Who are the banished and unloved in our lives?

      Spiritual warfare being a real thing, Adventers did not receive the recording of the homily for this past weekend (June 27).  Those who do not believe the words of St. Paul regarding spiritual warfare being real and constantly happening should spend some time trying to do ministry using technology.  Everything can be plug and play during the week, but when a service starts . . . look out!

     Had Adventers received the video, some would have likely been nicely distracted and not heard a word I said.  The camera caught the sea marsh and some of the birds on the southern coast of Maine.  It is an Estuarial Reserve, similar to Radnor Lake but on the coast, that is abundant in life.  I had some fun interacting with the college students who were trapping and banding birds to study their migratory, nesting, and daily patterns of life to make sure the preserve is not too affected by development.  And I had to use the back deck to film because the front of the house, with the waves crashing on the rocks, was definitely distracting even for the preacher!  So, we are all stuck with words.

     It is, as most of you know, a bit disconcerting for me to preach while absent.  Sermons, I think, are far more applicable to our common life when we are engaged in life together.  I found myself drawn to Mark, and the Gospel as the antidote to loneliness and death and isolation, mostly as a result, I think, of my interactions with people on vacation this week rather than with Adventers.  In particular, I met a lot of self-identified Christians who had some strong feelings about their churches remaining shut for fifteen months or so.  They were angry at bishops before they found out that some dioceses were opened back up after a couple months.  Now, that anger has escalated a bit.  And I must confess, I am a bit surprised and envious at the number of churches who paid clergy to do nothing this last sixteen months.  No virtual worship, no Bible studies, no ministries.  Nada!  I expect you and I will be hearing about the consequences of such inactivity and action for the next couple decades at least, but that is a sermon for another day!

     Our story in Mark takes place as Jesus returns from the Gentile side of the Sea of Galilee to the Jewish side.  The story is well-known within Christian circles, and some outside the faith even know this story.  Jesus is greeted by a man named Jairus, who falls at the feet of Jesus, begging Him to save his daughter.  Jairus’ daughter is sick and on the verge of death.  Somehow, Jairus has heard of the works of Jesus and has come to Him as a last resort.

     Our Western sensibilities are sometimes offended that the man falls at Jesus’ feet, but such is the appropriate response of a patriarch desperate for help that he, himself, cannot provide for those in his care.  Jairus knows he cannot save his daughter.  His only hope is this itinerant Rabbi, through Whom Yahweh is working deeds of power.  If Jairus can prevail upon Jesus’ person, maybe He can help save his daughter.  Unsurprisingly to us, Mark’s audience, Jesus agrees, and the group heads off to the home of Jairus.

     While walking there, others in the town have heard of Jesus’ deeds.  They press in on all sides.  Imagine Garth Brooks walking down Lil’ Broadway.  That’s the press of the crowd.  In that crowd, Mark shares there was a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years.  Mark shares she had spent everything she had on doctors, and she was getting worse.  Her primary thought or belief is that, if she touches the cloak of Jesus, she will be healed.  She reaches out to touch His cloak, and she is healed immediately.

     Jesus stops and demands to know who touched Him.  The disciples and apostles are “Are You crazy, Lord?  Look at this crowd.  Who hasn’t touched You?”  Jesus, of course, has none of it.  He has more healing yet to do.  So, He waits and looks around.  The woman knows she has been healed, but she also knows that what she has done was dangerous.  Again, a supplicant falls at Jesus’ feet and confesses it was her and why.  Mark says she told Jesus the whole truth.  Jesus calls her daughter and tells her that her faith has healed her and that she is to go in peace, freed from her suffering.  Many modern readers assume her only suffering was her bleeding.

     Meanwhile, poor Jairus.  He fondest, wildest dream was answered.  The Rabbi agreed to try and save his daughter.  The crowd, though, has slowed their progress, and now this touching thing has distracted Jesus.  As Jairus agonizes, people come to him to let him know that his daughter died and not to bother the Rabbi any more.  Curiously, Jesus turns to Jairus, ignoring the words of those who brought Jairus the horrible news, and tells Jairus not to fear, but believe.

