Easter Sunday Sermon
For many years now – I can’t say just how long – I’ve been asking of Jesus the same questions: “Who are you?” and “Why did you have to die?” These are no small questions, my friends. Nor are they inappropriate for a priest or any person of faith to ask. God forbid, we should get stuck with too small an answer, too early in life, when we have this whole life before us to keep living and growing in wisdom and truth.
Who are you, Christ?
Why did you have to die?
A group from St. John’s has just returned from an 18-day pilgrimage to Rome. I was with them. And every day, as I dressed, I’d put a necklace ‘round my neck with a medallion of St. Francis on it. And each day I’d say as I put it on, “Francis, I want to see Jesus today.”
I can’t say every day provided such an epiphany. But I can say with sincerity, it was always a sincere prayer. Prayer, for me these days, is principally about me being honest, and being honest before God, with a settling hope that God is there – and that both my presence and my honesty is welcomed by the one Who Is, and who loves me (and every one of us) in every condition, at every stage of faith and doubt, at every stage of behaving well and behaving poorly. Prayer is not a place for me to convince God of anything. I do not need to manipulate God with the right words or the right formula, to get God to do my bidding. It is enough simply to be honest. And in so doing, to discover the deep and growing peace, that when I share with God, I am not alone. God is with me and I am with God. And at the end of the day, and the end of all days, that is what we need beyond all else. God is with us. And all will be well.
And in the presence of such a God, I still keep asking, “Who are you?”
And, for us in the church, for us who have been – and are being – formed in the way of Christ, we have come to believe (to hope, to yearn) that the best clarity we humans can perceive of this God-of-all-being, is Jesus. What is God like? He is like Jesus. Surely, God must be more than “like Jesus.” But this “fully-human, fully-divine” Jesus is the revelation of God we can most relate to. After all, we relate best to those like who are like us. We relate to other humans more naturally than we do to cabbages. If God wants to reveal God’s self to us in the most relatable way possible, it would be in the form of a human. And so it was. And so it continues to be.
There was a rather sacred moment for us on our pilgrimage. This is a Jubilee Year in the Catholic Church – a special year of pilgrimage to Rome. For us (Episcopalians!) the Jubilee was more of a coincidence than an objective. But we got to benefit from it, all the same. On the day we visited the Vatican, we joined in the Camino – a pilgrimage walk with prayers and singing that stretched from the Piazza Pia, down a long street, through St. Peter’s Square and straight through the Holy Doors that are opened only once every 25 years. We ended our Camino praying right at the center of the basilica, before the tomb of St. Peter, in a specially stanchioned-off space for pilgrims, while tourists took pictures of us. And as we walked and prayed this long Camino, we took turns carrying a large wooden cross. “Hold it as long as you can” (I told them), “until it hurts. And then carry it a little longer, before handing it to the next pilgrim.”
I didn’t think I’d have a chance to carry the cross myself. There were too many others who’d need their turn. But it was a long Camino. And so, I became the last to carry it. And as I took it in my hands, and felt its weight, the instinctive prayer that rose within me was, “Jesus, I’m doing my best to lead this church.” It wasn’t bragging. It wasn’t defensive. It was merely an honest statement. “I’m doing the best I know to do.”
And in that moment, I felt a certain kinship with Christ. Not that our experiences were the same, or anything close to it. My cross-bearing was but a gentle, symbolic moment. His was a torment in body and soul – the climax of his obedience to his Father in heaven to love this world to the end – with everything he had, laid bare on a cross, a total emptying of himself, his volition, his life. This was absolutely, “the best he knew to do,” the best that could possibly be done. And he did it.
And still, my queries rise within me: “Who are you, Jesus?” “Why did you have to die?”
And in this past year, a new thought has come to me. Whether it’s Jesus’ answer or my own meandering spirit, I don’t know. But it has a ring of truth about it. Or at least, one glimpse of truth – one facet.
