2 Easter

 

April 11, 2021

John 20.19-31

+ If you know me for any period of time, one of the many weird things you will hear me talk about is my affection toward atheists.

 

And I’m not talking about it in some negative way.  

 I genuinely like atheists, and I definitely empathize with those who do not believe.

 I do not see that atheists and Christianity are necessarily diametrically opposed to each other.

 And I know that’s an extremely unpopular opinion from both Christians and atheists.

But I stand firmly on this topic.

I’ll be honest.

What disturbs me about atheist theology isn’t its (often rightful) anger toward Christianity and organized religion, its rebellion, its single-mindedness about how wrong religion is.

What disturbs me about atheism is how simple it is—how beautifully uncomplicated it is.

Tomorrow will be the 60^th anniversary of amazing event.

On April 12, 1961, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space.

Soviet propaganda at the time proclaimed that the first words from Gagarin from space were, “I see no God up here.”

There’s even a famous poster showing Gagarin floating above the spires of the

churches of Russia, and the words “No God” in Russian as a caption

The fact is, this was proved to be wrong.

Gagarin never said it.

In fact, there are stories abounding that Gagarin was actually a secret Orthodox Christians (If you want to google it, you find yourself going down some interesting rabbit holes).

But, let’s face it—it’s just so easy to not see God anywhere.

It’s easy to look up into the sky and say, I see no God.

It’s easy to believe that science has the only answers and that everything is provable and rational.

(And just to be clear, I am fully 100%  pro-science, by the way)

I almost—ALMOST—envy atheists.

And when I hear any of my many atheist friends state their disbelief in the white-bearded male god who sits on a throne in heaven, I realize: if that is what they don’t believe in, then…I guess I’m also an atheist.

In fact, any God that I can observe by looking at in the sky, or into the cosmos is definitely a God in which I don’t believe.

I don’t want a God so easily provable, so easily observed and examined and quantified and…materially real.  

I don’t believe in a God that is so made in our image.

I don’t believe in a God that is simply a projection of our own image and self.

Who would want that God?

We might as well go back and start worshipping the pantheon of pagan gods our ancestors worshipped.

We might as well start worshipping trees and rocks again.

It’s actually so easy to say there’s no God.

It is easy to say that we live in some random existence—without purpose or meaning.

And let me tell you, I also have major issues with the prevalent form of Christianity we see in this county and in the world right now.

I think many of here—or who are watching this morning—feel the same way.

Many of us have been hurt and abused by the bastardized version of Christianity that is now being promoted as the ONLY form of Christianity that is “valid.”

Trust me.

I get!

And I guess that’s why I’m kind of envious of atheists.

That’s why I jokingly say: “there but for the grace of the God in which they don’t believe go I.”

For us, however, as Christians, it isn’t as easy.

Being a Christian is actually quite hard.

I hate to break that news to you.

Believing is actually hard.

Yes, we do believe in the existence of God.

And we believe in a very physical representation of God in the person of Jesus.

We are now in the season of Easter—a season in which we celebrate and live into the reality of the Resurrection of Jesus,

But that event is based on some incredible evidence.

We are believing what a group of pre-Enlightenment, Pre-rational, Jewish people from what was considered at the time to be a backwater country are telling us they saw.

But we believe because we know, in our hearts, that this is somehow true.

We know these things really did happen and that because they did, life is different—life is better, despite everything that happens 

We believe these things in true faith.

We didn’t see Jesus while he was alive and walking about.

We didn’t see him after he rose from the tomb.

We don’t get the opportunities that Thomas had in this morning’s Gospel.

Doubting Thomas, as we’ve come to know him, refused to believe that Jesus was resurrected until he had put his fingers in the wounds of Jesus.

It wasn’t enough that Jesus actually appeared to him in the flesh—how many of us would only jump at that chance?

For Thomas, Jesus stood there before him, in the flesh—wounds and all.

And only when he had placed his finger in the wounds, would he believe.

