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Christos Aneste! Alethos Aneste!
(Repost from last Easter) – CHRIST IS RISEN!!
Christ Jesus our Lord, our Savior, our Redeemer, has Risen from the dead – just as he promised!!!!
The darkness and silence of the tomb could not hold him. Darkness cannot hold us.
The darkness and despair of Holy Saturday was not the end of the story. It is not our story.
The loneliness and abandonment his followers felt was unfounded. We are not alone.
For the tomb is empty – Jesus is no longer there – He has risen from the dead. Alleluia!! Alleluia!!
Easter Sunday has finally come. Lent and Holy Tridium are over – Praise be to God. Our Savior is ALIVE. Light has returned.
We waited patiently, though anxiously, in the dark of the night. But light and joy break with the morning. Jesus has defeated sin, suffering, and Satan. Evil is vanquished. Jesus has won.
We sent our problems, our difficulties, our worries, our sorrow, our despair, and our sin to the cross on Friday. Jesus took them on himself as he died. They went with him to the tomb on Saturday. But today he has left them there. We are free. We can have joy. We can set all our hopes and dreams on the risen Christ.
We can now have new life. May we all now live in the joy of the Resurrection. Sunday has indeed come for all of us. A true Sunday. The darkness of Holy Saturday and Lent is behind us. The new day is here. May we believe it, and experience it, radically today and every day. Praise be to God. Thanks be to God. Praise be to God. He is risen…He is risen indeed, Alleluia…
JESUS HAS RISEN FROM THE DEAD!! ALLELUIA!! ALLELUIA!!
The Night Before Easter
(I wrote this last year on Maundy Thursday. As I reflect on Lent and Holy Week on this Holy Saturday I thought it would be good to post and edited version of it since I am still in many ways here)
The feet have been washed. The bread and the wine have been eaten. Jesus has been taken away…On Friday the church remembered the crucifixion of Jesus. For a while I have wondered if sometimes we fail to really grasp the meaning of Good Friday. We know the end of the story. We know that even as we remember the death of Jesus in just a few days we will gather to celebrate his resurrection. However, over the past few years I have tried, on Good Friday, and this year more so, to put myself in the place of Jesus’ followers. If you do that it drastically changes your perspective.
How would you respond to the death of Jesus if you did not know he rose again? How would you feel if your leader and friend, one that you followed around for three years – you saw him heal the sick and raise the dead – you heard him teach. You watched him challenge the Pharisees, Herod, and Pilate – you heard Peter confess, “You are the Christ, the Son of God…” – you experienced his love – a love such that you have never felt before – you thought he was the new Messiah, the new King – how would you feel if you saw him die? He is dead and buried…and you have fled with the others…
You thought you could have faith in Jesus, but now it seems he has failed you…
Can we even begin to place ourselves in this situation? Can we even now begin to experience the darkness of Friday? Is it really “good” if you know only Friday, and do not, at the same time, know Sunday? Do we, even though we have “Sunday” really know Sunday? Or are our lives stuck in a perpetual Lent…A Lent waiting on the joy of Sunday?
The preacher says, “Friday’s here…but Sunday’s coming…” Maybe Sunday is coming soon, and maybe for some people it has already come, and of course tomorrow we will celebrate Easter and the Resurrection, but now we feel stuck on Friday, or even more trapped in Saturday.
Today we have remembered Holy Saturday. The dark day of the Christian year – a day of silence and mourning. A full day without the presence of Jesus. A day of darkness and despair. A day when the death of Jesus has finally become real. A day when God seems absent.
But the feelings of Holy Saturday are feelings that many experience for most of their lives. They are feelings many will return too after Easter Sunday. They are, after all, the feelings of this life.
For many “Saturday” is where we live most of our lives. We remember the resurrection, and even on Sunday will joyfully sing, “Christ the Lord has risen today, Alleluia…” But it probably won’t change anything. In many ways, it doesn’t seem true for us. We try, and sneak into the joy of Sunday, but something keeps pulling us back to Saturday. Our Alleluia is cold and it is broken. It is a Alleluia that hopes, not a Alleluia that believes.
In Real Presences, the literary critic George Steiner writes of this broken Hallelujah, of this hope and this longing, of this life lived in some sort of sorrow…It is “a long day’s journey of the Saturday. Between suffering, aloneness, unutterable waste on the one hand and the dream of liberation, or rebirth on the other.”
Saturday is the in-between day. A day when Jesus is gone and buried, but has yet to rise again. The day when the disciples thought it was hopeless, that it was over. It is a day where it almost seems that again he has failed us. He has left us singing a broken song at an empty cross to a dead, and failed, god, and not a joyful anthem at an empty tomb to a risen Savior.
But even in the darkness of our Saturday, a small light shines forth from afar…Though it is small it is a light of joy…A light of hopes fulfilled…A light that will make our Hallelujah one that believes…It is the light of Sunday. However far away it may be we are able to glimpse it. It is a light we are drawn too. A light that keeps us going, and makes everything meaningful. That shines through despair and sorrow to joy. A light that keeps us going as we wait for our time to smile.
