Easter Like No Other

I make silly poses for the test photos
when I am prepping for a live stream alone.

Before each service these days I worry about my throat giving out. And I remind myself that my favorite singer songwriters stand up on a stage, and sing and chatter for two to three hours. So I repeat at myself: you can do this if they can. But despite current appearances to the contrary, I am not a solo performer. I don’t know how to do this. None of us know how to do this. There is something shadowy and tomb like to stand at an altar with no bread or wine, an ambry with no sacrament, a nave with no hearts or smiles or wiggles.

The disciples and friends of Jesus didn’t know how to do it either. They barely knew what it was to do. The morning light must have been harsh. Were they looking around corners? Hiding their faces? So much they didn’t know. What tumbles in their hearts is probably love and fear and anxiety and trying to ‘just getting on with the living'. That sounds familiar. Suddenly they are interrupted by something like a bold and blazing light, by a startling and world re-doing proclamation: He is not in the tomb. There has never been another Easter like that first one, and there has never been another Easter like this one. Empty church buildings across the world. Not because we quit loving Jesus - but because we love him and follow him. 

He is the heart of this day - and the why of the way that we choose to practice the day of resurrection this year. The center of Easter in Christian practice is not seersucker suits or chocolate rabbits or confetti eggs. The center of Easter is that first utterly world re-creating empty tomb. The blinding light of Easter is the most radical claim of Christian belief and practice - that Jesus who was crucified is not dead but has risen. 

The new creation is glowing and growing, but it also is shedding long shadows. We would be foolish to pretend that anything will ever be normal again. There are vile shadows that are wreaking havoc right now attacking our most vulnerable underbellies and neighbors. The cruel shades of evil won’t be vanquished because someday we will party together again. Such evil needs the masked and gloved disciples of Jesus shining lights of candor and boldly serving for truth. I want to get back to some parts of the life I once knew, I want iced espresso in hip cafes and company. Oh how I want company. Yet at the same time, I feel strangely more connected to you, even at this distance. 

We are called by Jesus in this time on this Easter day to turn, turn from shadows and selfishness rise into courage, pivot into active disciple-d responsibility for ourselves for neighbors, for strangers and for our children’s children. Thank you from the depths of sacred gratitude to everyone on the front lines. Peace be with you who are suffering, suffering the distance, or illness, or because your beloved has died. We are with you, Jesus loves you. We will do our duty because it is how we show that we love God. We are here for you. A new creation comes to life and grows, as Christ’s new body takes on flesh and blood. A universe restored, and all will sing, Alleluia. 

The first thing the believers in the risen Jesus did was not to build church buildings. Church buildings are wonderful and essential and we are quite blessed by this one. Yet the church is a people word. The church is the community of humanity in which Christ Jesus has taken flesh and blood shape. The form of the church isn’t a structure but lifegiving evidence of God in Christ resurrected right now in us. The being of the church is still alive and well and celebrating in different shape and texture. And as long as it aligns with Jesus, as long as it steadfastly practices the promises of baptism, as long as we rise up in empathetic action for strangers, we will never cease to be the church of Jesus Christ. 

Right now we are one with communities of disciples that were the closest in time to the first Easter. We are gathered in homes, proclaiming Christ as Lord, praying, singing, promising, wondering, and serving because God loved us first. We are one together with Jesus Christ because by our distancing, we are acting for all neighbors in concrete ways. This is what we have always meant when we have proclaimed that they will know we are Christians by our love. A new creation is coming to life and growing. 

Resurrection is taking on real flesh and blood in hearts and souls and hands that never thought much about who they are aligned with or what it means to be a practicing Christian. Maybe that is you? If it is, I am glad you are tuning in today. I wonder if Jesus whispering your name beside the empty tomb. We don’t have to know it all, or really know what we are doing, if it is done in the ways of love that are of God. Today we are called to hear Jesus’ voice, chase after God’s commandments, and let the Spirit of the new creation come to life in us together, even while apart. Alleluia. Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia! 

(I am playing a bit with the hymn that was sung just before the gospel).

Easter Sunday 2020  RCL A

Corona-tide

Christ Church, Ridley Park

Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania