The Lord is
risen! I imagine that this Easter is a
bit more special for most of us. I
realize that Zoom and YouTube are better than nothing, but this is our first
big gathering in over a year. Worse,
this time last year, we were meeting exclusively on-line. I imagine that those circumstances have
caused us to have some strong opinions about Easter and its importance to
us. As Episcopalians, of course, each
time we gather together to celebrate the Eucharist, we remember the events of
Holy Week, His Crucifixion on Good Friday, His Resurrection on this day, and
His Ascension. So, in a sense, we are
always mindful of the events this last week, or we should be, that is. But I get it.
Family dinners and egg hunts were put off. Fancy hats were left in boxes. New dresses and shoes were not
purchased. Given the chuckles, I suppose
I have hit a note.
I must
confess that when I was in seminary, like others, I dreamed about those great
Easter and Christmas sermons that would imitate Peter and cause throngs to
convert. I was reminded of that this
past week as a few newer priests reached out to me about this year. I guess in some circles it is assumed I was
ordained during the tie of the Spanish Flu.
But everyone feels the need to make this a memorable Easter sermon. What hook are you using? What funny story are you sharing? How do we make this Easter memorable? I get it.
The truth
is, as you all know, God makes this event special. What we gather to celebrate this day is
something which God gives us, something to which God points us, and, let’s face
it, something God knows we need. As I was
reading John’s account and praying over a sermon, I thought about focusing on
faith. Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John
are all in this story. They are
superheroes of our faith. Yet, how do
they experience the Resurrection of Jesus?
They do not know what to make of it.
Despite the fact that Jesus has taught them, rather bluntly I might add,
that He must suffer, die, and be raised on the third day, none of them seem to
have truly understood it. Mary thinks
someone has stolen her Lord’s Body. She
goes to tell the others. Peter and John
run to the Tomb. John gets there first
and sees things from the entrance, but he does not enter. Peter arrives behind John and enters. Peter sees the face cloth rolled up. For those of us who have just read about the
raising of Lazarus, this would seem a strange story. Thieves would not unwrap the Body and roll
the linen strips up nicely and set them aside.
John, we are told, enters then to look around and believes. But the next sentence confuses us, and
probably relates John’s own confusion – they did not understand from the Scriptures
that Jesus had to rise from the dead. So,
what exactly does John believe at this point?
The men
head back, but Mary hangs back at the Tomb.
She meets the two angels who ask for Whom she is looking. A man appears behind her, a man she supposes
in the gardener, who asks the same question.
She just wants to minister to her Lord’s Body. She has no expectation that Jesus is
alive. In fact, she does not recognize
Jesus until He speaks her name. Then she
is overjoyed and, following His instructions, returns to the place where the
disciples are to tell them everything He told her. Not unsurprising in a year plagued by
pandemic, I have had far too many conversations about faith. How much is enough? How can I be certain that I, or a loved one,
had faith to be granted admittance into heaven? I see the nods. You understand that logic.
As I spent
more time praying over the readings, though, I found myself drawn to the
darkness. Hear me out. I don’t mean that I like the darkness or
think the darkness is of God, at least in the sense that He wanted us not to
understand Him. I mean more in the sense
that John’s Gospel is bookended by darkness, that when God creates He causes light
to shine forth in the darkness. And, as
you have just read, the darkness helps to obscure the Resurrection. Or better put, the Resurrection begins to be
revealed in the darkness in John’s Gospel.
Why the focus on darkness?
Well, as
you all know, we celebrate a baptism today.
One of the babies for whom we prayed to God for safe delivery during a
pandemic will be baptized into God’s family this day. The image of baptism, of course, is the
Paschal Candle and the fount. Those
outside this community think it mere superstition, but we recognize this
sacrament as significant not just in the life of little Olivia and her family,
but in the life of our community. Like
each of us gathered here today, Olivia will be baptized into Christ’s death
through the water and promised a share in Christ’s Resurrection. Better still, she will be sealed as Christ’s
own and empowered to do the work God has given her to do in His Name. It is a glorious promise! It is a hope-filled promise! But it is a reasonable faith, as we remind
ourselves each and every time we gather to remember His death, Resurrection,
and Ascension in the Eucharist. It is
reasonable despite the darkness.
My guess is
that when I mentioned the special nature of this Easter compared to others,
most of us reflected in one way or another on the cost of the pandemic. A year ago, we were prevented by our bishop
from gathering in person to celebrate the hope and joy of the Resurrection. Bishop John was tending his flock and
listening to the advice of epidemiologists and other doctors of faith in our
community. We did not know what we did
not know, but the bishop was convinced that not gathering was loving our
neighbor, not exposing them to the ravages of the disease was the act of
kindness. Of course, as we learned more,
things changed, as did our bishop’s guidance and allowances. Advent re-opened in a hybrid form on the
Feast of Pentecost, but services have not quite been the same. Too many folks are still absent. How many folk are still a bit afraid to drink
from the Common Cup? Who hear likes
reserved Sacrament in a mini-muffin wrap?
And the social times, complete with hugs and other signs of affections,
have been extremely muted. Today, we
will remind ourselves of God’s promises with a bit more social gathering, but
it will pale in comparison to just a couple years ago.
Individually, we have all been living in various stages of
darkness. Too many of us have had to
change our activities to protect us from the pandemic. Too many of us have lost loved ones due to
this plague. Too many of us have endured
those losses in isolation; heck, too many of us have had to live cut off in
order to protect ourselves or others entrusted to our care from the mortal
consequences of this disease. A few of
us have even experienced what the experts are calling “Long COVID” now. As we learn more and more, we recognize that
some of the impacts of the disease are on-going.
While all
that was going on in our personal lives, we have been further exposed to the
darkness of our community. We quickly
learned of the economic darkness that was ravaging communities in our
midst. In the beginning, service
personnel were the source of our influx of those in need, but we became
servants of immigrant families, entertainers, and who knows what other groups
this last year. Our work with the food
pantry enabled us to be used by the government to help those in economic
darkness even more. We paid rents,
mortgages, and utilities for those in threat of eviction, repossession, or
shut-off. Our politicians may have
passed a federal law which said it was illegal to evict, but we learned quickly
there is the law and then there is the LAW.
Locally, our sheriff declined to uphold the law of Congress, choosing
instead to treat evictions like normal contract law.
Speaking of
politicians, thanks to a blabbermouth in a meeting, we learned that our
governor, who claims to be an upstanding, God-fearing Christian in public,
intended to take $730 million set aside for Needy Families in Tennessee to help
spur tourism when the pandemic finally ended.
Again, money earmarked by Congress for those suffering from the pandemic
was going to be re-purposed for tourism, as if any of us want folks coming and
bringing the deadly variants with them.
By someone claiming publicly to be a good Christian!
And human
nature! What have we learned about human
nature but the truth proclaimed in John’s Gospel, that we love darkness, that
we reject light. How many conversations
did we find ourselves in defending the wearing of a mask? If masks would have been proven worthless, as
some wanted to claim, what was the real cost to wearing them? And don’t get me started on vaccines. I had conversations with people who
unironically believe that the vaccines are the sign of the beast, or weapons of
the beast, that the vaccines will be used to trick or command all of us into
hell, as if St. Paul and the other Apostles were wrong in their claim that
nothing can take us from the hand of our Father, if we claim Jesus as Lord and
Savior! Yes, this year has been special
because it has pointed out the darkness which we accept, the darkness in which
we minister.
Yet we
gather here today to baptize baby Olivia.
Those of you ladies who have born children can understand better the
darkness experienced by Eva. Moms are
always worried about doing something wrong.
Moms tend to become super protective in the midst of their pregnancy,
and rightly so. Now, too, all the normal
fears about what is in the food you are eating and liquids you are drinking and
the air you are breathing, add a deadly virus, a deadly virus whose affects on
pregnant moms and their unborn children was unknown. And, like so many who found themselves in
hospitals this last year, the family found itself isolated. What should have been a joyous event was
severely muted. Those of us who fear
handing a newborn to someone in the best of times, just imagine sharing a
newborn with people who might be asymptomatic carriers of a plague!
And, such
is the way of life, most of us understand the economic uncertainty of young
parents. Adventers, as a rule, were not
adversely affected economically by the pandemic. Those Adventers who work are a little higher
on the company ladder than the twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings in our
respective companies. A number of us are
retired and experiencing the fruit of a life long labor and prudent financial
planning. But it does not take a lot of
imagination for us to remember what it was like, to remember how terrifying the
birth of our first child was, and would have been, had it occurred during a
pandemic.
And we
gather in spite of all that darkness and uncertainty, and we baptize Olivia
into God’s family. We light that little
candle off the Paschal Candle, and we remind her parents, her godparents, and
us, that He is sufficient for whatever she needs, that He will empower her to
accomplish the tasks He has given her to do, that she is His beloved little
princess. We will remind her family and
ourselves that she and we, all we who claim Christ as Lord of our lives, are
princes and princesses in God’s kingdom, heralds of His grace and love,
ambassadors of His kingdom. And we
remind ourselves that all the work He has called us to do in His Name will take
place nearly always in the darkness and in the wilderness.
We don’t
know what call God has on Olivia’s life yet.
That is for her to discover in community. But we know He has a purpose for her. We know that He will use her gloriously, if
she will but let Him. And, as a people
who have been venturing in the darkness intentionally, it is a reasonable faith
we know we call her to join.
Before the
first service this morning, I was asked by folks if I had watched The Ten
Commandments last night. Like most of
us, I watched the basketball game until it ended, but I flipped over at the
point where Moses had just come down from the Holy Mountain having been given
the Ten Words written by the finger of God.
A couple folks remarked how we sure could use signs and miracles like
Israel got so we could know God cared.