It’s interesting to see and it’s interesting to hear this story of Doubting Thomas.

But, the fact is, for the rest of us, we don’t get it so easy.

Jesus is probably not going to appear before us—in the flesh.

At least, not on this side of the Veil—not while we are still alive.

 And if he does, you need to have a little talk with your priest.

 We are not going to have the opportunity to touch the wounds of Jesus, as Thomas did.

 Let’s face it, to believe without seeing, is not easy.

 It takes work and discipline.

 A strong relationship with God—this invisible being we might sense, we might feel emotionally or spiritually, but we can’t pin-point—takes work—just as any other relationship in our life takes work.

 It takes discipline.

 It takes concentrated effort.

 Being a Christian does not just involve being good and ethical all the time.

 Many, many atheists do that too.

 Most atheists I know are ethical, upright, good people too.

 Most atheists I know are committed the same ideals most of us are committed to here this morning.

 And they are sometimes even better at it all than I am sometimes, I’ll admit

 But, being a Christian doesn’t mean just being ethical and “good.”

 (Though we should all still be ethical and “good”)

 Being a Christian means living one’s faith life fully and completely as a Christian.

 It means being a reflection of God’s love, God’s Presence, God’s joy and goodness in the world.

 It means that we might not touch the wounds of Jesus as Thomas did, but we do touch the wounds of Jesus when we reach out in love to help those who need our love.

 We should be a walking, talking, living presence of God.

 God should be in our very core, our very marrow.

 Even if the God we are embodying is a mystery of us.

 Even if the God we embody is not seen.

  “Blessed are those who believe but don’t see,” Jesus says this morning.

 We are those blessed ones.

 We are the ones Jesus is speaking of in this morning’s Gospel.

 Blessed are you all.

 You  believe, but don’t see.

 We are the ones who, despite what our rational mind might tell us at times, we still have faith.

 We, in the face of doubt and fear, can still say, with all conviction, “Alleluia!”

 “Praise God!”

 We can’t objectively make sense of it.

 Sometimes all we can do is live and experience the joy of this resurrection and somehow, like sunlight shining in us and sinking deep into us, we simply bask in its glory. 

 Seen or unseen, we know God is there.

 Yuri Gagarin this morning knows that to be true.

 Our faith is not based on seeing God here in front of us in the flesh or proving the existence of God, or finding scientific proof for the Resurrection.

 Because we actually have known God, right here, right now.

 God has been embodied in us.

 We know God, and feel God, and taste God in the bread of the Eucharist.

 We know God through love—love of God and love of one another.

 Blessed are we who believe but don’t see now.

 The Kingdom of Heaven is truly ours.

 Alleluia!

 

Easter

 

April 4, 2021

 

+  Last year, all through Lent as we were going through those ugly, terrible first days of the pandemic,  I looked forward to Easter with a sense of real hope.

 

But…I have to say, I was disappointed.

 

Last Easter, coming as it did in the midst of some of the darkest, most uncertain days of the pandemic, was a miserable, bleak Easter.

 

Those words—“miserable” and “bleak”—should never been used in the same sentence as the word “Easter.”

 

But it was a sad and bleak Easter last year.

 

Last Easter, we had nine people in church—our Senior Warden Jean and Junior Warden Jessica, our soon-to-be-Deacon John, our organist James, our cantor Michelle, Paul Sando who was manning the camera, Katie Sando and Kristofer Sando,  and myself.

 

We livestreamed that Easter Mass the best we could because everyone else was home safe and quarantined.

 

It was difficult Easter to say the least

 

But. . . here we are! One year later.

 

Easter!

 

And it is a new year.

 

Last Sunday, on Palm Sunday, I felt, for the first time in over a year, real hope that we were coming to the end of this long, terrible time.

 

Last Sunday was the first Sunday when we had a good number of people in church.

 

Today, we are truly hopeful.

 

Today, definitely makes up for last Easter.

