We Have Risen! We Have Risen Indeed!

To read today's Gospel passage, click on
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THE LORD IS RISEN!

THE LORD IS RISEN INDEED!

"The Resurrection of Christ"
Vyssi Brod Hohenfurth, c. 1350

Christ, the Lord, is risen today, Alleluia!
Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heavens, and earth, reply, Alleluia!

Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Lo! the Sun’s eclipse is over, Alleluia!
Lo! He sets in blood no more, Alleluia!

Vain the stone, the watch, the seal, Alleluia!
Christ hath burst the gates of hell, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids His rise, Alleluia!
Christ hath opened paradise, Alleluia!

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once He died our souls to save, Alleluia!
Where thy victory, O grave? Alleluia!

Soar we now where Christ hath led, Alleluia!  Following our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia!  Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!

Hail, the Lord of earth and Heaven, Alleluia!  Praise to Thee by both be given, Alleluia!
Thee we greet triumphant now, Alleluia!  Hail, the resurrection, thou, Alleluia!

King of glory, Soul of bliss, Alleluia!  Everlasting life is this, Alleluia!
Thee to know, Thy power to prove, Alleluia!  Thus to sing and thus to love, Alleluia!

(Charles Wesley, 1739)

The day has arrived!  After all this time of anunciation and birth, of baptism and ministry, of teaching and healing, of calling and response, of temptation and darkness, of dying and crucifixion, this Day of Resurrection has dawned.  Christ has risen!  Christ has risen indeed!

But lest we lapse into thinking of this day as a commemoration of The Resurrection of Christ, as a mere remembrance of what happened on that third day so long ago, we need to realize that this day is not just about Jesus' Resurrection; it is also about our own.  We who carried our cross, we who died to self, are this day given new life.  God has recreated us into who God calls us to be.  And, in a way, that is almost more scary than the dying.  There is no going back.  The self that we knew before is no more.  We are a new creation.  We have risen!  We have risen indeed!

You see, Jesus did not die and magically come back to life.  God did not undo what had been done.  There was still a bloody cross standing on an unknown hill called Golgotha.  Rather, God created something new--a new way of seeing and a new way of being.  Do you remember the first time God did that?

In the beginning when God created^* the heavens and the earth,the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God^* swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (Genesis 1: 1-5)

From the void, from the darkness, God created Light and Life.  Truthfully, if you look at it from a literal view, nothing has really changed.  Jesus, sadly, is still dead.  But through eyes that have been resurrected, nothing will ever be the same again.  Maybe resurrection comes not in raising one above life, but in raising life to where it is supposed to be.  Jesus was the first to cross that threshold between--between death and life, between the world and the sacred, between seeing with the eyes of the world and seeing with the eyes of the Divine.  Resurrection is not about being transplanted to a new world but rather being called to live in this one with a new way of seeing.  It means being recreated into the one that God envisions you to be.  It means being given a new way of seeing where love is stronger than death, where hope abides, and where life has no end.  It means being capable of glimpsing the Holy and the Sacred, the promise of Life, even in this life, even now.  This day of Easter is now only about Jesus' Resurrection; it is about ours!  So, what do you plan to do with your new life?

The end of all our exploring...will be to arrive where we started...and know the place for the first time. (T.S. Eliot)

King of glory, Soul of bliss, Alleluia! Everlasting life is this, Alleluia!
Thee to know, Thy power to prove, Alleluia! Thus to sing and thus to love, Alleluia!

Everlasting life is truly this!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli


Thank you for joining with me on this Lenten journey!  I have been so blessed by all the comments and the reflections that you have shared.  We will do this again.  In the meantime, I'm going to take a little "blogging sabbatical" and return on April 25th with posts two or three times a week.  I will do the "every day" thing again later!  Let me know if you or others that you know want to join the Google group and get emails each time I post.  And comment!  Let's start a discussion!   You can email me at swilliams@stpaulshouston.org.  Let me hear from you! 

Maybe It IS About Us

Scripture Text:  Matthew 28: 1-10
After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

At last!  The day for which we've waited, for which we've prepared, for which we've hoped is here!  Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!...Christ is Risen indeed!

Last evening, we had an Easter Vigil at St. Paul's.  I have grown to love that service.  I love entering the darkened, bare sanctuary and then being part of lighting it and filling it.  It is joyful to see it come alive!  As we were setting up, I got to do something that I had never done before.  Michael and I unwrapped the brand new Christ candle.  We opened the box and then worked together to unwrap it.  It was wonderful.  Both of us were grinning.  It was like bringing new life into the world.  You see, the Christ candle is the center of every worship service in that big Gothic sanctuary.  We light this brand new, tall Christ candle for the first time on Easter and then it burns down through the year until it is sadly snuffed out for the last time on Maundy Thursday.  This one had never been lit, never been a part of the service, never been viewed by any of us.  And there is lay on the sacristy table with both of us staring at it.  It was as if that acid-free tissue paper that we had peeled away was the rock itself that we rolled away.  Christ is risen!  Let the light of Christ illumine all!

And so this day, we light the brand new Christ candle and we joyously celebrate Christ's Resurrection.  We finally get to sing "Alleluia" again after so many weeks of quiet and darkness. But what is it we're celebrating?  Are we glad that Christ's death was not permanent?  Well, of course we are.  But if Easter is only about Christ's Resurrection, then the whole thing would have been for naught.  You know, it's weird.  We struggle all through Lent to let go of ourselves, to surrender.  The reason we do that is because God has something else in store for us.  It's called resurrection--no just Christ's, but our own!  The whole purpose of Christ's Resurrection was to unveil our eternity, to show us what was coming for us, to lay the groundwork for not Christ's raising, but our own.  So, do you believe that?  You say you believe that Christ was raised.  Why would the Resurrection even happen if God was not trying to show us our own.  This is the Easter lesson.  Jesus came and walked this earth as God-With-Us, Emmanuel, to lead us into communion with God, to show us eternity.  Hmmm!  Maybe it IS about us!  But if it is, what do you plan to do with it?  What does it mean to celebrate not only Jesus' Resurrection but our own?  What does it mean for God to love you so much that God would recreate your life?  So if your life is worth that much to God, what are you planning to do with it?  Go now, roll the stone away...and reveal what God has planned for you!  Alleluia!

And on the third day of this time

The tomb opened to the light

And there my Lord, who died before

Is risen in my sight.

Christ my Lord is Risen Today!

And gone is need to mourn,

For Creation lost has lived again

And life itself reborn.

I tell this story so that you’ll know

That death is not the end.

The journey turns and light returns

As each of us to life transcend.

So, on this day when we celebrate the Risen Christ, celebrate also the story of your own resurrection!

Christ is Risen!  Alleluia!  You are risen!  Alleluia!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

NOTE:  The "whole" Holy Week poem is on a page on my blog under "Other Stuff".

 

The Rest

Genesis 2: 1-4a

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

God rested.  Those are the words that we tend to concentrate on in this Scripture, as if God, weary from all the creating just laid down and took a little nap.  The truth is, the point of it all is not that God rested; the point is the rest…

The seventh day is the climax of Creation.  It’s the point where it all comes together, where all of those scenes that have been   painstakingly shot in semi-chronological order but in different places and different lights and different hues are suddenly are spliced together into some semblance of order.  God does not just create rest; God creates it all.  God pieces it into order, into the way it should be and then hallows it, inviting reflection and thanksgiving…and eternity.  The heavens and the earth and all that they contain and all that they are do not rest from Creation but rather are all invited into the rest—the rest of Creation when it continues on.

The truth is that nothing really existed before the seventh day.  Oh sure, there were archetypes and rehearsals and things that carried some semblance of the final product.  But this…this is everything.  The Sabbath, the day of rest, the day of the rest…asks that we stop and look and continue on into eternity.