     Mark tells us that only a select few are allowed to continue on with Jesus.  They arrive at Jairus’ house and see and hear the mourners.  Jesus tells them the child is only sleeping, but those present know death all too well and laugh at Jesus’ assertion.  Jesus puts everyone out and goes into the room with Jairus, his wife, and the three Apostles.  Mark records that Jesus told the little girl in Aramaic simply to get up, which she does.  There no extravagant formulae.  No pentagrams or hocus pocus spells.  Jesus commands, and even the dead obey Him!  And then Jesus strictly instructs those present not to share what happened and to feed her.

     So, why my focus on this story at this time?  As I noted above, I have had dozens of conversations with other Christians who are grappling with the effects of the pandemic and the changes wrought, who have been forced to examine, perhaps for the very first time or the most significant time in their lives, the claims of the Gospel, and who rightly feel angered by their Church community.  As I thought about those conversations, I realized that all those same attitudes and emotions and thoughts are still likely present here at Advent, just not in the sheer numbers that I have encountered in my travels.  What do I mean?

     Who is Jesus?  Adventers would likely answer along acceptable lines, at least so far as the creeds are concerned.  But in places where such considerations are not intentionally discussed, in places where discipleship is lacking or absent, answering the question is a true challenge.  It is a challenge, however, that is always before the Church and the world.  Was Jesus just an itinerant hippie who did not care too much about anything but love and partying, or was He really the Son of God who came for our salvation, to make it possible for us to be restored in our relationship to God?  I will not bore you at this time with all the arguments, but many of you have engaged in conversations along these lines.

     Mark is clear who he thinks Jesus is.  The miracles in Mark’s Gospel testify to Jesus’ power and authority, power and authority that can only come from God!  The stories today deal mostly with death.  For all our advancement, for all our medical knowledge, we all still bow to the scythe of death.  And yet, Jesus has the ability to raise people from death.  How can this be?  Some modernists will reject the stories as superstition.  They know that nobody has such power.  And we, as an Easter people, will sometimes remind them that Jesus’ Resurrection is THE event which marks His singular importance in salvation history.  Those of us with more common sense will even remind our unbelieving friends that each one of those who witnessed these events gave up their lives in service of the Gospel.  We live in a world where people have complained bitterly about the need to wear a mask to protect others, about the fact that restaurants and bars were operating at reduced capacities so that we could not get food or drink exactly when we wanted, and that we should not help “the poor” with access to medical care or financial resources for housing, utilities, and food for fear they’d get lazy.  And these men and women literally laid down their lives in service of the Gospel.  The world told them they were nuts and to cease, and they refused!  What they saw, what they witnessed, changed them at a fundamental level.  Was Jesus Who and what they expected?  No.  He was far more!  And it took that power over death to convince them of the truth of His teachings!  It is, in the end, that power over death (and the supernatural and nature) that separates Jesus from all the other “spiritualists” in the world.  It is that power which causes us to gather to give thanks and praise to Him for His work, even when our clergy are absent!

     And, although most of us think that power over death is enough for us, there is still more in the story.  We hear the claims that the Bible is misogynistic, as if the Bible does not teach each one of us that everyone, men and women, are created in the image of God, as if women and men cannot be used by God to reach the world or His people in His name.  Just to point out the obvious, it is a little girl and a bleeding woman whom Jesus heals in this pericope.  If God only cared about men, and thought women inferior, why heal a little girl and a bleeding woman—it would make more sense to heal men and boys.  Make no mistake, I understand the Church has, at times, failed to instruct men that women are created by God in His image, but that is on us, mostly men, and not God.  We are the ones not paying attention.  We are the ones demonstrating yet again our need of a Savior!

     The raising of a dead daughter is essentially the same across cultures and time.  Those of us with children can well imagine Jairus’ panic and desperation, the chafing at the delay with the bleeding woman, and the resulting joy and wonder that this Jesus has power over death.  Few of us, though, can relate to the woman.  She lived in a culture where menstruation made her unclean.  Under the torah, she could not go to worship until her cycle had ended, she had bathed, and made her thank offering.  For those who do not study the Scriptures or the extent literature of the time, it is presumed that God hated women and did not want them around at that time.  Life was in the blood.  That was one point of the sacrificial system.  Living blood, offered on the altar, cleansed human beings from sin.  All of that pointed to Christ’s blood, shed for us.  But blood was also a major pollutant of God’s people.  How many times do the prophets remind us and them of the sin of shedding innocent blood?  How many times does Scripture remind us that menstruating blood was a sign of death, not life?  The problem, of course, was that men added rules and expectations and teachings, rules and expectations, and teachings that, curiously, never made their way into Scripture despite the modern claims that “we” wrote the Bible and can re-write it if we choose.  And, to be absolutely clear, unclean does not equal sinful.  Oh, on the off chance some of us have forgotten, men could be unclean, too!  We know this from Jesus’ words to Peter regarding food, but we are reminded of this truth in Jesus’ encounter with this woman.

