Resurrection comes anyway – Easter Day

Resurrection happens in the darkness. The inky night is the crèche for the new life that God has brought into the world.

 

Resurrection happens sometime in the still hours between night falling and the sun rising. There seem to have been no trumpets nor organs nor angelic choirs making a joyful noise.

 

Resurrection happens when no one is looking. We only realize it after it has happened. We encounter the results of resurrection, like a stunning messenger sitting on a stone rolled away or an empty tomb.

 

In our peculiar world of life and worship this year, it is helpful to remember that resurrection comes anyway. Even with no one to see it. Even with no sound to announce it. Even with no brilliant light to reveal it. Even in our homes, whether we had flowers or not, music or not, candles or not. Even when separated from one another.

Resurrection comes anyway.

 

It comes in the isolation of those who cannot be with others in this pandemic, for everyone’s safety. It comes in the moments of fear and anxiety as we watch and worry over the world around us – and hear news of those we know and love who have been directly affected. It comes for those who are working night and day in hospitals all over, to bring care, relief, and healing to those who suffer. Resurrection comes to those who are seriously ill, to those who hang between life and death, and even to those who die.

 

Resurrection comes anyway.

 

Resurrection is not an antidote, a way to fix what is wrong in our lives, whether physically, socially, morally. It isn’t a stop-gap or a get out of jail free card. Resurrection does not avoid death or brokenness. It enters it completely. And transforms it into something new.

 

This is what’s different in the stories of the dead being raised in Scripture and the story of Jesus’ resurrection. They are brought back to a life that they have lived and known. Jesus is raised to newness of life – to a transformed life. Paul talks about the resurrection of Jesus as a spiritual body – whatever on earth that might mean – but we at least can say that it is different than anything we have known. The gospels describe encounters which are both like the Jesus they have known and unlike the Jesus they have known – including that he is often not recognized at first.

 

God is up to something remarkable in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Something unexpected and unprecedented. Jesus shows us the life and love of God throughout his life, in his healing and teaching, in his signs and wonders, and in his times of prayer and quiet. Jesus speaks life into a dying world.

 

Even in his death, Jesus brings the life of God with him. Jesus joins each of us in that universally common human condition of death. And that’s it, we would expect, end of story – that’s the inevitable part.

 

But then God acts. Anyway.

 

Inexplicably, unexpectedly, out of overwhelming love, God does a new thing – and life bursts forth from death, that cannot contain it. And we are carried with Jesus in this movement, too, from life into death and now into new life. We are made one with Jesus’ life, his death, and his resurrection. And so he is the first fruits of those who are born to new life, but we all become heirs with him in newness of life.

 

And so we can shout ALLELUIA! even in the midst of pandemic. Even in the midst of fear. Even in the midst of death. It has always been so. Resurrection has always and can only take place in the midst of such moments. Even when we cannot imagine it and when we do not expect it, even when we cannot see it, hear it, or imagine it, resurrection comes anyway.

 

What happened in the cool, dark, quiet of that night? No one can say. But the next morning at dawn, the women at the tomb first, and then later the other disciples, experienced something so remarkable in their encounter with the risen Christ that it changed everything. It transformed their lives.

 

When sleep comes the world appears one way; as we awake in the resurrection, everything changes. Life that will last, given for all people. God has done this mighty act. Let us rejoice! ALLELUIA!

From the depths – Holy Saturday

(Today’s readings and collect)

This day has always had an odd eerie in-between feel to it. It is, of course, the day that hangs between the crucifixion and the resurrection, between death and life. An odd sabbath day of pensive rest.

This is the sabbath day, upon which God rested in the beginning, and we sometimes identify that with Jesus “resting” from his mortal work, as we all will one day. Sleep is a common metaphor in the New Testament for death. And so, oftentimes, we focus on the burial of Jesus on this day.

However, we also have the tradition that, far from resting, Jesus was very busy in the realm of death, while his body lay in the tomb. The descent to the dead, to hell (in that classical sense of the place of departed spirits, of course), to the underworld. All those who had died before the time of Christ are called to new life by God’s love in the person of Jesus himself.

I mean, if you’re going to snatch life from the jaws of death, you can’t go halfway. This “harrowing of hell” is a symbol of just how far God’s love extends – beyond death itself.

With loud cries and tears – Good Friday

(Collect and Readings here)

Jesus died upon the cross. Like so many others. He wasn’t even the only one that day, on that particular hill outside the city.

Perhaps set right up against his birth, this is Jesus at his most vulnerable, most ordinary. While the circumstances of death are particular, the fact of death is not. It is significantly part of our human identity – to know that it ends.

How we approach our own concerns about death for ourselves and those we love certainly shapes many of our choices and our relationships. Death comes for all, at some point. Even Jesus.

I make this point partly because we know the rest of the story that is coming and we often skip past the reality of Jesus’ death upon the cross – because it is painful, because we don’t like it, because it brings up for us our own suffering and fears, because, well, because it’s awful.

The promise of Resurrection is not a get out of jail free card, after all – that is, that we don’t get to skip out on the reality of death, the reality of being human, with all of its pain and all of its wonder and joy. We’ll get to Resurrection soon, but it’s not a work-around for the human condition. Kind of the opposite, taking the human condition as it is and transforming it. But that’s a story for another day. Soon.

Jesus died. Jesus was one of us all the way through to the end. Yet, also in that moment, because of who we understand Jesus to be, we also pause in wonder. The Word of God was silenced. The one through whom all things came to be was no more. And creation holds its breath.

Let us mourn with those who mourned that day for Jesus. Let us invite in all those who mourn for those that they have loved and are no more with them. For we are all together in this, to be sure. And if we are united in our death, with Jesus himself, then we are united in what is to come.

Stay alert, dear friends, our journey from tomb to tomb has not yet come to its end . . . far from it.

The Sign of Extreme Love – Maundy Thursday

The Great Three Days have begun. The celebration of this night focuses oftentimes on what Jesus did, gathered with his disciples, the night before he died.

One way we think about this night is to focus on the meal that Jesus shared with his followers, taking bread and breaking it, taking wine and filling the cup, and declaring “This is my body. This is my blood.” Jesus gave a gift to his disciples and friends of a meal to prepare them for what was to come. Food for the journey. In days to come, the disciples would meet together again and again in this meal, being assured of Jesus’ love for them, learning that Jesus could be with them in a new way. To this day, that encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist nourishes and fills us for the work that we are called to do as the Body of Christ in the world.

One way we think about this night is to turn to the story in John’s Gospel, showing us that Jesus took on the role of a slave to serve his students, his friends, his followers, by washing their feet. It is a profound act of humility and service that echoes to this day, as we continue to gather to wash feet on this night, in many places, as well as at other times.

These actions are so deeply imprinted upon Christian identity, especially on Maundy Thursday, that we may find ourselves focusing on the actions – or the challenges we face in gathering to do these things this year – rather than what Jesus is up to by sharing these gifts with us.

In washing our feet, Jesus reminds his disciples present that night and we ourselves not only about humility and service, but, first of all, love. He finishes washing and then returns to the table, to teach them once again through action and word: “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” Not only that we should serve one another, to wash one another’s feet, but he goes on to say “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

This new commandment, of course, is the heart of today’s story – that Jesus calls us to the deep and abiding love that he has shown us, the love of God. Loving one another as ourself is perhaps challenging enough from time to time, but Jesus takes it to the next level – to love one another as he has loved us. And that this is the primary way that we are to be known as Jesus’ people – by the love we have for one another. The gift of footwashing, the gift of this new commandment, is the gift of God’s love enacted.

And that meal? The Last Supper to become, along the way, the Lord’s Supper, the Mass, the Eucharist? St. Thomas Aquinas once upon a time wondered why Jesus would give us the gift of Eucharist, to be with us in that shared meal through the ages. Among the reasons he considered, but he did not develop, was this idea that Jesus loved us and wanted to be with us. That’s it. It is fitting that we encounter Jesus in the meal of the Eucharist, because of Jesus’ great love for us and longing to be with us. Aquinas called it the “maximae caritatis signum” – the sign of extreme love.

The Eucharistic meal and the footwashing are both focused utterly on Jesus’ love for us and the call to us to show that love to the world. Jesus fills us and encourages, strengthens, and empowers us so that the world may know that extreme love in our own lives. That we may become, ourselves, the “maximae caritatis signum.”

And, dear friends, as so many of us are distant from our church communities and our altars this night, be assured that wherever we gather at table this night, however we show our deep love to others in our life, Jesus is with us, here and now. In our time of sickness, in our adversity, in our isolation, and loneliness. And in our strength, our joy, our hope for tomorrow. In all things, Jesus joins us on our journey, from life to death to life, sharing with us such an extreme love that we will be transformed forever.

And now we move into the hours of prayer and vigil, as we await the day of the Lord’s work upon the cross. Eat up. You will need your strength.

And it was night – Wednesday in Holy Week

Today brings us right up to the edge, as if we’re teetering on the brink of the days that are to come: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday. Poised to be drawn fully into the Passion of Jesus and a story of sacrifice, love, pain, and glory.

This day before the plunge is colloquially known in some quarters as “Spy Wednesday” because of the passage from John’s Gospel about the betrayal of Jesus by Judas (John 13:21-32). When Jesus tells his closest friends and community that one of them would betray him, I’m sure it was shocking and troubling. There’s a spy here. When the disciple whom Jesus loved asks “Who is it?”, the answer is not very satisfying. Perhaps it’s a literal signal “Look for the bread hand-off; that’s the one” or it can be read more generally to suggest that all those who share bread with Jesus are counted as betrayers.

Uh oh.

That’s a much bigger problem. And, yet, how else do we contend with Spy Wednesday than to identify our own place in the ways that we have confused our own loyalties to Jesus and the Gospel, to the acts of love and justice in this world? If we are tempted to cast judgement on Judas Iscariot it almost surely is because we wish to avoid our own.

And once the bread is handed over, Judas goes out to ‘do what he has to do,’ as Jesus describes it. As soon as he goes, the evangelist tells us “And it was night.” What Jesus begins talking about immediately, however, is the idea of being glorified. John’s gospel emphasizes Jesus’ work at the cross as the moment of glory, even while the world sees it as utter defeat. The world, however, only knows the stories of betrayal and judgement, the brokenness and grief, and can never conceive of such as being part of God’s glory, success, victory. The foolishness of the cross; the scandal of the cross.

And it was night. Rather than a symbol of fear or sin, night itself is here transformed, becoming the mysterious incubator of God’s glory in the midst of brokenness, of love in the midst of betrayal, of life in the midst of death.

We’re right on the edge of the wild ride. Tomorrow we gather at tables all over the world, sharing in meals of one kind or another, even if unable to gather for the Eucharist, sharing in meals together to recall the love that changes everything. Hang on.

“Now playing” on a video streaming social media site near you .  . .

Lovable Losers – Tuesday in Holy Week

In part of today’s readings (1 Cor 1:18-31), Paul is setting the Church in Corinth straight about who – and what – is truly powerful and mighty and worth bragging about.

Spoiler alert: Not so much the Corinthians (nor us).

Paul isn’t exactly a shrinking violet, remember. From time to time, he reminds us that he’s pretty amazing. As one of my kids said the other day, “self-hype much?” Even so, Paul is very clear about how power works in God’s exercise of it. Paradoxically, strength is found in weakness, wisdom is found in foolishness. That is, things we consider weak or foolish – things, perhaps, like love, sacrifice, care for others, justice – are considerably more valuable in God’s view, though we do not esteem them much in our world.

Paul of Tarsus: “Wat”

As much as ever, the dominant culture in the United States is deeply focused on strength and power over others. Rhetoric in advertising, politics, business reinforces that all the time. Wisdom? Well, that doesn’t seem to come up as much. Perhaps we think of that more as savvy or street smarts, when we value it. Smart means watching out for yourself. Self-reliance and independence are deeply embedded in the American psyche. And yet, what is the strongest action we can take as a people right now?

Stay home, wear masks, wash our hands, keep our distance. Count on each other to do the right thing . . .

Not exactly “American Gladiator,” is it?

Yet, at this time, our ability to take on these tasks is absolutely our strength, our wisdom, against the spread of a virus that is no respecter of what we consider wise, smart, or strong. So, when Paul starts talking about Christ crucified as a sign of God’s power and wisdom, perhaps we can recognize that our typical ideas of strength or wisdom may not be be the most helpful in the world that God would redeem. God seems to be up to something else entirely than we usually recognize – “For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”

And then Paul reminds the Corinthians what a bunch of losers they were – “not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.” Yeah. Great. Thanks, Paul. Right back atcha.

I think I get it, though. God chose us, not because of how great we are, but because of how great God’s love is, because God loves us so much. We do not merit God’s love. God gives it to us anyway, even when we are losers. God gives us wisdom, even when we are foolish. God gives us strength, even when we are weak. And when we experience God’s blessing or grace in our lives, it is manifestly *not* because of what we can do or who we are. It’s because God’s loves us, weak or strong, wise or foolish. Full stop. God loves us. Even if we were losers when God called us 😉

In the shadows of Holy Week, in the shadows of pandemic, I take heart knowing that God loves me and you anyway, no matter what. And maybe we need a little of God’s foolishness right about now, to remind us that we get through all of this together. We are each other’s greatest liability right now, if we do not care for each other; we are each other’s greatest strength if we do. But at a distance, please.

The Upside Down – Monday in Holy Week

In the TV show “Stranger Things” the eerie, twisted parallel world to our own that provides the bizarre encounters for that show is called “the upside down” meaning, I suppose, that nothing is the way one expects; it’s all turned around just the wrong way. Those kind of clear inversions both intrigue us and disturb us, I think. Familiar enough to attract, but makes us uneasy and on edge.

Today’s collect and John’s Gospel reading do a bit with this. I mean, imagine that dinner party in Bethany at Mary, Martha, and Lazarus’ house. It’s familiar and attractive in one way – heartwarming to see a supper of close friends that is, at first glance, a quiet moment in this Holy Week procession. But look closer.

One of the hosts was, well, dead not that long ago. That seems out of place. Lazarus by all rights should not have been there. He had died. But then he was raised again. And now he’s throwing a dinner party for Jesus and his crew. Ok. Well. That’s odd, but essentially a good thing, right? I mean, until he becomes a target at the end of the reading.

Another host, Mary, breaks out costly ointment, a pound of pure nard, and pours it over Jesus’ feet, wiping them with her hair. Honestly, maybe I just don’t go to the right sorts of parties, but this strikes me as unusual. All the more so when we realize that this is a burial rite. What does it mean in a household who has buried their brother, who now is sitting at table, to break out the burial ointment once again? It is an act of love wrapped in profound grief and brokenness.

And then there’s Judas. Denouncing her, not because this is odd. Not because he’s uncomfortable dining with someone recently buried. No, because she is being extravagant. Lavishing too much on Jesus while he is still with her. Read the room, man. Rude.

All in all, a very strange dinner party. Death and brokenness hang around every corner and there is an odd echo of another meal with friends, to happen soon enough, sharing food with one bound up already with the grave, and washing and wiping feet.

In God’s world, thing aren’t always in order – in our order anyway. The collect for today reminds us that Jesus “went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified” and asks God to help us find life and peace in the way of the cross. What kind of Addams-Family-Upside-Down story have we gotten ourselves involved with?!?

It is none other than the way of life in the midst of death. The remarkable thing about this story and so many others is not the presence of death, of brokenness, of insult and injury. No, the remarkable thing is the promise of life, even so, even in the midst of death. We struggle with our own Upside Down today, in a world that seems familiar, but in a moment is not, as we hear of friends and loved ones who grow sick and especially when we hear of those who die. Our vacuum cleaner bags and t-shirts become masks, our cathedrals become hospitals. Our homes become churches. Even in our strange new reality, we find glimpses of life, even as we mourn. Glimpses of hope, even as we worry. This isn’t what we expected at all, but our days continue on and our work of caring for one another and this world we live in is still in our hands.

Augustine of Hippo knew about the Upside Down, about strange times and about brokenness and suffering. His prayer closes the day for many: “Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake. Amen.” (1979 Book of Common Prayer, pp. 71, 124, 134)

Victory to Ashes

As Palm Sunday – Coronavirus edition – draws to a close, I am thinking about the frailty of our own ideas of safety, security, success, and victory. When Jesus entered Jerusalem at the beginning of his Holy Week, he was greeted by people waving branches of palm – a sign of victory by a people oppressed by a foreign government. It was bold and radical. What they shouted was bolder yet “Hosanna!” “Save us!”

I wonder what that crowd imagined that victory or success would look like? Whether they thought it was personal or political or something else entirely, I doubt very many saw it as the cross and the tomb, as the resurrection itself, beyond all expectations. Perhaps they waved their branches without real expectation, but out of a longing for God to act.

The branches we wave every year (many of us substituted local branches for palms this year, of course, which is far more common historically for Christians outside of tropical regions anyway) are usually kept through most of the year and then burned to make the ashes for Ash Wednesday. A reminder that whatever we imagine victory to be, we are bounded by this life – ashes for us are a sign of mortality and penitence on Ash Wednesday – and victory or success by our standards may be elusive. That’s part of what that means; there may be yet a deeper meaning.

After all, is it our elusive idea of victory that this day, this week is about, or is it perhaps God’s idea of victory? God’s own understanding of victory, of success, of safety, and security seems to be a life grounded in the divine love we are given, a life transformed by love. Oh, and that is very good news indeed.

