Mark’s after, he’s employing an old strategy.

Recall how the Book of Jonah ends. God told Jonah to preach to Nineveh. Jonah eventually gets there, preaches, Nineveh repents, God repents of the threatened destruction, Jonah blows multiple fuses, and the book ends with God trying to make a case for divine compassion.

“Then the LORD said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?” (Jon. 4:10-11)

We’re not told how Jonah responds. Why? The important question is not how Jonah responds, but how we respond. Are we up for living with a God who extends compassion to our bitterest enemies?

Then there’s one of the stories Luke tells. The Pharisees and scribes are grumbling about Jesus welcoming sinners. So Jesus tells some parables, ending with the parable we call “The Prodigal Son” but which might be better titled “The Two Lost Sons.” At the end of the parable the father’s thrown a party to celebrate the younger son’s return and the older son is refusing to participate. Here’s the ending:

“His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’” (Lk. 15:28b-32)

We’re not told how the older son responds. Why? The important question is not how he responds, but how the Pharisees and scribes respond, how—by extension—we the hearers respond.

“So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” And here again the question is not what the women do, but what Mark’s hearers do. In their political climate saying nothing to anyone would have sounded like a really good idea. So Mark’s ending serves as a sort of mirror: if I’m dismayed by the women’s reaction, am I doing any better?

Our political climate is, of course, quite different. But here too saying nothing to anyone can sound like a really good idea. So Easter becomes a celebration of generic newness rather than the shocking announcement that God has raised this convicted Jewish Messiah and named him the benchmark for human striving and the source of forgiveness for all. “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” And, oh, can I empathize.

Alleluia. Christ is Risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Celebrating Easter with the poets

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Inspired by today’s feast and tomorrow’s reading from 1 Corinthians…

“Death be not proud”

John Donne

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou are slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

From The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

C. S. Lewis

‘Who’s done it?’ cried Susan. ‘What does it mean? Is it more magic?’

‘Yes!’ said a great voice behind their backs. ‘It is more magic.’ They looked around. There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it apparently had grown again) stood Aslan himself.

…

‘But what does it all mean?’ Asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer.

‘It means,’ said Aslan, ‘that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.’

 “Seven Stanzas at Easter”

John Updike

Make no mistake: if he rose at all
It was as His body;
If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit,
The amino acids rekindle,
The Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
Each soft spring recurrent;
It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the
Eleven apostles;
It was as His flesh; ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes
The same valved heart
That—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then regathered
Out of enduring Might
New strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
Credulity of earlier ages:
Let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
Not a stone in a story,
But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of
Time will eclipse for each of us
The wide light of day.

And if we have an angel at the tomb,
Make it a real angel,
Weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in
The dawn light, robed in real linen
Spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed
By the miracle,
And crushed by remonstrance.