Maybe Sunday will not be “Sunday” for us. Maybe Easter will only be a small glimmer of light. Maybe this year all Easter will do is rekindle the hope that Saturday is trying to kill. It will give us the strength to go on for a little bit longer. But maybe that is all that we need in order to continue singing, even if the song is cold and broken. Because even broken praises are beautiful to the ears of a God that loves us. And even in silence we can know that.
A good song for Lent
He Ever Loves Us
Written by Alex Mejias
CD: High Street Hymns (Download it from Amazon here)
He ever loves us in our brokenness
Weeps for every grief we face
Intercedes for us without ceasing
And bids us to receive His grace
And bids us to receive His grace
His love protects us through the dark night
Never leaves us in our pain
Shelters us with His presence
In weakness, He perfects His strength
He ever loves us in our brokenness
In the cross he hides our shame
Forsaken by the Father
He died for us, He took our place
My Valentine’s Day post
Last year I wrote a longer post on Valentine’s Day. I was reading it again last night and many of the feelings I expressed I still feel. In most ways I am still in that same place I was last February. If you missed it here it is (typos and all).
This year I simply post a quote I have been thinking about recently. This is describing the sort of love I think everyone is seeking.
“What really counts in life is that at some moment you have seen something, felt something which is so great, so matchless, that everything else is nothing by comparison, that even if you forgot everything you would never forget this.”
St Augustine on God
“What are you then, my God – what, but the Lord God? For who is Lord but the Lord? Or who is God save our God? Must high, most excellent, most powerful, most almighty, most merciful, and most just; most hidden, yet most present; most beautiful, and most strong; stable, yet mysterious; unchangeable, yet changing all things; never new, never old; making all things new and bringing age upon the proud, though they know it not; ever working, yet ever at rest; still gathering, yet lacking nothing; sustaining, filling and protecting; creating, nourishing, and maturing; seeking, yet possessing all things. You love without passion; you are jealous without anxiety; you repent, yet have no sorrow; you are angry, yet serene; change your ways, your are plans are unchanged; recover what you find, having never lost it; never in need, yet rejoicing in gain; never covetous, yet requiring interest. You receive over and above, that you may owe—yet you have anything that is not yours? You pay debts, owing nothing; remit debits, losing nothing. And what have I now said, my God, my life, my holy joy—what is this I have said?”
Waiting on God
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)
Be present, O merciful God, and protect us through the hours
of this night, so that we who are wearied by the changes and
chances of this life may rest in your eternal changelessness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer)
Keep us, O Lord,
while we tarry on this earth,
in a serious seeking after you
and in an affectionate walking with you,
every day of our lives;
that when you come
we may not be found hiding our talent,
nor serving the flesh,
nor yet asleep with our lamp unfurnished,
but waiting and longing for our Lord,
our glorious God for ever. Amen. (Celebrating Common Prayer)
He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, “Gone is my glory, and all that I had hoped for from the LORD.” The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD. It is good for one to bear the yoke in youth, to sit alone in silence when the Lord has imposed it, to put one’s mouth to the dust (there may yet be hope), to give one’s cheek to the smiter, and be filled with insults. For the Lord will not reject forever. Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone. (Lamentations 3:16-31)
The Nation-State is not your Church
Influenced by Calvinism and Puritanism the Protestant religion is largely individualistic. It is about “my personal relationship with my own ‘personal Jesus.’” Identity too then is individual rather than corporate. Identity is formed based on a relationship with Jesus alone, and not with his Body; in much of Protestant evangelicalism the church and the sacraments become secondary, and indeed often unnecessary, forms of unity. This is in contrast to churches with a more focused (and some would argue well developed) ecclesiology (including the sacraments, especially baptism and Eucharist) such as Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and Anglicanism. One has to wonder if this individualistic focus of religion is one of the reasons many evangelicals are so enthralled by politics and political parties. If religion is individualistic and does not provide a corporate structure in life another structuring mechanism must take its place, and for many this is politics, and especially political parties. The result for many evangelicals is the nation-state becomes their church. As Americans have come to give more loyalty, and place more faith in, to the nation-state they have begun to attribute theological principles to the American nation. And have come to give less loyalty and place less faith in the Church.
SK on the cares of life
“Cast all your care upon God.” You are to cast all care away; if you do not cast all care away, you retain it and do not become absolutely joyful. And if you do not cast it absolutely upon God, but in some other direction, you are not absolutely rid of it. In one way or another, it returns again, most likely in the form of a still greater and more bitter sorrow. For to cast care away, but not upon God – that is distraction. But distraction is a most doubtful and ambiguous remedy.
SK on Love
“To love God is to love oneself truly; to help another person to love God is to love another person; to be helped by another person to love God is to be loved.”