This is a love shown to us in a life that is given up for us at the cross, is then buried, and joins with that most common human condition – our mortality – before being raised again to new life. Think about that for a moment. The life and love of God enters the grave itself and the grave cannot contain it. God’s idea of victory is liberating us so that we can truly love and be loved. And that life of love can lead to personal change and political change and all the other ways that we long to see the world change, depending on what we contend with. For, after all, this is not our victory that we wave branches for on Palm Sunday – it is God’s. And the victory of God is to bring the very life of Christ into our lives, with all our limitations and brokenness, into our very mortality – into the tomb with each of us, into the ashes themselves, so that we may be raised again.

Hosanna! Save us!

From one tomb to another

(Originally posted by me on Facebook on April 4, 2020, the evening prior to Palm Sunday)

In some traditions, in some times and places, the Saturday prior to Palm Sunday focuses on the raising of Lazarus (we had those readings recently in the Sunday lectionary). Lazarus, four days dead, is called back to the land of the living. “Lazarus, come forth.”

In an intense moment of grief and sadness, where death is given its due – even Jesus weeps – a radical moment of new life emerges. Lazarus comes forth, restored to life, a living witness to the power of God – at least until his own presumed second death, as John’s gospel suggests. Lazarus is resuscitated, in the sense of being returned to normal human life, not resurrected, not yet.

Lazarus’ tomb – his death, and life, and death again – just on the verge of Holy Week and its story of Jesus’ life, death, and life again – is perhaps a word to each of us as we soberly consider the stories of life and death in a pandemic all around us. As we unwillingly take a tour from tomb to tomb – from Lazarus, to the possible tombs of those we know and love, to consideration of our own tomb, just remember that the story ends in a tomb that is emptied. In a moment that is transformed. In a new life that knows no grief, nor sorrow, nor sickness, nor dying. But for today, we stand at the edge of Lazarus’ tomb, wondering. Waiting. Worrying. Even so, God is with us and will never abandon us, even at the grave. Especially at the grave.

Advent in a time of lament

Advent is a time of waiting . . .

. . . waiting for the Christ to come.

Our world
a world broken by gun violence, mass shootings,
a world marred by racism on every level and deadly violence leveled against black bodies, brown bodies, where black lives seem not to matter much

a world bitterly divided between politics of the right and the left,

a world where hate crimes against those on the margins appear to be increasing
a world that continues to be marred by all of the ongoing suffering, starvation, war, poverty

The litany is too long, too heart-rending to go on.  If we take seriously even a small slice of the concerns of our world, it can be overwhelming.

And of course there is much good, much hope, much love, much goodwill in this same world.

And isn’t that how it has often been?  A world of remarkable achievements yet marred by the crushing reality of suffering.

What is the good news of Advent in such a world? Is it just a countdown to Christmas?

I hope not.

We need more from Advent.

Advent is the cultivation of our faith, as we await the coming of Christ.

Advent is allowing Christ to come not only in the Last Day, but today and every day.

Advent is being Christ to those around us, in a broken and suffering world.

Advent is seeing that Christ is already here.  Already in the suffering. Already in the brokenness, the violence, the division.

That Christ who binds and heals and advocates first and foremost is present.

Present in those who hunger.

Present in those who are systematically oppressed.

Present in those black bodies and brown bodies that our society seems hell-bent on destroying.

Present in those most affected by acts of hatred and the worst impulses of humankind.

Come, Lord Jesus? Indeed.  We long for Christ to manifest that ultimate power, that final authority, to restore and put all things to rights.

But first we must learn to see the Christ who is already among us, in the faces of those who suffer.

Advent is much more than a way to countdown the days to Christmas. Much more than a store-bought calendar, with a chocolate waiting for each day.

Advent is participating in Christ’s ongoing redemption of the world,
as we work towards that Last Day
when suffering and brokenness and hatred find their match in our Risen Savior.

Or it really isn’t much of anything at all.

Open the daily Advent Calendar windows, by all means, but remember the urgency of the work that Christ has given us.

Take that Advent Wreath each evening, as dusk falls, and light a candle in the darkness as a reminder that the light shines and cannot be overcome.

But do not neglect the work of Advent, the work of redemption, the work of justice.

Do not neglect seeing Christ in the face of someone different, someone other.

Do not neglect seeing the call to the work of Christ in your own daily life.

Christ is calling.  Christ is coming. Christ is here.

Advent is a time of waiting . . .

. . . waiting for the Christ to come.