March 31st, 2013
Alleluia, Christ is Risen!
He is risen indeed!
Let
the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart, be always acceptable in
thy sight, o Lord my strength and my redeemer.
Amen.
Jesus, the Christ, was not the earthly king the
disciples had expected, and the Jewish authorities had feared. The disciples expected that they would ride
to the throne, beside the new king, and be his right hand men when he took
power. The Jewish authorities feared he
would throw off the fragile balance of power they had fostered with the Romans.
When darkness overcame the land,
and Jesus was crucified, the disciples thought surely this man, their dear
friend, their leader, their rabbi, was not the Christ as they expected him to
be.
As the few
remaining loyal friends laid him in the tomb, perhaps they thought he was still
a great teacher, even if this tragic end was what awaited him; perhaps they had
just misunderstood his teachings.
And they
did misunderstand, yet not as they might have thought. While everyone was looking for a temporal, or
earthly savior, or earthly king, God had provided a king, not just for that
moment in time, but for all time. He had
provided a king who would rule over all men -- the one true lord, the Lord of
Lords, the king of kings, the sovereign over all sovereigns.
So, it was
in the early hours of the day, on the third day after the crucifixion, that the
faithful women went to his tomb, to give him care, and to pay him their
respects. Yet, there they found the
stone rolled away. Uncertain of what
this all meant they ran back to find the men to tell them about what they had
seen. In fear, the men ran and found,
sure enough, the body gone.
They
trembled and believed, not yet understanding.
It may not seem notable to us, in
our time, that the women found him missing, and that they were witnesses to His
resurrection before the men were, but this would have been embarrassing and
shameful to the men of that time. That
they were willing to admit to their down fallings, their denials, the often
upside down nature of what had happened, speaks loudly of the validly of the
testimony of the Scriptures. The great
saints we revere today were humans too, and the witnesses of Scripture do not
try to gloss over their embarrassments, but rather present the events as they
happened. Yet, perhaps this also isn’t
nearly as upside down as we might expect, for as someone once said, “women were
first to see evil, and first to see evil crushed.” So, it is that even this was in exactly the
right order.
So often we
are asked to believe, without understanding fully. While the testimony of Scripture tells us of
the Resurrection it is, to our rationalistic minds, often so hard to grasp that
a man, three days dead, could come back to life. Yet, this is what we are asked to do, and
this is what the disciples did. This is
what the evidence points to. The
prophecies fulfilled, the testimony of history, and the logical conclusion of
all the evidence compiled is that Christ
is Lord.
While the Scriptures
had yet been explained to them, they knew something monumental had happened -- they
knew that Christ was no longer dead. Though
he tried to help them to understand the witness of the Scriptures before his
death, their eyes were yet to be opened, and it was not until after His
resurrection that they were able to understand.
Last night
in the Great Vigil, some of the archetypes of the Resurrection were laid out
for us. That is, from the creation of
mankind God blessed us, and made us special.
He delivered his chosen people out of the oppression of the Egyptians,
through water and fire. He resurrected
the Valley of Dry Bones, and put flesh upon the dusty dry bones. He blessed his chosen people more than they
could ever desire or imagine. It is
through the chosen people that Christ came into the world, and it is through Him
that the whole world is blessed.
Christ is
the fulfillment of this promise. Christ
is the fullness of what we expect, and wait for. So too, we see in the witness of the First
Covenant that a much greater covenant is to come so that all men may come to
worship God, in the fullness of truth. It
is this that we celebrate today. It is
today that we remember how His small band starts to realize the truth of who Jesus
really is. He is the true Christ, the Son
of God, and the fullness of all expectations.
Though at first their eyes were not open, once the scales were removed
they started to see the overpowering nature of the witness of the Scriptures to
who Christ is.
So too, is
Christ the fullness of our expectation. He
is the fulfillment of that which our hearts are tuned to truly desire. It was St. Augustine who said our hearts are
restless until they rest in God. So, it
is in the Resurrection that we are able to truly rest in the mercy and grace of
God.
It is the Resurrection that our hopes hang
upon. We know despite being mocked by
some, denied by others, doubted by some,
and casted aside by others, it is a firm promise, and a solid hope. Just as Christ was resurrected, so He will
come again, and so will we share in the Resurrection in the fullness of time. The Epistle calls for us to cast aside the
cares of this world, and to care for the things to come, to care for the things
of Heaven. So this is the Easter call --
that we being one body, might set our eyes, not on the cares of this world, but
in love focus on the things that are to come.
As we enter
into the beauty and the joy of the Easter season, we should focus our eyes on
the resurrected Christ, and rest our hearts in the promise of His coming again,
instead of being weighed down by the turmoil of this world. For Christ is the one true risen Lord.
Christ our Lord is risen! Let us keep the feast!
Amen
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