In this Eastertide, we celebrate the ultimate Sabbath, we celebrate the Holy Rest.  That third day gave us a glimpse of what God is doing.  And God continues to recreate all of Creation until everything has had a third day, until everything has seen the rest of the story.

Holy Shabbat…

Shelli

In The Image of God

Genesis 1: 24-31

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

What does it mean for humankind to be “made in God’s image”?  Most of us mainstreamers are probably more comfortable, whether we choose to admit it or not, with the idea of ourselves as that sinful creature who simply can’t do any better because our brother and sister Adam and Eve screwed it all up for the rest of us.  I mean, that’s easier, right?  It sort of gives us something toward which we can strive.  It means that if we’re really, really good and do it all right, then God will somehow get us out of this mess that we as humanity have gotten ourselves into.

But, then, how does being “made in God’s image” reconcile with that?  Keep in mind that an image is not the actual thing; it’s not necessarily even an ideal, unmistakable replica.  An image is a reflection, something that makes one think of the real thing, something that makes one feel as if the real thing is close.  Without a doubt, we are not God.  Not even on our best days.  Not even on Mother Teresa’s best days.  But we are made in God’s image.  We are made to reflect God to the world around us.  No longer can we dismiss ourselves as hopeless, sinful creatures.  There’s too much work to do!  What we need to do instead is get out the Windex!

You are God’s image.  That does not mean that you are perfect; it doesn’t even mean that you don’t sin or screw up, intentionally or unintentionally.  It just means that there’s more riding on it than God simply pulling you out of the game at the end.  After all, what sort of God are you reflecting right now?

Go and be God’s image in the world!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Sea Monsters & Flying Things

Genesis 1: 20-23

And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

Creation is wider and more inclusive than we usually let it be.  If the Resurrection of Jesus is the “new creation”, then where are the sea monsters and the birds?  What happens to them?  The truth is that we probably sort of skip through these verses in the context of the Creation account.  And yet, God thought that those things that were not like us, that did not live the way we live or exist the way we exist were worthy of creating even before us.  What does that say?

I think it reminds us the same thing that Jesus did:  The world was not made in our image.  Creation is not limited to the way we see or the way we think or the way we live.  God is bigger than we can possibly imagine.  God reaches beyond where we go.

The lesson here is simple:  Christ died for you…and him, and her, and the one that you got “pissed off” (sorry, it said it better!) at yesterday, and the one that you don’t understand, and the one that scares you, and the one that doesn’t live the way you do or think the way you do or believe the way you do or sleep with who you think they should or live where you do.  In fact, Christ died for the sea monsters and the flying things, those things that are not us and do not exist where we are.

Remember that on Holy Saturday, tradition tells us that Christ “descended into hell”, sweeping up all those things that are different, all those things that we do not understand, all those things that threaten or defy our being and Christ took them unto himself.  Now if Christ can do that with hell and sea monsters and flying things, why are we so high and mighty about who belongs “in” and who belongs “out”.  After all, that’s not what Jesus did.

Go and welcome them all in!  After all, THAT’S the answer to “What Would Jesus Do”, if you’re keeping track!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Inseparable

Genesis 1: 14-19

And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, ¹⁵and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. ¹⁶God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. ¹⁷God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, ¹⁸to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

The Light has come into the World!  Actually, if you remember the first day of Creation, there was light.  You know…”Let there be light!”  And there was.  The first day God created light in the midst of the darkness. But here…here God creates more light, putting light even in the midst of the darkness.  Notice that the darkness was not extinguished.  Perhaps it is there to make us look toward the light.  God did not snuff out the darkness; God rather gave us a light to navigate through it.

And now…in this Easter season, we are told that Jesus is the light of the world.  Now, notice here that the claim is not that Jesus HAS the light; it is that Jesus IS the light. What does that mean to “be” light? Light means life. Light signifies life-giving power. Think, for a moment, of the everyday miracle we know as photosynthesis. In photosynthesis light means life. In the presence of light, green plants convert water, carbon dioxide, and minerals into carbohydrates and oxygen. If there would be no light, there would be no photosynthesis. If there would be no photosynthesis, there would be no life. Light means life.

So Jesus is not just saying that he has brought light. Jesus is saying that he, God, the great I AM, IS life. But light’s value is not just unto itself. In all honesty, light, alone, is rather useless. Its true worth comes to be in its effect on everything around it. Its true value is in the way that it illumines and clarifies the world in which we live. Jesus’ intention, too, was not to come into the world as a blinding, white light but, rather, as a warm, illuminating presence that shines toward God and enables us to see the world the way we are intended to see it—all the world—the darkness, the light, and the shadows in our lives that constantly play between those two poles.

Edith Wharton said that “there are two ways of spreading light—to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” God is the candle, the firstborn light of Creation, the light of the world. We are called to go into the world and be light by reflecting God’s light even into the deepest crevices of the earth. Do not fear the darkness. In all truth, the darkness would not be if the light were not so bright. The two are inseparable. Jesus said, “I am the Light of the world…”  With Jesus, God re-created Light not to rid the world of darkness but to show us how to walk through it.

So, go, in the Name of Christ, and be light!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Brought Forth

Genesis 1: 9-13

And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

And then God created all those things that we think of as “nature”.  So what does that have to do with Eastertide?  What does that have to do with Recreation?  Everything.  You see, God did this wonderful act of recreation that we call Easter for a purpose—to show us eternity, to show us what God intended for us, to show us the way it should be, and to invite us into the act of bringing the Kingdom of God into its fullness.

Recreated, baptized, commission to service, if you will..in the Name of God.  And now, we are called to bring forth, to yield, to bear fruit.  Nature is cyclical .  In essence, nature knows what it is here to do.  Perhaps part of its purpose is to teach us—to teach us unconditional fruit-bearing, unending connection with the rest of Creation, and to show us what holy dependence is.  We cannot exist alone.  God brought us together that we might love one another and so that we might see eternity in one another’s eyes.  Whenever we look into a fellow human’s eyes, whenever we embrace any of God’s Creation not out of what it can do for us but out of love because it is God’s, whenever we treat someone or something with caring and compassion, we get a glimpse of he Holy, a sacred view of how things should be, of how things will be when all the tombs of all the endings are rolled away, when the Kingdom of God in all its fullness and all its glory is finally brought forth.

And there was evening and there was morning the Third Day…

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

 

The Second Day

Genesis 1: 6-8

And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

The second day…no grand processionals, no Hallelujah Chorus, no drama of a massive rock being rolled away to reveal an empty tomb.  What kind of follow-up can you expect after (Re) Creation?  What in the world could God have up the Divine sleeve, so to speak?  How in the world can you do better than Easter?

I think that’s our problem.  We celebrate the Easter as the pinnacle of our faith, as that thing that God DID for us.  The truth is, though, that God is always DOING for us.  In the second tier of Creation, once the relationship between heaven and earth was established, God separated the waters from the waters.  God made “Sky”.  When I was little, I was told that the universe was “infinite”.  Now to a child’s mind (and probably to most adult minds, although we don’t usually admit it), “infinite” is hard to grasp.  I used to look up at the sky and imagine it going on and on and on.  And then I knew it got beyond the cumulus clouds that I saw to the dark vastness of the solar system.  And then I knew it got beyond the solar system to the darker and more incredible vastness of the galaxy…then the universe…then….then….SURELY it had to stop somewhere.  Everything does.  But then what is beyond where it stops?  And then what is beyond that “whatever” when it stops?

On the second day, God made vastness; God made infinity; God made forever.  We Christians seem to think of eternity, of forever, as a Christian theological point (or a really bad theological point that claims its some sort of Divine reward for being good boys and girls).  No, it’s really a God-thing.  In fact, God IS eternity.  But God knew that we would never grasp that, no matter how hard we tried.

