A Homily for Trinity XIX

A Homily for Trinity XIX

October 5th, 2013

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength and my redeemer. Amen

            A year ago yesterday I was sitting down with a friend to wait for another to celebrate her birthday. I looked down at my phone to see Fr. Henthorne calling, which was odd, as he rarely called on a Friday night, so I figured I should answer it. I dodged out of the restaurant and to my surprise it was Priscilla.  During that call she informed me that Fr. Henthorne was in the hospital. He had over done it, was sick, a scenario we were all familiar with. However as the situation developed, it quickly became clear that this was more serious. Within a week and a half we lost our dear friend and spiritual father.

            I suspect like many tragedies and tumults of life we can all remember those moments ear-marked in time by the news that our world was being turned upside down. Yet through this tragedy God has been exceptionally faithful to us. Still today Priscilla and her family remembers the kindness and hard work we showed during those days.

            Over the past year we have struggled and wrestled with many things. In those first few months there were several Sundays that I went home and cried, unsure what I had done wrong or where the peace I had so often found in our little community had gone. Yet we persevered through this. Things have changed and I go home Sundays - tired - but filled with joy for the love that we bear.

            So a year later, we are still here, we are doing well. Things are far from perfect, but we know that God is faithful even in the darkest of days. We have wrestled with this loss - the pain and the questions it left. Though some still linger, and though there are days that I miss him with all of my heart (I am certain that is the same for all of us), our little congregation remains strong, though changed. We have much to be thankful to God for.

            Now this lays out the question of what is next? Where are we going from here? I believe that though we are a small parish, we are a strong parish. We have a lot of work laid out in front of us.

            We need, first of all, to keep our eyes on the goal, we need to continue and persevere. We need to run the race, keeping the prize in mind, that prize is of course life with God in heaven. We need to continue to live with that one goal in mind: giving glory to God, living out the gospel in all we do, continually repenting, and believing that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

            We need to continue to grow. Growth comes in two forms, the first being the most important. We need to continue to grow spiritually. Ever seeking to know God more intimately, ever training our hearts to avoid sin, remembering to pray always and sing praises to God.

            Growth also comes from the number of members in our congregation. The average age of our congregation is a little high. Each of us brings a gift- and this is a good and beautiful thing, but we yearn to be and to serve a broader spectrum of people. If the Lord wills it, we need more people; and whatever His will for our parish, it is our duty to daily pray open our hearts to love those whom the Father would give to us. I believe that we can grow, and perhaps more importantly, I am confident that we will grow.

            We need to be outward looking. God has provided for our needs incredibly. With that being said: we need to be aware, first, if one of our congregants has a need- spiritually or emotionally or physically. We must endeavor to help him or her through these things. However we also need to be giving to those around us and to our brothers and sisters around the world who are in need: we need to do charitable out reach. I had a long conversation with a dear friend at Synod and he diagnosed the situation astutely- the biggest struggle within the continuing Anglican churches is that we are too inward looking. I talked to another friend on the way home and he said “of course we are, we are in survival mode.” We shall never grow if we are always on the defensive. We can never score a touchdown in we are always punting. Instead we look forward and live the gospel with an open heart.

            We are doing many of these things well, we must continue to do them.  Those things that we are not doing, or not doing well, we must begin to do. I would like to clarify that when we say “we live to gospel, “ I do not mean that we go door to door knocking and saying “do you want to know Jesus?” It means rather, that we live with an open heart, open ears and kind words. It means that glorifying God is our key goal in all we do. This does not mean invasive evangelism, but rather loving God, and being honest about that whom we serve. I think as Anglican Christians in New England, we are very quiet about our faith. I think that is alright, but I know when we live our lives to the Glory of God, we need not use words at first, for others will see that our lives are different than the lives of the world- as the epistle says, we do not live as the gentiles live. This difference will glorify God, and will naturally draw people to the gospel.

            So what is next for us? Over the next year, I will ask the vestry develop mission and vision statements so that we can figure out how our little parish gives glory to God. We will tidy up the by-laws which are kind of a mess right now. We will start a more active program of outreach figuring out how to give locally, providing, even in little ways for the most vulnerable around us.  And we will give internationally, and we will restart our Christian education program. We will make a plan for when children come, and I believe they will come.

            If you see us heading in a direction that you find odd or worrisome, or you think you have a brilliant idea for something we can do as a parish, please tell a vestry member or me. I hope that I am easy to approach and that you feel comfortable telling me how you think things are going, and any ideas that you may have. Perhaps we have a good reason for the things we are doing or perhaps it is something we didn’t notice, either way, I want to be approachable. I want to know what the parish is thinking. This is your parish, and it should be reflective of what orthodox Anglican Christianity looks like in Hancock County, Maine.

            So, the next question is how to do I, Fr. Dunn, play into this. I have waited a long time to articulate my sense of call to you. Perhaps this was wrong of me, and if it was I apologize for dragging my feet and I ask for your forgiveness. I feel definitively called to be here for this season. I sense that my call is to help build this church. I believe that I can do it, and I believe that it will happen. I do believe that eventually I will be called to something else. I make this pledge that I will be honest with you, once I definitively know my next call, I will tell you, and I will, to the best of my ability give you as much of a warning as I am able. I love this place deeply, and I want to see it thrive and grow in the love and grace of God.

            My wise friend with whom I had a long conversation at synod told me I should be forthright with you all about my call. Some priests find their church and they are happy to stay there until the end of their days. I do not believe that this is my call here and now, though I will not discount that it may be eventually. I do not see myself growing old here. I do however see myself being here for several years. At this time I am not willing to put a number on those years, but I do believe that I am called to build this church and I believe I can build this church, and I do believe that I will, with the help of God and with the help of all of you. While I will lead this process, it is not me who builds the church- it is first God who will add to our numbers daily and secondly all of you. It is not “Fr. Dunn’s church,” but rather Christ’s Church, it is your church in Christ.

            Finally, we have talked about what we as a parish can do, and what I will do, but the last question remains: how can you help the church and help me? You can remember that I am a human being too, that I am as fallen and broken as everyone else. Remember that I am susceptible to sin like any other person, and so I ask that you are quick to forgive when I am not the perfect pastor and priest.

            Please remember that though I came here five years ago as Ian, I am now Fr. Ian or Fr. Dunn, or for our low church segment Pastor Dunn or Pastor Ian. Any of these designations are acceptable. This dynamic has shifted. I think it is a good and beautiful thing that we have raised up a leader from within (although St. Paul’s in Portland might want to fight you for a claim over who rose me up, you may have claim over me, this is home.) With that in mind please try to remember Anglicanism is a church with a strong leadership and we need to be aware of that, so that we continue in our Anglican ethos.

            You can help me by watching for burn-out. I do not want you to think that I am on the verge, however pastors, as a profession, have one of the highest rates of burn-out. As someone who is bi-vocational I worry for the balance, and I like serving you all too much to burn out- which also means I may not notice when it is coming. I do not want to fizzle before the end of my days but rather burn brightly. So please watch and please help me to know when I am in need of a break, and please do not be afraid tell me if this day comes, and I will do my best to listen, chances are I’ll know, but be too proud to admit it. I am human.

            Please pray for me, and I will pray for all of you.

            We have been through a valley of darkness, we will go through more, but we will also climb mountains with great vistas, together we will laugh, we will cry. In growth, there will be pain, there will be joy. Let us persevere through these things together as one family in Christ. Our God is a very good God, he is faithful, let us be anxious to serve him in all things. I think that God has given us an incredible hope and an incredible future. Let us joyfully take up our cross and follow him into our future.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen

A Sermon for Rogation Sunday

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my strength and my redeemer.  Amen

            Today is Rogation Sunday; the Sunday that remind us all gifts come from God.  The rain, the sun, the blessings and the curses that fall upon the earth, and every breath we take – comes from God.  It is in God we trust that the seeds we are planting this time of the year will grow into crops to harvest in Fall, and provide seeds to plant next year; in other words, seed-to-seed.  For this reason. today’s lesson centers around the Lord’s Prayer -- the foundation of Christian prayer, the foundation of our spiritual formation, and the foundation of our learning to dwell in God’s mercy. 

            As we have talked about in the past, the foundation of catechesis is comprised of three basic things -- the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Creeds, particularly the creed commonly called the Apostles’ Creed.  From this foundation, we learn and grow.  The Ten Commandments stir-up our conscience, showing us both what right-living is, and our failure to live it.  The creeds teach us right belief, and help us to know God.  The Lord’s Prayer tells us how we are to approach our Lord, in the fullness of supplication. 

            If we as a congregation desire growth in spirit, and in numbers, one thing we must continually learn is to trust God.  And, not only trust Him, but learn to depend on him fully, and continue to be prayerfully dependent upon God.  It is God who will nurture and strengthen our souls.  He will direct our walk towards right, and compassionate actions.  He will transform our broken souls into reflections of His glory.  In His sanctifying grace, we are made into reflections of His glory.  It is therefore, important to take a little time to dissect the Lord’s prayer -- because it was Christ’s instruction that we, “pray like this.”

            This commandment from Christ is to not only pray these words, but to also formulate our prayers from them.  This prayer Christ taught us is both words to which we can cling, and a foundation on which we can build a solid and vibrant life of prayer. 

            It would now be a good time to say together, again, the Lord’s Prayer, so let us pray as Christ taught us:

OUR Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name.  Thy kingdom come.  Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.  Amen.

            It is common for this prayer to be broken into seven parts.  It has been suggested, by some, that these parts can be applied to each day of the week, so I have included a little card in the bulletin this week, that you can take home, and use each day to meditate on these short, but essential truths.  God uses this prayer to teach our hearts, and align them in the right way of living. 

            While there is some disagreement where the breaks should be, I have made my best venture at the divisions, as I see them.  The first portion: OUR Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name.

 Our relationship with God is two-fold -- we come to Him in the fullness of adoration on bended knees, yet, we also learn to recognize that He is the source of life, our caretaker, and the ultimate Father.  He is our protector, and our caregiver.  In some cases, we are instructed to come to God in the full closeness of this relationship using the word ‘Abba’ that translates very roughly, to ‘daddy.’  But, if we leave it simply at ‘Daddy,’ we do a disservice to this word, because it is deeper, and more respectful, than we might think when we say it.  Some commentators have said it is more akin to ‘daddy-sir,’ which perhaps provides a better idea of what this relationship is.  It is a deep, intimate, and profoundly respect-filled relationship to which we are called. 

When we come to God it is to give glory and praise to His name.  We sing with joyful voices: hallowed be thy name.  We say blessed be your name, all glory be to thee, O Lord.  So, we recognize that God’s name is blessed above all things.  The most important thing, above all these other observations, is that we come to God, that we come to Him when we are joyful and we come to Him when we are sorrowful.  We approach the king of Kings, on bended knees – giving Him all that is within us. 

Thy kingdom come.  We are reminded that we are to look forward to His second coming.  We are to look forward to the freeing judgment, when we come to fully dwell in Christ’s righteousness, when His righteousness is infused completey into our being when our sins are washed away, and Christ’s righteousness becomes ours, and when we are bathed in the blood of the lamb.  This is the promise, and the hope, of the church.  We pray for His coming, because we know in that day we will be set free -- finally, fully - - from our sins, and in that time all things will come to light.

 Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.  We pray that we might learn to submit to God’s will for us.  This is no easy task, and we often find our hearts are far wilder and rambunctious than we might realize or admit.  We are not always willing to allow God to dictate the next steps in our lives, and so often when one door closes, we buck and thrash against His will.  Yet, we are called to be sheep, called to follow his gentle guidance, because Christ is the true, and only shepherd of our souls.  When we come to experience heaven in its fullness, we will learn what it is to bask in God’s good guidance fully.  It will be then that the dance of His will, and ours, comes to be in perfect sync.  This is our expectation, and to what we look forward.  Until that day we pray, and learn slowly what it is to submit our wills to Him. 

Give us this day our daily bread.  We are to look to God to be our sustainer in all things.  This does not dismiss us from working hard to provide for our families, and for ourselves.  However, we are to learn to recognize that it is God who provides all good things, and it is by His grace that we have air to breath, food to eat, and a bed on which to sleep.  We are to pray for these things, and trust that He will continue to provide them.  Though we understand how agriculture works, and how plants go from seed- to-seed, we also give God the credit for this, recognizing it as one of his miracles.  It’s a paradox that we understand how things work, while knowing God works in them, not as a distant engineer who winds the clock, then walks away, but as the actual builder himself; the constructer, the designer, the great creator.  It is through this constructing that He sustains us. 

And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive those who trespass against us.  Many would split this, saying that we are to pray for forgiveness, and then forgive others, but, in my opinion, these two things must go together.  Our fragile hearts cannot forgive, or be forgiven, if we cling to disdain for those who have hurt us.  So, we must forgive, and we must let the hurts that others have caused us to become bygones. 

In conjunction with forgiving, we must pray that our hearts will soften so these things do not become walls separating us from compassionate living, and seeking of God’s mercy.  If we bear grudges against someone, we must confess them to God. And, if they continue to haunt us, we should confess them to our confessor, to our priest. 

We must also pray that we are forgiven for our sins, both the ones we know and do willingly, and the ones of which we are unaware.  God will forgive these sins when we repent, and turn from them.  If we cannot overcome them, we confess them to our confessor.   It is part of the priest’s responsibility to hear those confessions.  So, these two are completely linked, because to live peaceably with God, we must also live peaceably with our fellow man.  We must flee from our sins, and let go of the sins committed against us by others.  Clinging to the sins committed by others will kill our soul, and letting go will make us come alive.

And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil.  Learning to submit to God’s will is hard, but we, as the church, must do it.  For no other thing will bring us where we are to be.  It is easy to be discouraged when the world around us collapses, and sorrows sneak up on us, unplanned and unannounced.  Surely, when Fr. Henthorne died suddenly, we felt discouraged, dismayed and abandoned.  The past six months have been difficult for us.  Yet, we trust that God has a plan, and that God has something glorious for us.  If we submit to His will, learn to delight in it, and trust that He will not bring us into any evil thing on our path, our hearts will learn to delight in His goodness.  For the Father will quench our thirst with the living water, and give us strength with the manna from heaven. 

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.  Amen.  Finally, we are reminded to remember when we pray to God, He is the ultimate authority -- the king of kings.  When the devil tempted Jesus, “all of this could be yours if you serve me,” we know that it was foolishness on the devil’s part, because all of the heavens, and the earth, is God’s.  Alhough the prince of the world still roams and tempts, God will smite him at the end of times.  Not only is God the sovereign of all, but all power is his, too. 

            All power is his.  He can give life, and take life away.  He alone knows the total of what our lives hold.  It is to Him that all glory goes, and for this reason we sing our strong and beautiful songs of praise to His glory.  It is His glory that we desire to reflect. 

            When we pray, let us pray as we have been taught to pray- coming to God as our father.  And, not only as our father, but also the supreme sovereign, praying to Him in the dynamics of this being, praying for His coming again, trusting always that that day will come.  We must trust in His will, not seeking our own design, rather submitting to Him, acknowledging and trusting in His provision.  We ask for forgiveness and forgiving, trusting that He has a good plan for us, and seeking always to avoid evil.  Finally, we give laud and praise to the King of Kings, for He is a mighty and good king. 

            It is this that we learn and lean on, on Rogation Sunday, that God, the sovereign Lord -- Our Father – is our provider, both for the body, and for the soul.  The ultimate provision of God is to give us the salvation of our souls.  We  should always remember that.  We come to Him every day on bended knees, trusting in Him for all that we need – temporally and eternally. 

Amen

 

A Homily For Easter I

April 7, 2013

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

            Man was created in the image of God.  The implications of this are incredible, deep, and wide.  It tells how we are made up, how we are to live our lives, and that we are created to be eternal.  I suspect that the meditations on this can go on and on. 

            To be made in the image of God means that we, too, are Trinitarian -- we have a body, we have a soul, and we have a spirit.  These all work together, while,each is  distinct.  When we forget we have a soul, and neglect it, it is tremendously unhealthy.  Similarly, it is unhealthy when we neglect our body, or do not submit our spirit to God’s spirit.  Each of these aspects of a human is important, and helps us to better understand who we are.  We are not merely a blob of cells, nor are we simply spiritual beings. 

           

Too, we are to live in community, for the trinity is the model of the perfect community.  We were created to seamlessly exist with our brothers and sisters, for in the perfected state each member of the body of Christ has a role, a position, a part. 

            We are to be creative as well.  This speaks not only about procreation, which is often where some people stop with this theological point, but it also speaks of the act of making beautiful things, whether it be music, art, poetry, prose, or houses.  We are made to make beautiful things.   Just as our God was a creative God, so are we to be creative beings. 

            Before the fall of mankind we were to be eternal, uncorrupted by sin, to live in the garden of perfection, the pinnacle of creation.  Instead, by the tempting of the devil, we chose to make ourselves like God, instead of being content to live in His image.  We wanted to be on par with Him.  The acceptance of the Creation story as a literal piece of history is irrelevant to the blatant fact that again and again, man will attempt to make himself into God, to misalign the fact that we are created in the image of God, and to be creators ourselves, but not demigods.  History speaks loudly of this, and we see it as we survey the history of the world, both within the context of scripture, and outside of it. 

            So, it is that in the scriptures it was a woman who first saw the temptation of the devil.  She was the first to see evil in this world, and saw what its destruction could do.  It is also woman who was first to see the empty tomb, and know of the resurrected Christ, and the first to see that evil had been crushed, destroyed.  The devil no longer has any power in this world.  Yet, his tempting is still something that we wrestle with every day.  Though he no longer rules, he is not yet cast into hell where he’ll spend eternity it at the end of days.  Until that day, he is a roaring lion, seeking the ruin of souls. 

            This is the state that we live in.  We are fallen, torn from God by our own sinfulness.  This is a state that we share with all of humanity.  For humans, interfered with will seek their own good and their own glory, always.  This, of course, does not mean that humans never do anything good or worthwhile.  Instead, our souls are tainted with the curse, continually driven to disregard God.  We may be able to love our neighbors as ourselves, but if we don’t love God with everything that we have, then what is this?

            So it is, that in our shared fallen state, we are not capable of judging others.  We must instead love.  This, of course, can be taken to be something wishy-washy.  The love that comes from God, is notwishy-washy.   Rather, God’s love is firm, and it is solid.  The love of God is the same love that sacrifices His son on the cross, and it is the same love that raises him from the dead.  It is the same love that pours out mercy upon us, and gives all men mercy to continue each day in life.  It is the same love that pours out justice.

            It was love that told Detrick Bonheoffer that though it was wrong he had to kill Hitler.  Even though he knew murder was wrong, he knew that the only loving thing to do was to prevent Hitler from further evil, and further sin.  So love drives us to stand up for justice, for the poor, and the unwanted.  Though we are not the independent arbiters of justice, we must call right, right, and wrong, wrong.

            So, this is the Christian life- that we dwell in a world that has fallen from the side of God, and that we are constantly tempted to not live in His mercy.  Yet as the first lesson says. “the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them.”  That is, we are able to hang on to the side of God, made possible by the grace we find in Christ.  It is by this we are able to bring glory to God, and we are able to dwell peaceable with him. 

            In this first lesson we see the truth of the world spelled out in a tremendously poetic way.  This great divide between God and man -- this chasm, as one theologian once described it. 

            It is the world that tells us -- this is it, eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we’ll die!  Without a divine purpose, this is it, but this life is not it.  Though, it may seem when the faithful die the end is the end, if we cling to Christ the visible end is not the end, but the strong promise of eternal life with him.  When we dwell in Christ, His righteousness is put upon us.  That is two-fold.  First, that we are seen as righteous by God, and are therefore able to worship him, to come to him in all our brokenness.  The second meaning of this is that we are being made righteous.  This is the process of sanctification, that over time, by God’s mercy we are made more perfect, that the sins and temptations grow less, and less attractive as our hearts long more for the good things He promises. 

            To the world this may seem foolish, and even more foolish seems the idea that this is not the end, but life fully bound to God waits us in eternity.  We stand firm in this promise, and we live in it.  We know that, though there may be tests and temptations and trials, as the writer of the first lesson says, these trials are as the trials of gold.  They are purifying, and as we pass through them, we are being sanctified.  This is what happens to gold, when put in the fire; the imperfections are burned out.  It is the same with us.  As we live in this world, and experience hard times and heartaches, our imperfections are being burnt away, so that we may be found worthy to dwell with God. 

            It is both in this world and in the world to come, we are called to be lights of Christ.  In this world, the author speaks of being, “sparks in the stubble.” If we are sparks in the stubble, we can set the nation on fire.  When we let Christ’s light shine through us we bring glory to God.  This is our calling, no matter who we are, to be reflections of the true light of God. 

            Without fire, without light, gold is just a dark cold metal, unfeeling, unattractive, it is not until you put gold in the light, that it shines and sparkles, and grows warm.  The same is the case with us.  Though we have feelings, it is not until the light of Christ dwells in us that we can become sparks in the stubble, that we are filled with joy, and glory.  It is His glory that dwells in us.  We are made to be reflections of His light, and His glory. 

            In the end, judgment day will come, and being brought into God’s glory, we will sit by his side when the nations are judged.  We will understand then what true mercy and true justice look like, and it will make our hearts glad.  Today, we only know these things as shadows, and we live in our conscience, following always the word of God, praying and submitting to him.  In the days to come, these things will be clearer. 

            Though today things are unclear, and things are foggy and hard, our hope is in Christ.  We do not trust in men or princes, but in God alone, for it is God alone that is the bearer of all good things.  If we trust in this truth, when the time comes, all things will be clear. 

            This all becomes a little bit clearer when Christ, who was crucified, is raised on the third day for us.  It is His promise that He will come again.  Our world view is transformed by the Resurrection.  Our understanding of who we are, and what we are to do, is dominated by this.  In the season of Easter, we spend our time meditating on what this all means. 

            For while we, all of humanity has chosen to seek after our own glory, the author of Glory, the one who is full of glory, comes to earth,

Amen

A Homily for Easter Sunday

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