     Most of us today would assume healing her would be enough.  But would it be, based on what you know about your friends and neighbors?  She has been bleeding for twelve years!  For twelve years people have literally avoided her like the plague and gossiped about her.  Her neighbors have likely come to the conclusion that she is despised and accursed by God, that this bleeding is what she deserved!  When wives bled, guess who else was unclean?  The husband.  The children.  Anyone who came under her roof and, later, anyone who was touched by her shadow.  Now, imagine you lived in such an existence for twelve years.  You have literally lived a life of banishment for twelve years!  Incidentally, guess what the name of the Mishna tract on menstruation was called?  Banished.  Physically, Jesus heals her bleeding, but she needs more!  He understands her need better than she or we.  He stops and demands she answer His question Who touched Me.  Eventually, she falls at His feet and confesses everything.  By touching Jesus, she knows she has risked making Him unclean and in need of purification.  She knows any rabbi worth his salt will condemn her action, be mad that she dared to do this simple act, to share her uncleanness with him.  She may lose her life because of that touch.  The crowd might well be incited to condemn her.  But she confesses to Jesus that she touched Him.  Jesus, like so much of His work, does this for her benefit, the benefit of the crowd, and for us.  He knows what has happened and why.  He knows the healing she really needs.

     Now the whole crowd knows she has been healed.  The Rabbi, the Prophet, the possible Messiah has said so.  In that brief answer, her twelve year banishment is over.  Everyone knows she is restored!  Gloriously!  She is clean!  Still, Jesus is not done!  He calls her daughter.  This Rabbi, Who is clearly favored by God, calls her daughter.  Jairus’ daughter has a family who loves her, we know this by Jairus’ actions and Jesus’ declaration, but this woman has learned for the last twelve years of banishment and isolation that she is unloved.  Can you imagine what that address meant to her?  Can you understand the longing of belonging with which she lived?  She is a daughter of God, even when her community has forgotten and failed her.

     How many people have we, the Church and Advent, failed during this pandemic?  Oh, we can make all kinds of protestations, but we have still failed others.  What needs haven’t we met for those whom God has given us to minister?  How many phone calls or emails or cards have we not sent?  How much more food have we not worked to use to feed?  How many people have we allowed to become banished?  Isolated?  Unloved?  And yet our story today reminds each one of us, that despite our failures, God loves each one of us.  All He demands is that we repent and try again.  And safe and secure in that knowledge that He loves us, we tackle those ministries, those works, that He has placed upon our hearts that others might know the comfort and joy of His saving embrace.  It is a glorious calling.  One in which we all fail.  And yet such is the power of His love and grace that people like us can testify effectively to Who He is and why we believe.  People like us can lay down our lives in service of Him trusting that, one glorious Day, He will command us to rise much like He died Jairus’ daughter.  And like those present in this story, we will rise and celebrate the work that He has done for us and then join Him and others in that feast of thanksgiving and deliverance.  Can you imagine it?  Can you taste it?

     Of course, until that Day comes when He declares our labors over, we have much work to do.  We feed in His name.  We clothe in His name.  We visit in His name.  We remind people of the truth that they were created in His image and loved dearly by Him.  We remind them that He calls them daughter or son.  And when they protest that if we only knew, we laugh joyously reminding them that we do know – all too well!  And we give thanks that He loved us when we were unlovable and testify to His redeeming work in our lives!  Who do we know who has been banished?  Who do we know who has been isolated?  Who do we know in fear and terror and anxiety?  Those, my friends, are the Jairus’ daughters and bleeding women of today!  Those are the ones to whom our Lord is calling each one of us to minister in His name!

 

In Christ’s Peace,

Brian†

Groping in the darkness . . .

     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†