Y’all know me, so you know how I answered. Israel had all those signs and still chose to
sin. We have more, and still we choose
the darkness.
You and I
live in a community that has given away about 100,000 pounds of food which we
have not bought. For those living in the
darkness of hunger, we have been given somewhere north of 100,000 pounds of
food to give away, on top of the 50-60,000 pounds which we bought with our own
resources and through our stewardship. God
has provided, just as He promised each one of us He would when He adopted us
into His family! You and I live in a community
that has paid $400,000-$450,000 worth of rents, mortgages, and utilities for
those living in economic darkness in our midst—funds which not one single penny
was provided by us! Again, God has
provided, just as He promised each one of us He would when He adopted us into
His family. Adventers have “punched
above their weight” and been invited into conversations with politicians who
want to claim to be Christians and yet ignore the teachings of Jesus. And, God has used those conversations to bend
the hearts of those in power. And, lest
I forget, many Adventers have had conversations with others, family members and
friends, over their hope in the darkness.
As you all know, we have not been immune to suffering, death, mourning,
and isolation. People have watched us
bear those evils and still see the hope of that little candle that burns inside
each of us, maybe at times just flickering, that hope to which we all cling,
and wonder and ask for that accounting of our faith.
And we have
answered. Some have judged themselves
not theological enough. Some have
thought they somehow failed God and needed forgiveness, but the fact that we
have been asked testifies to what they see in each one of us. Each time we celebrate that wonderful pledge
of our inheritance, we pray to God for strength and courage to bear the things
He has given us to do. And they have
noticed our work, our faithfulness, and our hope!
Brothers
and sisters, I cannot begin to know what this next year will hold for us as a
community of faith or as individuals.
But I am certain our work collectively and individually will be in the
darkness of the world. It is out there
that we are needed. It is out there that
we can shine with the grace and forgiveness and love which God gives us until
that Day when He returns to judge the heavens and the earth, that Day when He
promises to cast out darkness entirely, to wipe away every tear, and to share
the full Light of His glory with each one of His children for all eternity!
I said a few
moments ago that John’s Gospel is bookended by darkness. It is partially true, right? In the lofty poetry that we read on Christmas
Eve, we are drawn back to the beginning.
In the beginning . . . And here, at the end of his Gospel, we find
ourselves again in darkness, this time at a tomb. But darkness does not have the final
word. In the beginning, God speaks and
commands that light burst forth! And it
does. Light bursts forth and all that we
know in creation, both the seen and unseen.
And here at the end of John’s wonderful news, we are faced with the
consequences of our sins. The one
unconquerable evil of the world seems to be death. People will go through all kinds of painful
treatments to put it off. Those more
privileged will spend fortunes to take a stab at preservation. Heck, science fiction has lots of stories
that speak to our impotent longing regarding death. And, to be sure, we are far better at staving
death off today than they were in Jesus time or any other time in history. Yet, for all our advancements, for all our
technological wonder, we can only postpone death. For us, death has the final say. For us, death carries the sting of the final
darkness. That is why the world cannot
believe, brothers and sisters. That is
why Mary and Peter and John and all the others were so surprised, so caught off
guard. Human experience is certain that
death is THE darkness.
Those who
know God and His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, though, death is not the
impenetrable darkness society presumes.
Death is not the final consequence to our hardened hearts and stiff
necks which turn constantly from God and life to sin and death. And Christ’s Resurrection serves as THE
reminder of that truth and God’s promise.
So often, as we go through life and sojourn in this world, we are
overwhelmed by darkness. Our
relationships sputter. Our health and
vibrancy fades. Natural catastrophes seek
to swamp us. And, when we take that
honest look at ourselves, when we look at ourselves through the eyes of whom we
were meant to be, created lovingly by our Father in heaven, we come to the
inescapable truth that we deserve the bad things, that we are sinners in His
sight. Like Mary and Peter and John we
stand before a tomb in darkness, a tomb of our own making.
But in the midst of that darkness and in
front of that tomb, the glory of God shines forth. For all who believe and confess Him as Lord,
that tomb of our own making and the darkness of the world which rejects Him,
His Light shines forth. In the beginning,
it is just a small flame, very much like the candle we give to Olivia to mark
this Sacrament in her life. At times it
may seem to flicker. Often it seems to
us there is no way that we can share our light with others. Heck, at times it may seem to be
extinguished. But we gather this day,
this special day in both Olivia’s life and our own, to remind ourselves that
that flame can never be truly quenched, so long as we believe, and that, on
that glorious Day when He returns to judge the world, those who claimed Him as
Lord and Savior will enter into a glorious inheritance with the saints and
light, and He will rid the cosmos of darkness for eternity! Brothers and sisters, this Easter, perhaps
more so than many in our recent history, should remind each one of us of the
impotence of the darkness and the power of our Father to accomplish His Will
and His Purposes in our lives!
In Christ’s Peace,
Brian†