And here it is:
In this life, killing another person is about the worst sin we can imagine, especially if that killing is tortuous and wicked by intent. That is the depth of human depravity; it’s the worst we can do. But you know would be even worse? Killing God. If murdering a fellow creature is evil, how much more evil would it be to murder the Divine Creator of all creatures? And, of course, that’s exactly what the Christian faith has taught all along – that on Good Friday we humans did exactly that. We killed God in Christ. Surely, human sin can sink no lower.
And I’m beginning to wonder: Was that part of God’s intention all along, in God’s mission through Christ? Was it to allow us humans to reach the very bottom of human depravity – to do the very worst thing we could possibly do, and when it was finished to say, “There. You’ve done it. You’ve done your worst. And now it’s my turn.”
But God’s turn (it turns out) was not to damn us, to best us by a greater cruelty. When God takes a turn, it is a turn for resurrection. How much greater is God’s power than that of us mortals. Our power could take Jesus down to the dust. God’s power says, “Rise, my beloved.”
For, surely, this is the even greater tenant of our faith: that love is stronger than evil; that mercy supplants condemnation; that resurrection has authority over death. “Rise my beloved, and live.” This is God’s final word. This is the hope of Easter.
We’ve done our worst. And it was hideous, indeed. Then God stepped in and proved “God’s best” to be of an entirely greater thing altogether.
Years ago, I volunteered at a summer tutoring program. I had three kids who were mine: to tutor, to take on field trips, to love. And I did. And I remember one day, one of them – Willie – had a total meltdown. Who knows what caused it, but he had reached his end: crying huge crocodile tears and yelling and flailing about. And I remember getting down on the floor with him, and just holding him. He pushed against me, kicking and crying. And I kept holding on. I knew I was stronger. I knew I could outlast him. And, whatever it was that had pushed him over the edge, it hadn’t pushed me over the edge. It was no enemy to me – no threat to me. That afternoon, the world had gotten too big and overwhelming for Willie. But my arms could contain him in love, which they did. And I remember so clearly when his meltdown finally ran its course, when his fighting stopped, and he finally slumped down, in peace. Love had held him through the worst. And love was holding him still.
And that, I think, is Easter.
We humans don’t live well. We’re selfish and fearful and more ignorant than we think. And the more fearful we get, the worse we behave and this world becomes a more and more violent and threatening place. And so we thrash about and make a mess of things, grasping after solutions that prove to be no solutions at all. Sometimes quite the opposite. We worship the beast. And kill our Christ.
And, when we’d done our worst – our very worst, killing Jesus Christ – the arms of God caught that Christ, pierced as he was by sin and violence and evil, now buried in the tomb, fallen into dust… God caught that Christ… and breathed… breathed in him like he breathed so long before, forming Adam (forming us) from the dust. God breathed a breath as regular and steady as that divine breath that never ceases, in and out – the tides that water the earth; in and out – the seasons swapping autumn and springtime from the north to the south; in and out – the steady exchange of life between us breathing creatures and the plants and trees all around us.
It all comes of God. It all bears witness to God, its creator, its mother, its father.
And in this moment, on this day – Easter – the universal spirit of God took particular shape in the resurrection of God’s Christ, God’s unique gift and presence and witness for us humans in the world. “This is what I am like: this Christ who has lived with you and shown you my way; this Christ whom you killed and I have raised; this Christ with whom you are one and I am one; this Christ whose death was your death, whose death was my death, and whose risen life is our life together. This is who I am.”
What gift.
What a gift it was then and what a gift it is now. It is a gift of living hope. Not only is it hope for a resurrection in the life to come (whatever form that should take). But it is the hope by which we begin living now.
In the face of all evil – in ourselves, in our politics, in our world – already we know, because we have seen in Christ, that his way – his way of mercy and compassion, his way of forgiveness, his way of being one in peace with us and with God – his way is better. It is stronger. It is truer. And it is ours now. For Christ is risen. Alleluia. And we are risen with Christ. Amen. Alleluia.