Healing, Strengthening Love (midweek message)

 

Forgiving Father, Frank Wesley

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

Healing, Strengthening Love

April 28, 2021

 

In counseling people, I occasionally ask them what they imagine God’s idea of them is.  The answers show a troubling, and scary consistency.  Only a few think that God thinks highly of them.  Frankly, some of these few scare me because they think it’s them and God against the world.  Most people will confess that they believe in principle that God loves them, but almost universally believe God disapproves of them, is critical of them, or is deeply disappointed in them.  I suppose that’s better than thinking arrogantly that God loves everything about them.  But it is not any truer, and certainly not what Jesus taught us about God. 

 

God created each and every one of us.  We are God’s flock, and the sheep of God’s pasture; God’s folk, and the work of God’s hands.  We are in God’s image.  And when God creates, God looks at what God has made so far and says, as in each step of creation in Genesis 1: “How good it is!” 

 

God loves you.  God is proud of you.  God is there for you, and hopes to finish God’s work in creating you.  God sees you not as a police officer or judge sees a criminal, not as an abusive or manipulative parent or spouse sees the loved one they seek to change, but rather as a loving parent sees their children.  God, like that crazy father of the two wayward sons, the prodigal and the priss, runs out and shamelessly hugs us and throws a celebration for us.  Like that crazy old woman, she throws a party to celebrate the recovery of a coin, and spends more on the party than the coin is worth.  Like a physician, God tries to heal and make us whole. God is crazy about you. 

 

Simply sitting in the presence of such love and hopeful approval, simply contemplating love itself, both in the abstract and in the up-close-and-personal, is transforming, and will eventually heal us and transform our remaining flaws so that they become further reflections of God’s image, of our true selves that God intends in creating us.  In thus finishing our creation, God says, as at the end of Genesis 1 “How very good it is!”     

 

This is not from a doctrinal acceptance of the saving power of Jesus, or the authority of the Church or Bible.  This is not from any of us affirming creedal faith in God.  This is not from following prescribed rules and laws.  It comes alone from the transforming power of God’s love in and of itself.  There is no situation so dire, no failure so grave, no twisting of God’s image so distorted where God cannot continue in God’s great creative work, where the love of God cannot transform and heal.  But the transformation worked by love is steady and relentless, and ends only in good, and more good. 

 

As the preaching trope from the Black Church puts it:  “Lord knows I ain’t what I oughta be, I ain’t what I’m gonna be, but thank God Almighty, I ain’t what I was!”   

 

Grace and Peace.  Fr. Tony+

The Good Shepherd (Easter 4B)

 

The Good Shepherd

Easter 4B
25 April 2021; 8:00 a.m. Said Mass in the Parish Hall (due to rain);

10:00 a.m. Sung Mass livestreamed from the Chancel

Homily Delivered by the Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D. 

at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon
Acts 4:5-12; Psalm 23; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18 

 

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen 

 homily at 17:25 

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday.  In the Gospel, Jesus says he is the good shepherd, whose flock is larger than we think.   The beloved 23rd Psalm describes God not only as a loving shepherd, but also as a gracious host. 

 

These images run counter to how we often, unconsciously, think about God.   

 

Good Shepherd is not an image of an accountant, keeping track on a ledger of all the little lambs, of who is in the flock and who is out.  It is not a powerful defender of property, some Chuck Norris, Sylvester Stallone he-man armed with incredibly deadly weaponry to fend off all attackers, wolves, and false sheep. Good Shepherd is not a law enforcement officer, not a judge, not a prosecuting attorney. 

 

We are creatures of words and images. We tell stories, draw comparisons. We think and feel in metaphor and simile. We define ourselves in large part by the stories we choose to tell and not to tell, and by the images we choose to describe our world.

 

The Bible teaches all sorts of things, often at odds with each other.  There are plenty of passages where God is seen in militant, nasty, and even petty terms.  Should you take these as the heart of the Bible, and understand that when it speaks of God as love that this applies only to a few chosen people?  Or should you take the less frequent passages where God is seen as love as the central, most important parts of the Bible, and understand in light of them the Bible’s pictures of a mean and nasty God as flawed expressions of how we damaged people at times experience God?

 

Jesus gave us a clear example in this.  There are plenty of passages in the Psalter that say “keep away from the wicked,” and “hate and avoid sinners.” But instead of these, Jesus comes upon obscure passages in the Psalms that give glimpses of a gentle and loving God, and uses these to interpret all the other harsher, nastier descriptions of God.  

 

He reads in Psalm 50:  “I will not accept a bull from your house, or goats from your folds. For every wild animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.  I know all the birds of the air, and all that moves in the field is mine (Psalm 50:9-11).  And he ends up saying things like, “God counts the sparrows, so how could he not care about you?” “God clothes the wild flowers and feeds the birds, how could he not care for you?”  “God has compassion and equanimity, sending the blessing of rain and sunshine on both good and bad alike.”  He ends up thinking that joy, good, and justice are contagious, not impurity and wickedness. 

 

Some people use the Bible to support images of a judgmental, peevish Deity.  They ask, “how does the Bible define love? How does it tell us our love should be?” And then they condemn people whose love does not meet up with the standard they have thus established.  They use the Bible to understand what love means.  But Jesus gave us an example, again and again, of using love to tell us what the Bible means. 

 

When you read the Bible, does it lead you to the loving and compassionate God that Jesus called Abba or Papa?  Does it convince you that violence is evil, and that justice and compassion are basic requirements for human life?  Or does it lead to you to a condemning, jealous, vicious, and violent deity, distant and inhuman?  In a very true way, the Bible, in all its diversity, serves as a mirror on our own hearts.  

Though our tradition has been generally to use the metaphors “father” and “son” to speak of God, we mustn’t take this literally.  There are a few passages where God is described in feminine terms: a hen gathering her chicks, a mother nursing her child.  Blessed Julian of Norwich, following Jesus’ example of taking a rare glimpse into the love of God and letting it form all other expression, takes these rare images and boldly writes in one of our beloved canticles:  “God chose to be our mother in all things…  Christ came in our poor flesh to share a mother's care.”

Trusting God is at the heart of allowing love to drive our understanding, not our understanding drive our love.  This means accepting our fears and sufferings: embracing them, not being in denial about them or trying to minimize them.  Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, says the twenty-third Psalm is the answer to the question, “How do you live in a dangerous, unpredictable, frightening world?” Right after 9/11, many people asked him “How could God have let such a thing happen?” His answer was “God’s promise was never that life would be fair. God’s promise was, when it’s your turn to confront the unfairness of life, no matter how hard it is, you'll be able to handle it, because He’ll be on your side. He will give you the strength you need to find your way through. … “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.” [does not mean], “I will fear no evil because evil only happens to people who deserve it.” [Rather,] “This is a scary, out-of-control world, but it doesn’t scare me, because I know that God is on my side, not on the side of the . . . the terrible thing that [has] happened. And that’s enough to give me the confidence.”

Trusting God, especially in times of woe, makes us realize that we all are in God’s hand. We realize the truth of the saying, “there but for the grace of God go I.”  And if we all are the people of God’s pasture and the sheep of God’s hand, then certainly we ourselves must reach out our hands to all.

 

So Jesus in today’s Gospel says that the good shepherd cares not only for the sheep already safely fenced in his secure pasture.  This good shepherd has “other sheep, not of this fold.”  He cares for them too.   That means our conceptions of us and them—who’s Christian and who’s pagan, who’s orthodox and who’s a heretic, or who’s righteous and who’s wicked, who’s naughty and who’s nice—must go by the boards.  There are more people in Jesus’ care that we in our tribalism and self-interest can conceive of.   And Jesus loves them, and died for them too.

 

Jesus’ death was for all of humanity, not just part of it.  Jesus may say, “the Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many” Mark 10:45; Matthew 20:28).   But 1 Timothy 2:6 explains that this multitude is not just a few chosen ones:  “Christ Jesus… gave himself as a ransom for all.”   And John 1:29: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”  Again, he is a good shepherd, and he has other sheep who are not in this flock.   

 

The surest way we can demonstrate our trust in this loving shepherd is by loving. The most direct way of showing our gratitude for our gracious host is by being gracious to others, especially those most unlike us. 

May we all so partake of the feast our gracious host offers.  May we share the feast with others.  May we all let our shepherd gently lay us on his shoulder as he carries us home, and may we gently carry others. 

Amen. 

 

Resurrection, not Resusciation (Midweek Message)

 

Resurrection, Not Resuscitation

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

April 22, 2021

 

One of the things we often hear this time of year is that Jesus’ coming forth from the tomb alive was resurrection, not resuscitation, i.e., he came forth more alive than before, newly recreated even as his body bore the scars and evidences of his sufferings.  He was not like Lazarus, raised from the dead only to die again years later.  As St. Paul says, “Death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives he lives to God.”   Resurrection is creation anew, preserving and deepening what was once our lives, even as we pass into immortality, not just of the spirit, but of the body as well.

 

As we start discussions in the Parish about how best and most safely to renew our common life, our face-to-face shared life as we reach better control of the Covid-19 contagion, I think it is important that we consider this a moment for the Church’s resurrection, not its resuscitation.  We do not want to throw away all we have learned and experienced in quarantine lockdowns and return to “normal,” the way we think things once were.  As we renter common life, we want it better than the old normal.  We want it more pastorally caring, not how it was when we stopped face-to-face visits.  We want our worship more reverent—that is, more relaxed even as it is more attentive, more spiritually engaging even as it is more accessible.  We want worship that remains accessible online to the homebound and those far afield even as we resume tried and true in person worship practices. 

 

We have hear a lot in the recent year about risk/benefit analysis, about the absolute need to avoid making church into a super-spreading event.  And this is right.  It has allowed us to start limited and masked services with Eucharist yet do so safely without great risk. It has allowed us to have some music in our worship even as we have been unable to participate in choral or congregational singing. 

 

But we do need to remember the key bit about the importance of face-to-face gathering in church:  we need to gather together to share and feel together, to mutually teach and be taught, in order to power our personal faith journeys. 

 

When I was attending a house church in Beijing in the late 1980s, I had a glimpse into the importance of regular face-to face gathering for worship. During the somewhat liberal period of religious openness in China prior to the June 4, 1989 massacre, local Chinese had begun attending our services together with the expatriates who were the core of the congregation. After the crackdown, the Chinese security and political control apparatus was brought to bear on Beijing’s Chinese Christians as well as any other group seen to be too closely identified with foreigners.  Old Communist Party rules that had remained on the books forbidding Chinese nationals from attending “foreign” worship services started to be enforced with a vengeance, including lengthy interrogation and physical abuse.  The pressure brought to bear on our Chinese congregants became almost unbearable. 

 

Finally our congregation decided that the local people and the expatriates in our little congregation would have to go their own ways and worship separately.  It was very hard on all of us, because we had become close friends.   One of the Chinese members of our congregation spoke at the last service we held together. He started his sermon, in Chinese, by noting that separate worship would be hard, since “gathering together each week is like drawing individual pieces of firewood together, to make a blaze that can warm us through the week.”  Pulling apart the critical mass of fuel for the fire, taking away the air infusions by bellows or blowing, posed the risk of extinguishing the flame, especially if the individual pieces of fuel were isolated, put aside, and kept alone in the cold, where their flame would die for want of heat. But we had no real choice in the matter, given the pressures, and ultimately went our separate ways. 

 

What have you learned about yourself and others this last year?  What have you most loved and enjoyed in “doing church” covid-style?  What was hardest?  What energized you and helped build your inner fire?  What helped kill it?  These questions will have different answers for different people, but I hope we can use them in personal reflection, in our upcoming Parish Mutual Ministry Review, and in small group discussions to help bring focus.  

 

As we move forward into this uncharted territory, I pray that we can use the answers to these questions as a compass to give us direction.  I pray that we can re-engage on a face-to-face basis, and open Trinity Church healthier, happier, more loving, deeper spiritually, and more joyful than we ever were before. 

 

Grace and Peace, and Happy Earth Day,

Fr. Tony+

Fellowship in Faith (Easter 2B)

 

He Qi, Jesus Appears to Thomas
 

“Fellowship in Faith”
Second Sunday of Easter (Year B)
11 April 2021

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP. Ph.D.
Homily Delivered Trinity Parish Church, Ashland, Oregon

8 a.m. Said Mass on the Labyrinth,

10 a.m. Sung Mass livestreamed from the Chancel  

Acts 4:32-35; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31; Psalm 133

 

God, give us hearts to feel and love,

 take away our hearts of stone
 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

Today’s readings are all about how faith and spiritual growth come from fellowship with others, love and unity, and sharing of stories.  The story of Thomas is not so much about a doubter who gets his come-uppance as it is about the basic truth that when it comes to matters of community and faith, simply showing up is the most important thing.  Thomas missed that church meeting on the evening of Easter and was left to wonder what foolishness had overtaken his fellow apostles.  The next Sunday, he is there in attendance and finally “gets” it.  The epistle declares: “What we have seen and heard, we announce also to you, so you too may have fellowship (or communion) with us, even what indeed we share with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.” (1 John1:3) The Psalm says, “How good it is when siblings dwell in unity… It is like fine and abundant anointing oil in the Temple... like the dew of distant Mount Hermon distilling on the parched hills of Jerusalem.”  And the reading from Acts tells of the power of story-telling: “With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.”  “They were of one heart and mind, and shared all their possessions so that there was not a poor person among them.” 

 

Today is the Second Sunday of Easter.  Just as Christmas is both a day and a season, (December 25 and then the 12 days up to January 6), Easter is not limited to Easter Sunday.  It is a feast that lasts 50 days, what are called in the Eastern church, the Great Fifty Days.  I have always loved the fact that the Feast of Easter is 10 days longer than the Lenten Fast.  Joy always outweighs and outlasts regret and sorrow.  And during all the Great Fifty Days, we tell each other these stories of Jesus’ rising.  And we should share with each other how these stories have affected each one of us. 

 

 

 

Easter cannot be done in a day.  The Resurrection of Jesus demands an extended period, not just for joy and celebration, but also for processing and digesting its implications and exploring its deep meaning.  Bishop N. T. Wright says that the resurrection is so joyful and its implications so overwhelming that for breakfast each morning in these great 50 days, we should drink champagne,  or, (if I might add from the Episcopal Church’s General Convention), an equally attractive and abundant non-alcoholic alternative.  Madeleine L’Engle said, “[The resurrection of Jesus] is almost too brilliant for me to contemplate; it is like looking directly into the sun; I am burned and blinded by life.”  Take all 50 days to rehearse these stories, feel the joy, and pray into what they mean about our lives and hopes. 

 

The Easter story is the heart of my own personal faith.  I natively have a great difficulty in believing beyond what I see.  The death of family and friends is invariably devastating to me.  But not surprisingly, over the years, it is during this season that I have had fleeting glimpses of the life beyond, whether talking in a dream to the deceased—Elena’s mother, or my parents—or seeing for a moment in a darkened Trinity library a departed brother of the parish.   But even beyond this, the resurrection breaks the power of hopelessness in my life here and now, giving me an optimism and confidence that in the end, all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well.    Jesus back from the dead is a sign to me that everything he ever said about God’s love and care is true, that regardless of rotten things in life, the Reign of God is already among us. 

 

Tell each other your stories and how this story changes you.  Share faith, and it grows.  See faith grow in the ones with whom you have shared, and have your own faith affirmed.  Listen to the stories of others, and grow in affection and love.  In this way, we share fellowship not just with each other, but with God and Christ. 

 

Each Sunday, show up.  As we begin cautiously to renew our common life, our face-to-face life, show up.  Get your vaccinations if your haven’t already.  Keep masking and distancing when with people who have not been vaccinated.  But show up.  Each and every Sunday is a little Easter, a celebration of our Lord’s victory.  Don’t miss that Church service or meal where God descends and everyone present is changed.  And if you do miss occasionally, make up by sharing and serving all the more. 

 

Jesus says, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” Those are profound, earth- changing words.  Resurrection.  Life.  Hear, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them.  Lean into them.  Share communion and fellowship.  Receive the hope and joy of the Easter Feast. 

 

In the name of God, Amen.

 

Newness of Life (midweek message)

 

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

Newness of Life

April 7, 2021

 

“Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4).

 

 During the Great Fifty Days of Easter, we hear again and again scripture readings that connect our Lord’s resurrection from the dead with our own turning from death to life.  It is important to remember that Jesus coming forth alive from the tomb in which he lay dead is not simply a metaphor for newness of life:  in some real ways, it is newness in our individual lives that is the metaphor—it reflects and grows from the truth of Jesus’ resurrection, not vice versa.  As St. Paul said, “if Christ is not raised from the dead, … we of all people are most to be pitied” (1 Cor 15:14-19).    As Flannery O’Connor said, “If it's just a symbol, then to hell with it!” 

 

That said, what makes the resurrection so important is that it does in fact entail life-giving newness in our individual experience.  This is expressed very strikingly in Ruth Etchells’ poem on Christ’s Harrowing of Hell, “The Ballad of the Judas Tree”:    

 

In Hell there grew a Judas Tree

Where Judas hanged and died

Because he could not bear to see

His master crucified

 

Our Lord descended into Hell

And found his Judas there

Forever hanging on the tree

Grown from his own despair

 

So Jesus cut his Judas down

And took him in his arms

“It was for this I came” he said

“And not to do you harm

 

My Father gave me twelve good men

And all of them I kept

Though one betrayed and one denied

Some fled and others slept

 

In three days’ time I must return

To make the others glad

But first I had to come to Hell

And share the death you had

 

My tree will grow in place of yours

Its roots lie here as well

There is no final victory

Without this soul from Hell”

 

So when we all condemn him

As of every traitor worst

Remember that of all his men

Our Lord forgave him first.

 

Grace and Peace. 

Fr. Tony+

 

 

 

John Jewell's Homily on the Resurrection of our Lord (Easter Sunday)

 

HOMILY ON THE RESURRECTION FOR EASTER DAY
Adapted and abridged from the Second Book of Homilies (1563)

After the Rt. Rev. John Jewell

 

 

Of all matters spiritual or temporal, the most excellent is surely what I declare it to you today:  the greatest and most comforting article of our Christian faith: the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  This was so important that God deemed it right to keep Jesus still on earth for forty days after he was risen from death to life, to confirm and establish firmly this fact in the hearts of his disciples…

 

This truth is so comforting that it is the very lock and key of all our faith.  Paul says that if it were not true that Christ rose again, then our preaching is vain, our faith void, and we are yet in our sins.  If Christ be not risen, we are of all people most to be pitied, for we trusted in a Christ who could not restore us to his bliss.  But no—Christ is risen again from the dead, the first fruits of them that sleep, and he will raise them to everlasting life… 

 

During those 40 days our Savior, through his bodily presence in sight of his disciples, declared to them, by manifold tokens that he had conquered death, and that he was also truly risen again to life.  Luke says he began with Moses and all the Prophets, and taught them how his death and resurrection were the purpose of God.  He did not just appear once.  Many, many times he came, to different people at different times.  First, he sent his angels to the sepulchre, who showed the women the grave empty, but for the burial linen that remained (Matt 28).  After this, Jesus himself appeared to Mary Magdalene (John 20), and after that to other women, and then straight away he appeared to Peter, then to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24).  He appeared to the disciples also as they were gathered together behind doors they had locked out of fear of the authorities  Another time he was appeared at the sea of Tiberias to Peter and Thomas, and the other Disciples, when they were fishing (John 21).  He was seen by more than 500 members of the Church on the mountain in Galilee to which he had directed them.  After this he appeared to James was visibly seen by the rest of the apostles, at the time he was taken up into heaven (1 Cor 15, Acts 1).  At times he showed them his hands, his feet, and his side, and bade them touch him, that they should not take him for a ghost or a spirit. At others he ate with them.  Through all this, he told them of God’s everlasting Kingdom, and assured them of the truth of his resurrection.

 

You see, good Christian people, how necessary this Article of our faith is, seeing it was proven by Christ himself with such evident reasons and tokens, through so long a time and so many places.  Now therefore as our Savior was diligent to declare it to teach and comfort us, so let us be as ready to believe and accept it for our comfort and instruction.

 

Paul says Christ died not for himself alone, nor did he rise again for himself alone.  He died through our sins, and rose again for our justification (1 Cor 15).   Remember always this most comforting word:  He died to do away with sin, and rose again to endow us with his righteousness. His death took away sin and malediction, his death was the ransom of them both.  His death destroyed death, and overcame the devil, in whose power death lay.  His death destroyed hell, with all of Hell’s damnation. Thus is death swallowed up by Christ’s victory; thus is Hell ruined forever. If anyone has doubts of this victory, let Christ’s glorious resurrection declare it to them.  If death itself could not keep Christ under its dominion and power, his rising to life again manifests that death’s power was at an end.  If death be conquered, then must it follow that sin, whose wages it is, was also destroyed. If death and sin be vanished away, then is the devil’s tyranny vanished…  We must rejoice and boldly say with the Prophet Hosea and the Apostle Paul, “Where is thy dart, O death? Where is thy victory, O hell? Thanks be unto God, who has given us the victory by our Lord Christ Jesus.”

 

“Be of good courage,” says our Savior Christ, “for I have overcome the world, and all other enemies for you” (John 16). “Sin shall not have power over you, for you are now under grace,” says Saint Paul. “Though your power be weak, yet Christ is risen again to strengthen you in your battle, and his holy Spirit shall help your infirmities” (Romans 6.9, Romans 8.26).