 

Today, this is what it is all about.

 

Hope and light and a feeling of real renewal.

 

I have never made a secret of this fact…but, I LOVE Easter.

 

Some people are Christmas people.

 

Some people are Easter people.

 

I’m definitely an Easter person.

 

Easter, after all, is all about life.

 

Real life.

 

Unending life.

 

A life that does not end.

 

It is about the dawn that comes after a very long night.

 

And it is about our response to that life.

 

But what’s even better about Easter in my opinion is that, unlike Christmas, which when it’s over it’s over (people put out that Christmas tree the day after Christmas), Easter happens again and again for us who are followers of Jesus.

 

We get to experience it and all it represents multiple times over the year.

 

Certainly every Sunday we celebrate a mini-Easter.

 

And every funeral is also a celebration of Resurrection and all that Easter represents.

 

And why shouldn’t we celebrate it beyond this season?

 

When we celebrate Easter, we are celebrating life.

 

Eternal life.

 

The truly wonderful Christian writer, Rob Bell, once said,

 

“Eternal life doesn’t start when we die. It starts now. It’s not about a life that begins at death; it’s about experiencing the kind of life now that can endure and survive even death.”

 

I love that!

 

Resurrection is a kind reality that we, as Christians, are called to live into.

 

Right now.

 

And it’s not just something we believe happens after we die.

 

We are called to live into that Resurrection NOW.

 

By raising Jesus from the dead, God calls us to live into that joy and that beautiful life NOW.

 

The alleluias we sing this morning are not for some beautiful moment after we have breathed our last.

 

These alleluias are for now, as well as for later.

 

We are essentially saying, Praise God for the life unending that God has given us!

 

These alleluias, these joyful sounds we make, this Light we celebrate, is a Light that shines rightnow—in this moment.

 

We are alive now!

 

Right now!

 

We have made it through a dark and terrible time.

 

Easter and our whole lives as Christians is all about this fact.

 

Our lives should be joyful because of this fact—this reality—that Jesus died and is risen and by doing so has destroyed our deaths.

 

This is what it means to be a Christian.

 

Easter is about this radical new life.

 

It is about living in another dimension that, to our rational minds, makes no sense.

 

Even, sometimes, with us, it doesn’t make sense.

 

It almost seems too good to be true.

 

And that’s all right to have that kind of doubt.

 

It doesn’t make sense that we are celebrating an event that seems so wonderful that it couldn’t possibly be true. It doesn’t make sense that this event that seems so super-human can bring such joy in our lives.

 

Today we are commemorating the fact that Jesus, who died and was buried in a tomb and is now…alive.

 

That God raised Jesus from the darkness of death, and he is now alive.  

 

Fully and completely alive.

 

Alive in a real body.

 

Alive in a body that only a day before was lying, broken and dead, in a tomb.

 

And…as if that wasn’t enough, we are also celebrating the fact that we truly believe we too are experiencing this.

 

Experiencing this—in the present tense.

 

We are already living, by our very lives, faith in God and our faith in in the eternal, unending, glorious life that God shows in the resurrection of Jesus.

 

We will live because God raised Jesus to life.

 

Now as wonderful as this all seems, the fact is, we aren’t deceiving ourselves.

 

We’re not a naïve people who think everything is just peachy keen and wonderful.

 

We know what darkness is.

 

We have all made it through a very hard year together.

 

We know what sickness and dear are.

 

We know what suffering and pain are.

 

Most of us here this morning have had our share of losses in our lives.

 

We know the depths of pain and despair in our lives.

 

What Easter reminds us, again and again, is that darkness is not eternal.

 

Illness and death are not eternal.

 

Pandemics are not eternal.

 

Covid is not eternal.

 

None of those things will ultimately win out.

 

Light will always win.

 

This Light will always succeed.

 

This Light will be eternal.

 

I am honest when I say that part of me wishes I could always live in this Easter Light.

 

I wish I could bottle this joy that I feel this morning.

 

But the fact is, this Light will lose its luster faster than I even want to admit.

 

This joy will fade too.

 

But I do believe that whatever heaven is—and none of us knows for certain what it will be like—I have no doubt that it is very similar this the joy we feel this morning.

 

I believe with all that is in me that it is very much like the experience of this Light that we are celebrating this morning—an unending Easter.

 

And if that is what Heaven is, then it is a joy that will not die, and it is a Light that will not fade and grow dim.

 

And if that’s all I know of heaven, then that is enough for me.

 

The fact is, Easter doesn’t end when the sun sets today.

 

Easter is what we carry within us as Christians ALL the time.

 

Easter is living out the Resurrection by our very presence.

 

We are, each of us, carrying within us this Easter Light we celebrate this morning and always.

 

All the time.

 

Easter is here!

 

It is here, in our very souls, in our very bodies, in our very selves.

 

With that Easter Light burning within us, being reflected in what we do and say, in the love we show to God and to each other, what more can we say on this glorious, glorious morning?

 

What more can we say when God’s glorious, all-loving, resurrected realty breaks through to us in glorious light, and transforms us;

 

So, what do we say?

 

We say, Alleluia!

 

Christ is risen!

 

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

 

Holy Saturday

 

April 3, 2021

 Matthew 27.57-66

 + This morning of course is a liturgically bare and solemn morning.

 We gather today in a church stripped to its barest bones.

 The Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is gone—the aumbry’s door lies open, the sanctuary light is extinguished and is gone. 

 The crosses are veiled in black shrouds of mourning. 

 It is a bleak and colorless place.

 It is a time of mourning.

 It is a time of loss.

 This liturgy purposely, intentionally, has the feel of a burial service. 

 And liturgically we ponder the fact that Jesus’ murdered and tortured body this morning lies in a tomb.

 Despite all this, as I have said many time over the years, I truly do love to participate in the liturgy this morning. 

 I love to preach about Holy Saturday.

 I love to talk about it.

 I love to mediate on it throughout the year.

 And I guess I do because it’s kind of an ignored day.

 For the most part, Holy Saturday is not given a lot of attention by a majority of churches, at least here in the U.S.

 In places like Mexico, it is a big day.

 Holy Saturday in Mexico is also called Judas Day and it is on this day they burn effigies of Judas Iscariot. 

 It is called Judas day because it is popularly believed that Judas committed suicide early on this day. 

 Now, Judas has become one of the most maligned and hated figures in human history.

 His act of betrayal is seen as the ultimate form of treason and cowardice.

 And of course, the tradition has always been that Judas, after he went out and hung himself, went to hell. 

 The end of the story.

 There have been a few traditions about what happened to his body. 

 One says that he was the first one buried in the Potter’s Field that was used by the money he returned to the Priests.

 It is also said, to this day, that any body buried in that Potter’s Field decomposes within twenty-four hours.

 So, like that, Judas—the symbol of deceit—disappears completely, without a trace. 

 It’s a sad end to a sad man.

 But there is a little glimmer of hope in all of this. 

 Today, on this Holy Saturday, we also think about a popular tradition in the Church that you know I really love.

 You know I love it, because I peach about it regularly.   

 The Harrowing of Hell, of course, is the event in which we imagine Jesus, on this Holy Saturday,  descending among the dead in hell and bringing them back. 

 Most years on Holy Saturday I preach about the Harrowing of Hell and reference the famous icon of Jesus standing over the broken-open tombs pulling out Adam from one tomb and Eve from the other.

 I always place that icon somewhere in the church.

 But there is another image I would like to draw your attention to—a more interactive image.

 That image is, of course, the image of the labyrinth.

 Of course, we just renovate dour labyrinth, and it has become a popular place for people to walk.

 But, one of the many images used in walking the labyrinth is, of course, the Harrowing of Hell. 

 When you think of the labyrinth, you can almost imagine Jesus trekking his way down to the very bowels of hell.

 There, he takes those waiting for him and gently and lovingly leads them back through the winding path to heaven. 

 On this Holy Saturday, I also like imagine that one person Jesus greets and leads back is, of course, the new-arrived Judas. 

 Judas was, after all, one of the closest of the apostles.

 And Jesus knew from the beginning what Judas was going to do.

 In a sense, Jesus needed Judas to fulfill his destiny on that cross.

 I can imagine, then, that Jesus, upon reaching the bowels of hell on this day, sought Judas out especially, embraced him and quietly led him out, along with the others.

 It’s lovely to imagine and, whether it’s true or not, I like to cling to that image.

 The image of the Harrowing of Hell—the image of the labyrinth—never becomes more real for me than when I imagine myself as Judas, at that very center—shivering there in the dark, bracing myself for an eternity of separation from others and from Jesus.

 I imagine myself as the Judas who deserves to have his effigy burned, who deserves to be maligned and shown as the epitome of treason.

 And in that dark, cold, lonely place, I, like Judas, am amazed when I see that glimmer of light in the darkness.

 I, like Judas, am filled with a steadily-growing joy as the light grows larger and bolder and I realize that within that light is God in Jesus.

 I, like Judas, am overwhelmed in that moment when Jesus comes to me in my desolation and my isolation and reaches out to me to embrace me and lead me away from that prison that I have made for myself by my foolish actions and cold-hearted ways. 

 The great Episcopal theologians, William Stringfellow (one of my theological heroes) one wrote in his wonderful book, A Simplicity of Faith:

 “Hell is the realm of death. Hell is when or where death is complete, unconditional, maximum, undisguised, most awesome and awful, unbridled, most terrible, perfected. That Jesus Christ descended into hell means that as we die (in any sense of the term die) our expectation in death is encounter with the Word of God , which is, so to speak, already there in the midst of death.”

 I love that quote.

 What we see in the Harrowing of Hell, in Christ’s descent to hell, is that  God is so powerful that even the depths of Hell—that not even death or destruction or despair—are not out of God’s reach.

 Even there, God can come.

 Even there, God’s Light can permeate.

 Even there, God can break open the walls of the prison of hell and can let that freeing Light shine.

 After all, God will never forget us.

 God will never abandon us.

 That is how powerful God’s love is for us.

 Now for some people this belief is heresy.

 For some this belief is universalism.

 Maybe it is.

 And if it is a heresy, then I stand here guilty before you.

 But, the fact is, I believe this is truth.

 I believe it in my core of cores.

 I believe it with every ounce of my faith I have in me.

 The God I love and serve will never forget us or abandon us.

 The God I have come to know in my life is not a God of eternal punishment.

 The Christ I follow has power to come to us, even it the farthest reaches of hell, and take us by the hand, and lead us out.

 This, to me,  is what Holy Saturday is all about.

 Even dead and lying in a tomb, Jesus still manages to make a difference—to do good.

 Even when it seems like the ultimate defeat has occurred, the ultimate victory is going on, right under the surface.

 Holy Saturday is that glimmer of light in the darkest places of our souls.

 And that light that is about to dawn on us tomorrow morning—that light of ultimate and unending joy and gladness—is more glorious than anything we can even begin to fathom in this moment.

 So let us this morning, strain into the dark.

 Let us look with hope and joy toward that light that is approaching us.

 And when we see him, there, in that light, coming toward us with his arms outstretched, let us run to him with that Easter joy.

 Let us pray.

 Loving God, how many times have we called out from the depths of our own hells. How many times have we raised our voices from the pits of despair in which we have found ourselves? And each time you have been faithful to us. Each time you have heard our cries. Each time, no matter how separated we might feel from you, even there, you send us Jesus, to come to us and to gently lead us back. We are thankful on this Holy Saturday for the fact that you will not forget us, but that you will send us help, even in the depths of the deepest hell; we pray gratefully in the name of Jesus, who comes to us in our deepest moments of personal darkness as a bright shining light. Amen.

 

Good Friday

 

April 2, 2021

 

+ I preached last Sunday about how I kind of dreaded Holy Week this year.

 

I dreaded it—I still dread it—because of today.

 

This moment.

 

This dark, silent moment.

 

What I have been keeping with me this week is that the story of Jesus, for us as followers of Jesus, is our story too.

 

What we commemorate today isn’t just something that happened then, back then, in the distant past, to someone else—to Jesus.

 

It is where we are too.

 

This is our story.

 

And it is happening now, right now, for us.

 

This is our story.

 

This is our death.

 

This is the death of those we love the most.

 

This too is our story.

 

This is the part of the story we don’t want to be ours.

 

This bleakness.

 

This stripped away austerity.

 

This violence.

 

This…death.

 

We have reached the lowest point in this long, dark week.

 

Everything seems to have led to this moment.

 

To this moment—this moment of the cross, the nails, the thorns.

 

To this moment of blood and pain and death.

 

To this moment of violence and utter destruction.

 

We are here, in this moment, not finding much comfort, not finding much consolation.

 

We have known in our lives what this despair is.

 

Yesterday, I put up a beautiful metal piece representing Mary standing at the foot of the cross.

 

I donated this piece to St. Stephen’s in memory of my brothers, Jeff and Jason Gould.

 

Jeff died in 2013, Jason died last summer.

 

I did so, because the art piece reminded me of my mother.

 

In fact, every time I see the representations of Mary at the cross—especially these that we have here in our Stations of the Cross—I see my mother, and the grief she experienced when Jeff died.

 

It was a deep and terrible grief.

 

And I know that she would’ve experienced that same grief had she lived to see my brother Jason’s death.

 

What that piece I donated yesterday to St. Stephen’s—what these Stations show us, what this whole day shows us is that this is our story too.

 

What Jesus shows us in his life—and death—is that we are not alone.

 

We don’t go through all this alone.

 

Jesus went there too.

 

And because Jesus did, God knows what we are experiencing in this awful thing called death.

 

Today—in the death of Jesus—we see that this is also the death of our loved ones.

 

And it is our death as well.

 

And nothing fills us with more fear than this.

 

This is why, in this awful moment, we know despair.

 

In this dark moment, our own brokenness seems more profound, more real.

 

We can feel this brokenness now in a way we never have before.

 

Our brokenness is shown back to us like the reflection in a dark mirror as we look upon that broken, emaciated body on the cross, or held in the arms of his mother.

 

But…as broken as we are, as much of a reminder of our own death this day might be, as overwhelmed as we might be by the presence of death in our lives at times, so too is the next 48 hours or so.

 

What seems like a bleak, black moment will be replaced by the blinding Light of the Resurrection.

 

What seems like a moment of unrelenting despair will soon be replaced by an unleashing of unrestrained joy.

 

What seems like an eternal brokenness will replaced by complete wholeness.

 

Yes, we might die, but God is not dead.

 

Yes, we might be broken, but God will restore all that is broken.

 

Just as God restored the broken Body of Jesus, so God will restore us and our loved ones as well.

 

In short order, this present despair will be turned completely around.

 

This present darkness will be vanquished.

 

This present pain will be replaced with a comfort that brings about peace.

 

This present brokenness will be healed fully and completely, leaving not even a scar.

 

God will prevail even over even…this.

 

Even death has no power over the God of unending life!

 

This is what today is about too.

 

This is what our journey in following Jesus brings to us.

 

All we need to do is go where the journey leads us and trust in the one who leads.

 

Let us pray.

 

Holy God, be with us. Be with us as we journey along this path that Jesus walked to the cross. Help us to see that this path is our path too. But, let us also see that we are not alone as we walk. You are with us as we walk alongside Jesus. And that, in following him to the cross, we follow him also the glory that lies beyond the cross. We ask this in his name, amen.