So God separated the waters into things that we could get.  And yet, they were all connected.  The smallest of waters leads to the vastness of eternity.  And so, to remember, God gave us water—just a tiny bit.  “I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”…”Remember your baptism and be thankful.”  And with that little bit of water in which you are immersed, or that is poured on you, or even that tiny bit that is sprinkled into your life, God reminds you that you have entered the vastness and infinity of eternity, whether or not you understand it.

Now THAT was a pretty good follow-up to Easter.  God is full of surprises—unlimited and eternal ones!

Remember your baptism and be thankful!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

 

 

 

A New Creation

Genesis:  1: 1-5
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

This is normally not a passage for Easter Day.  What happened to the empty tomb?  What happened to the dawn of the Eastern morn?  What happened to the Resurrected Christ?  I actually think it's all there:  A formless void--nothingness, chaos, injustice, persecution, evil, death--is recreated into order while God's Spirit sweeps across its being.  A light appears...a first light...a light that has never been before...a light separated from the darkness of death and despair and hell.  It is the dawn of the Light.  It is the first day of the New Creation.  Christ the Lord has Risen!  ALLELUIA!  ALLELUIA!  ALLELUIA!...

This thing that God has done...this turning despair into hope and death into life...is surely the greatest act of Creation!  God again took a formless void, an instrument of hopelessness and death, a manifestation of denial and betrayal, of injustice and evil, and there...there in the first light of this morning...we see glorious Light...we see hope...we see life as we've never seen it before.  There...there in the light of the dawn is our eternity!

Welcome, happy morning!  Age to age shall say: 
"Hell today is vanquished, Heaven is won today."

Lo! the dead is living, God forevermore! 

Him, their true creator, All his works adore.

Earth with joy confesses, Clothing her for spring, 

All good gifts returned with her returning King,

Bloom in every meadow, leaves on every bough,

speak his sorrows ended; Hail his triumph now.

Thou, of life the author, Death didst undergo, 

Tread the path of darkness, saving strength to show;

Come then, true and faithful, now fulfill thy word; 

Tis thine own third morning, Rise, O buried Lord!

Welcome, happy morning!  Age to age shall say: 

"Hell today is vanquished, Heaven is won today!

Lo! the dead is living, God forevermore! 

Him, their true creator, All his works adore.

                                          ("Welcome Happy Morning", hymn by Fortunatus (ca. 535-600), trans. by John Ellerton)   

Christ the Lord is Risen!  ALLELUIA!...And there was evening and there was morning the first day...

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Expecting Surprise

This morning I was standing at the back of the sanctuary waiting to process for the last of the three services. The building was packed. Behind me in the Narthex amidst the sound of excited voices waiting for the service to start and some trying to set up chairs in the Narthex, was the rustling of the huge ribbon banners that are the first things in the Easter Festival Processional. There was a little girl standing on a chair in the very back. She turned around and saw the glorious white ribbons rustling in the breeze of the open doors and exclaimed, "Mommy, I think we're having a party!"

Well, of course we're having a party! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed!

Expectations are good things. They make us pay attention; they keep us awake; they keep us excited about life. But when expectations get in the way of our noticing and welcoming the unexpected, we need to let go of what we expected. The women who first encountered the tomb were expecting a tomb. They were not expecting it to be open, not expecting it to be empty, not expecting Jesus to be gone. Mary broke down, weeping over her loss, until Jesus surprised her. Jesus was present after all. The unexpected had happened. Christ was indeed Risen! She had expected anything but a party, but here it was happening anyway!

Easter is about encountering the unexpected. Everything that was expected, that was planned, has gone by the wayside. The Season of Lent prepared us for this by emptying us, by making room for what was aobut to happen. Now is the Season to embrace the unexpected and let it fill your life.

Well, of course we're having a party! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed!

So go forth in this festival season and expect to be surprised!

Happy Easter!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli