Easter

 

March 31, 2024

 

+A few years ago, our newspaper interviewed me for an article.

 

It was a very flattering story of me, that also included interviews with other people who knew me.

 

Well, one of the people interviewed said, “Father Jame is like another Jesus.”

 

When the article appeared, a dear friend of mine made a point of telling me how offended they were by that statement.

 

“I know you,” this person said. “You are NO Jesus.”

 

Well, to be fair, I never said I was.

 

But, the bigger point of all of this, is this:

 

Isn’t that the goal?

 

Isn’t that the goal for all of us who are followers of Jesus?

 

Isn’t it the goal for each and every one of us to be, essentially, “other Jesuses,” to be the Presence of Jesus in this world, to be the hands and feet of Jesus?

 

We are, after all, the BODY of Christ. Right?

 

What does that mean to us if it doesn’t mean that we’re expected to embody Christ?

 

In the Eastern Orthodox Church, there’s actually a term for seeking to be essentially another Jesus.

 

It’s called “Theosis.”

 

And what it means is that the goal of our lives as Christians is to be what Jesus is—to become divine, to live into the ideal of what Jesus.

 

Essentially to evolve into Christ-like beings.

 

As you hear me say way too often, we tend to put Jesus on a safe little shelf.

 

We keep him there, pristine and sweet and nice and smiling.

 

Our own personal Jesus, to paraphrase the old Depeche Mode song (I’m dating myself here)

 

And there, on that safe shelf, we worship our safe, smiling Jesus, and we can be in awe of him, there on that safe little altar.

 

And none of that is wrong.

 

But if that’s where we keep him, inaccessible, beyond us, wholly other than us, than we’ve missed the boat on this whole Christianity thing.

 

As I have said again and again, Worshipping Jesus is easy and safe.

 

Following Jesus, actually striving to be like Jesus, to be “another Jesus” in this world---that is very hard.

 

The point I’m making on this beautiful Easter morning is this:

 

Easter is truly a beautiful day.

 

I absolutely  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.

 

Jesus’ life.

 

His rising form the grave.

 

His living again.

 

But if it’s only about him, and not us too, then what is Easter for us?

 

If it’s only about Jesus’ resurrection and not our resurrection too, Easter becomes a quant, sweet, nice gentle little holiday, not that far removed from bunny rabbits and painted eggs.

 

But when we strive to be like Jesus, when we seek to be “another Jesus” in this world, we start realizing that what God did for Jesus—God raised Jesus up from death itself—God also will do for us.

This is the radical aspect not only of following Jesus, but also of trying to actually BE Jesus in this world.

 

BEING another Jesus in this world means that we also get to be raised like Jesus

one day.

 

BEING another Jesus in this world means that we will be raised by God from the dark shadow of death and live, like Jesus, with God.

 

This Day in which we shout our alleluias at the Resurrection of Jesus, also becomes a day when our alleluias celebrate the fact that we, like Jesus, are also going to be raised up from death.

 

Just realizing that makes us truly want to shout, “Alleluia!”

 

See, this is why I LOVE Easter.

 

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 this joy and amazing reality and all it represents multiple times over the year.

 

Certainly every Sunday we celebrate a mini-Easter.

 

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

 

When we celebrate Easter, we are celebrating life.

 

Jesus’ eternal life.

 

And our 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.

 

Right here.

 

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

 

We are called to live into that Resurrection NOW.

 

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

 

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

 

We are essentially saying today, Praise God!

 

Praised God for raising Jesus.

 

And Praise God for raising us too!

 

Those alleluias, those joyful sounds we make, this Light we celebrate, is a Light that shines now—in this moment.

 

We are alive now!

 

Right now!

 

Easter and our whole lives as followers of Jesus is all about this fact.

 

Our lives should be joyful because of this fact—this reality—that Jesus died and is risen and so will we.

 

This is what it means to be a Christian.

 

Easter is about this radical new life.

 

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

 

And one day, we who strive to be like Jesus, who strive another “other Jesuses” in this world, we are alive right now, right here, and that we too will live, like him, for eternity.

 

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 all-loving, resurrected realty breaks through to us in glorious light and transforms us?

 

What do we say?

 

We say, Alleluia!

 

Praise God!

 

Christ is risen! And we are risen with him!

 

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Holy Saturday

 

March 30, 2024

 

+We’re going to go back in time for a moment.

 

We’re not going back too far.

 

We are going back 20 years ago, to this time of year way back in 2004.

 

If you were any kind of active Christian in the United States during the Lent of 2004, there was an event happening that you were no doubt aware of.

 

For me, I remember it well.

 

I was a transitional deacon at the time.

 

I had been ordained a deacon the previous July, and I was anxiously awaiting my ordination to the Priesthood in June.

 

But during that Lent, this event caused many of us to crowd into West Acres Cinema.

 

And there, we saw the event that was The Passion of the Christ, directed by your favorite antisemitic, Trad Catholic director, Mel Gibson.

 

As you might have guessed, I HATED that film!

 

No. That’s not even strong enough to describe how I felt about that film.

 

I absolutely despised it!

 

It was a disgusting, antisemitic, gratuitously violent snuff film.

 

And what drove me over the edge with that film, was sitting in that crowded theatre, surrounded by busloads of weepy, overly sentimental evangelical Christians who were literally wailing when the film was over.

 

I remember turning to the people I went with and asked, “Didn't they know how that story was going to end?”

 

It was a strange moment.

Well, you might be asking, why am I bringing up this dark day in America cinema on Holy Saturday morning?

 

I am because, just recently, it was announced the SS Oberguppenfuhrer Gibson has directed a sequel to The Passion of the Christ.

 

I kid you not!

 

Now, I know what you’re thinking when you hear “sequel.”

 

You no doubt think, as I did, that a sequel to the Passion would be about…..what else?.....Easter. The Resurrection.

 

Au contraire, my friends!

 

It is most certainly NOT about the Resurrection.

 

It is, in fact, about the very even we are commemorating this morning.

 

It is about Jesus’ descent to hell.

 

Which actually has piqued my interest about the film.

 

And because it is, yes, sigh, I probably will go and endure the sequel.

 

Today of course is Holy Saturday.

 

And, as far as I know, we are the only church around here anyway gathering together on this bleak Saturday morning to celebrate this bare-bones liturgy.

 

But, as you have heard me say a million times: I love to preach about Holy Saturday and especially about the so-called Harrowing of Hell.  

 

I love to talk about Harrowing of Hell.

 

I love to mediate on it throughout the year.

 

I even encourage people who use it as their meditation as they walk our labyrinth.  

 

And I guess I love do so because Holy Saturday and what it represents is kind of ignored.

 

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. 

 

But Holy Saturday and the so-called Harrowing of Hell is important.

 

It’s important because it’s a part of our humane experience.

 

Let’s face it, we’ve all been here.

 

We’ve been here, in this belly of    hell.

 

We’ve been in this place in which there is nothing.

 

Bleakness.

 

No hope.

 

Or so it seems.

 

It’s not just a bad place to be.

 

It’s the worst place to be.

 

We have been in that place in which we seemed abandoned.

 

Deserted.

 

No one was coming for us, we believed.

 

No one even knew we were here, in these depths of hell.

 

Hell.

 

Holy Saturday is the time in which we commemorate not only the fact that Jesus is lying in the tomb—in which we perform a liturgy that feels acutely like the burial service.

 

We also commemorate a very long belief that on this day, Jesus, although seemingly at rest in the tomb, was actually at work, despite the fact that it seemed he was dead.

 

He was in the depth of hell.

 

 

 

This belief, of course, comes to us from a very basic reading of 1 Peter, and from the early Church Fathers.

 

Jesus descended into hell and preached to those there.  

 

The popular term for this is the Harrowing of Hell.

 

He went to hell and harrowed until it was empty.

 

I always put out this ikon of Jesus on this Saturday.

 

In it, we see a glimpse of the Harrowing.

 

And what do we see?

 

We see Jesus lifting this man and this woman out of broken tombs.

 

That man and that woman are none other than Adam and Eve.

 

Jesus, the belief goes, on this day, went to hell----to the underworld where the dead slept----and brought them up.

 

He “harrowed” or raked hell for those souls trapped there.

 

Is this surprising to you?

 

Is this shocking to you?

 

Does this fly in the face of everything you thought you may have known about what happened on this day?

 

If so, all I can say is, “good!”

 

Because, as a follower of Jesus, I find the story of the Harrowing of Hell to be so compelling.

 

I find it compelling, because I’ve been there.

 

I’ve been to hell.

 

More than once.

 

As have many of us.

 

I have known despair.

 

I have known that feeling that I thought I would actually die from bleakness.

 

Or wished I could die.

 

But didn’t.

 

Even death wasn’t, in that moment, the worst thing that could happen.

 

That place of despair was.

 

It’s the worst place to be.

 

Which is why this morning’s liturgy is so important to me.

 

In the depth of hell, even there, when we think there is no one coming for us—just when we’ve finally given up hope, Someone does.

 

Jesus comes to us, there.

 

He comes to us in the depths of our despair, of our personal darkness, of that sense of being undead, and what does he do?

 

He leads us out.

 

I know this is a very unpopular belief for many Christians.

 

Many Christians simply cannot believe it.

 

Hell is eternal, they believe

 

And it should be.

 

If you turn your back on God, then God’s back should be turned to you and  you should be in hell forever and ever, they believe.

 

If you do wrong in life, you should be punished for all eternity, they will argue.

 

I don’t think it’s any surprise to any of you to hear me say that I definitely don’t agree.

 

And my faith speaks loudly to me on this issue.

 

The God I serve, the God I love and believe in, is not a God who would act in such a way.

 

Now, I am not saying there isn’t a hell.

 

There is a hell.

 

As I said, I’ve been there.

 

But if there is some metaphysical hell in the so-called “afterlife,” I believe that, at some point, it will be completely empty.

 

And heaven will be absolutely full.

 

What I do know is that the hell I believe in does exist.

 

And many of us—most of us—have been there at least once.

 

Some of us have been there again and again.

 

Any of us who have suffered from depression, or anxiety, or have lost a loved one, or have doubted our faith, or have suffered several rejection or been ostracized or discarded or have thought God is not a God of love—we have all known this hell. 

 

But none of them are eternal hells.

 

I do believe that even those hells will one day come to an end.

 

I do believe that Jesus comes to us, even there, in the depths of those personal hells.

 

I believe that one day, even those hells will be harrowed and emptied, once and for all.

 

Until that day happens, none of us should be too content.

 

None of us should rejoice too loudly.  

 

None of should exult in our own salvation, until salvation is granted to all.

 

If there is an eternal hell and punishment, my salvation is not going to be what I thought it was.  

 

And that is the real point of this day.

 

I love the fact that, no matter where I am, no matter where I put myself, no matter what depths and hells and darknesses I sink myself into, even there Jesus will find me. 

 

And I know that the Jesus I serve and follow will not rest until the last of his lost loved ones is found and brought back.

 

It’s not a popular belief in the Christian Church.

 

And that baffles me.

 

Why isn’t it more popular?

 

Why do we not proclaim a Savior who comes to us in our own hells and brings us out?

 

Why do we not proclaim a God of love who will bring an end, once and for all, to hell? 

 

But let’s not leave it there.

 

Do you want to get even more controversial?

 

Here’s a wildly unpopular theological theory that has garnered me some very heated arguments.

 

There is a belief from the very early Church that poses this question:

 

Is Christ truly victorious if anyone is still left in hell?

 

Namely one last person.

 

The Devil.

 

Satan.

 

The belief is that, at the very end, Jesus will descend into he very darkest, deepest corner of hell, will find the Devil, will take, like Adam and Eve, by the hand and will take him out, redeemed and restored.

 

Only then, will the victory of Christ finally be complete.

 

It’s radical to some.

 

It flows counter to what most of us have been taught about our faith.

 

But it also opens our faith, and shows us the true love and power of God present in creation.

 

We as Christians should be pondering these issues.

 

And we should be struggling with them.

 

We should be wrestling with them.

 

And we should be seeking God’s knowledge of them.

 

On this very sad, very bleak Holy Saturday morning, I find a great joy in knowing that, as far as we seem to be in this moment from Easter glory, Easter glory is so close.

 

It is still happening, unseen by us, like a seed slowly blooming in the ground.

 

That Victory of God we celebrate tomorrow morning and throughout the season of Easter is more glorious than anything we can imagine.

 

And it is more powerful than anything we can even begin to comprehend.

 

In my own personal hells the greatest moment is when I can turn from my darkness toward the light and find consolation in the God who has come to me, even there, in my personal agony.

 

Even there, God’s light and love comes to me even there in that darkness and frees me.

 

God has done it before.

 

And I have no doubt God will do it again.  

 

In the bleak waters of abandonment, God has sends us just what we need to hold us up and bring us out of the waters.

 

There is no place in which God’s love does not permeate.

 

Even in the deepest caverns of hell, even there God’s love and light permeates.

 

That is what we are celebrating this Holy Saturday morning.

 

That is where we find our joy.

 

Our joy is close at hand, even in those moments when it seems that our joy has gone from us.

 

Our joy is just within reach, even in this moment when it seems dead and  buried in the ground and lost.

 

Amen.

 

 

Palm Sunday

 

March 24, 2024

 

Mark 15.1-39

 

+  This coming week is, of course, Holy Week.

 

As this Holy Week begins, I find myself a bit emotional. 

 Yes, I know.

 To have to emotionally face all that Holy Week commemorates is not something I can say I look forward to.

 I think it is emotionally difficult for all of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus.

 How can it not, after all?

 We, as followers of Jesus, as people who balance our lives on his life and teachings and guidance, are emotionally tied to this man.

 This Jesus is not just mythical character to us.

 He is a friend, a mentor, a very vital and essential part of our lives as Christians. He is truly “the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One,” that we heard in our Gospel reading for today.

 So, to have to go through the emotional rollercoaster of this coming week in which he goes through his own death throes is hard on us.

  And today, we get the whole rollercoaster in our liturgy and in our two Gospel readings.

 Here we find a microcosm of the roller coaster ride of what is to come this week.

 What begins this morning as joyful ends with jeers.

 This day begins with us, his followers, singing our praises to Jesus, waving palm branches in victory.

 He is, at the beginning of this week, popular and accepted.

 For this moment, everyone seems to love him.

 But then…within moments, a darkness falls.

 Something terrible and horrible goes wrong.

 What begin with rays of sunshine, ends in gathering dark storm clouds.

 Those joyful, exuberant shouts turn into cries of anger and accusation.

 Those who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem have fled.

 They have simply disappeared from sight.

 And in their place an angry crowd shouts and demands the death of Jesus.

 Even his followers, those who almost arrogantly proclaimed themselves followers of Jesus, have disappeared.

 Their arrogance has turned to embarrassment and shame.

 Jesus, whom we encounter at the beginning of this liturgy this morning surrounded by crowds of cheering, joyful people, is by the end of it, alone, abandoned, deserted—shunned.

 Everyone he considered a friend—everyone he would have trusted—has left him.

 And in his aloneness, he knows how they feel about him.

 He knows that he is an embarrassment to them.

 He knows that, in their eyes, he is a failure.

 See, now, why I am not looking forward to this week?

 But, we have to remind ourselves that what we encounter in the life of Jesus is not just about Jesus.

 It is about us too.

 We, in our own lives, have been to these dark places—these places wherein we have felt betrayed and abandoned and deserted, where we too have reached out and touched the feathertip of the angel of death, so to speak.

 We have all known what it is like to have our joy turned into sorrow.

 We too have had moments when our successes turn to ashes and are forgotten.

 We too know what it is like to have our failures come back to haunt us.

 It is a hard place to be.

 And it is one that, if we had a choice, we would not willingly journey toward.

 But this week is more than dealing with darkness and despair.

 It is a clear reminder to us that, yes, we like Jesus must journey roads we might not want to journey, but the darkness, the despair, death itself is not the end of the story.

 Palm Sunday is not the end of the story.

 Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and Holy Saturday are not the end of the story.

 What this week shows us is that God prevails over all the dark and terrible things of this life.

 And that God turns those things around again and again.

 God always raises us up from the ashes!

 That is what we see in Jesus’ betrayal and death.

 What seems like failure, is the actually victory.

 What seems like loss, is actually gain.

 What seems like death, is actually life unending.

 Now, in this moment, we might be downcast.

 In this moment, we might be mourning and sad.

 But, next Sunday at this time, we will be rejoicing.

 Next Sunday, we will be rejoicing with all the choirs of angels and archangels who sing their unending hymns of praise.

 We will be rejoicing in the fact that all the humiliation experienced this week has turned to joy, all desertion has turned to rewarding and wonderful friendship, all sadness to gladness, and death—horrible, ugly death—will be turned to full, complete and unending joy and life.

 That is how God works.

 And that is what we will be rejoicing in next week.

 So, as we journey through the dark half of our liturgy today, as we trek alongside Jesus during this Holy Week of betrayal, torture and death, let us keep our eyes focused on the Light that is about to dawn in the darkness of our lives.

 Let us move forward toward that Light.

 Even though there might be sadness on our faces now, let the joy in our hearts prompt us forward along the path we dread to take.

 And, next week at this time, we will be basking in that  incredible Easter Light—a Light that triumphs over the darkness of not only Jesus’ death, but ours as well.

 Amen.