 

In trust of his mercy, take it in hand to purge the old leaven of sin, that corrupts and sours the sweetness of our life before God, that you may be as new and fresh dough, without any sour leaven of wickedness, and show yourselves to be sweet bread that delights God (1 Cor 5).   Turn from and offer up all that takes you from God.  For Christ our Easter Lamb is offered up for us, to slay the power of sin, to deliver us from it, and to give us the example to die to sin in our lives. As the Hebrews ate their Passover lamb, and kept the feast in remembrance of their deliverance out of Egypt: Even so let us keep our Easter feast in the thankful remembrance of Christ’s blessings, plentifully wrought for us by his resurrection and passing over to his Father.  Let us in like manner pass over from our old way of life, and, set free of its bondage, rise with Christ.   Let us keep the feast our whole life long, eating the bread of pure and godly life, and drinking in the truth of Christ’s teaching.  We thus shall be sure to rise hereafter to everlasting glory with him, to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all glory, thanksgiving, and praise, forever and ever.  Amen

 

New Fire, New Life (Great Vigil, 2021)

 

“New Fire, New Life”
The Great Vigil of Easter
3 April 2021 7:00 p.m. Sung Eucharist with Holy Baptism

Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

May the light of Christ, rising in glory,
banish all darkness from our hearts and minds.   Amen.

 

Easter Sunday, as in all days in most ancient calendars, begins at sundown the evening before.  As we read in the creation story tonight, the evening was, the morning was, the first day.  Easter Sunday begins just as the sun sets on Holy Saturday.   

 

The Great Vigil of Easter, the heart of the Christian year, and mother of all our celebrations, begins with the lighting of the New Fire to drive away the dark.  The Paschal Candle is blessed and lit.  It celebrates that glorious act of God described by St. John in these words, "”The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.”

 

The Great Easter Proclamation, the ancient hymn the Exsultet we sang tonight, says it best: 

 

“This is the night, when you brought our parents… out of bondage in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea on dry land.  This is the night, when all who believe in Christ are delivered from the gloom of sin, and are restored to grace and holiness of life. This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave…  when wickedness is put to flight, and sin is washed away. It restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to those who mourn. It casts out pride and hatred, and brings peace and concord. How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined and we are reconciled to God.” 

 

The Paschal Candle, which will light our little Church throughout the Great Fifty Days and then come out for all baptisms and funerals throughout the year, is a symbol of this great light, Christ, a pillar of fire in our desert, light in our darkness.  As the Exsutlet continues,

 

“May it shine continually to drive away all darkness. May Christ, the Morning Star who knows no setting, find it ever burning …”

 

The New Fire and the Paschal Candle’s flame are used to light the candle given to people baptized at the vigil, a candle representing also “the Light of Christ.” 

 

Baptism, the Rite of Christian Initiation, marks and indeed brings about new life: from the New Fire, we gain New Life. 

 

Easter begins in darkness but ends in glory: sunset followed by night, followed by morning.  Death followed by resurrection. 

 

Christ betrayed, Christ tortured, Christ killed.  And then light dawns with the unexpected and startlingly unique act of God, God’s triumph over the powers of darkness: Christ is risen, the Lord is risen indeed.   And the risen Lord is not a ghost or a zombie, alive, but somehow less alive than we are.  The risen Lord is more alive, more vital that he had ever been before, so much so that his disciples on occasion fail to recognize him right off.

 

In a few minutes, Christiana will be baptized.  We celebrate the sacrament of Holy Baptism on this night because its waters symbolize for us a death of sorts—death to our old ways—and new life in the spirit.   The water of baptism is consecrated in part by dipping in it the paschal candle.  But how can baptism make us holy?  What about the fact that we seem afterwards to be very much the same people as before? 

 

In all the sacraments, the common is made holy, yet retains its appearance of the common.  In Eucharist, common bread and wine become the body of Christ, even as they remain to all appearances bread and wine.   In reconciliation, we face our guilt and God drives it away, but we remain inclined to sin afterwards all the same.  In matrimony, God blesses our relationship, but we still have to work on it to keep it alive and growing.  In ordination, a person is set aside for special ministry, even as they seem to remain no different from the laity.

 

This is because the sacraments take place in time, even as they exist in eternity, or timelessness.

 

We most often can’t see ourselves as changed people.  Baptism or no, we wonder if there is any possibility of change in our lives.  But that is exactly where the great mystery of Easter intersects with our lives.  In the baptismal creed, we say we believe in the forgiveness of sins and life everlasting. 

 

In sacraments, we get a glimpse of what’s really going on.  And just as Jesus at his baptism heard the voice of God, so we each hear in our baptism, “You are my child.  I love you.  You make me happy.”

 

Our faith, our life, and our hope grow from such mystery:  We start as common, and end in holiness.  We start in silence, but end in song.  We start in darkness, but end in light.  We start in death, but end in life.    

 

Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.