The Lord is Risen! Or, What Is This Madness? This Is An Empty Tomb!

My wife, Amanda, took this picture
as we kept vigil last night.

I'm a Vigil-goer, so as I write now on Easter morning, I have done my waiting and said my prayers by candlelight. I have renewed the vows of my baptism and I have heard the story of the empty tomb, where Jesus could not be found. But then, of course, I did find him in the Eucharist. After the strange, awkward day of Good Friday, the day we could not make Eucharist, the day that we had to share the leftovers from the Last Supper on Thursday (I'm only now realizing the irony in that), Jesus could not be found among the dead because he was among the living!

In the past few years, the idea that has fascinated me about the Easter story is that the women found an empty tomb on Sunday morning. Which means that, if they were being diligent and went to the tomb at first light, Jesus must have risen sometime during the night. While everything was still shrouded in darkness and there was no clarity, Jesus rose and made his way out. Today, especially, I feel connected to story because I woke up early and could not get back to sleep (I must have too much joy this morning!). So I want to take a closer look and walk with those women on their way to the tomb...

Good Friday and Veneration of the Cross

By a perversion of justice he was taken away.

Who could have imagined his future?

They made his grave with the wicked

and his tomb with the rich,

although he had done no violence,

and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him with pain.

Isaiah 53:8-10

The worship space at St. Christopher's, prepared
for Good Friday

"Good Friday is a very solemn day and it feels heavy to me." These words were spoken by my pastor in his sermon during the noontime liturgy today. I agree with him. Good Friday is a very heavy, uncomfortable day.

At the Altar of Repose, or, Stay Here and Keep Watch With Me

I took this during my Holy Hour this morning

I was at the Altar of Repose this morning just after daybreak. I don't really know when it was that they would have arrested Jesus, so I don't know whether or not he would have still been here, praying. But I am here because I promised to keep a watch. I am praying and contemplating and trying to find my way through all the overwhelming toil of the world.

Re-entering Jerusalem with Jesus for the First Time, or, I Think I Would Fall Off My Donkey

So today is Palm Sunday, or Passion Sunday, depending on which particular denominational tradition you come from. This morning while I was worshiping with my faith community, I came to the conclusion that this first day of Holy Week is one that just fundamentally feels off, and I think it's for a very good reason. I saw it stated well this morning on Twitter:

#PalmSunday reminds us how quickly our hearts go from "hosanna" to "Crucify Him"
— Chris Balding (@ChrisBalding) March 29, 2015

Chris Balding's tweet resonated with me because it's a good summation of what my experience of Palm Sunday has been. We start off shouting and happy; Jesus has come into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey! He is regarded as the King of Kings and the Messiah! We can honor him with palm fronds and lay our cloaks on the dirty ground for him to walk on. But before we leave church, we are the ones who are shouting for him to be crucified.

Out of Lent and into Easter!

Yesterday was Easter Sunday and Saturday night was the Great Vigil of Easter. My wife and I opted to go to the Vigil, reason being that there's a lot more liturgical stuff that happens at the Vigil.

In the Episcopal Church, if you take a look at what the Book of Common Prayer prescribes, there are four parts to the liturgy. One of them is Baptism, which can get really long, depending on how many people you're baptizing. Point is that my faith community only did three of the four parts and we only renewed our Baptismal Covenant; we didn't have any new baptisms. Nonetheless, it was still a long liturgy.

The second of the four parts is the Service of Lessons. There is a huge list of lessons that faith communities can choose from (and I know some congregations that do all of them). Saturday night, my wife and I were helping the youth group to enact the Exodus story; Moses led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, and then the Children got mad at him because they got stuck at the Red Sea and Pharaoh and his army had decided to come and get them to bring them back into slavery in Egypt. It was quite a process to take that text and enact it in such a way that it was both moving and engaging, but neither hokey nor campy. It was tough.

In the end, we made it through; the Vigil happened. We, the youth group, did not bring anything to a standstill (go us!) but as the Vigil went on, I noticed something (and this is the point of my blog today): this Easter Eve mass is both the culmination of Lent and the beginning of season when all is made new. Sunday morning after the Vigil, Christ has risen and there is an overall feeling of resolution. Friday (and even Saturday during the daylight hours) is still firmly entrenched in the Lenten penitence mode. But the Vigil is the point at which these two seasons collide and we churchgoers are thrown in the midst of it all. This may seem obvious but I say it because, last night, I could feel that statement.

Lent has been long and ponderous this year. Yes, I know, Lent is always the same length, but it felt much longer this year. And I could feel that length stretching into the Service of Lessons at the beginning of the Vigil last night. The Service of Lessons happens in a half-dark church with an aura of candlelight. As a church, we tell ourselves these stories about our tradition and heritage. We hear them echoing from somewhere in this space, somewhere in the half-light. It has been a long time that we've been in the desert these 40 days. Moreover, things feel dramatically more barren, now that the man we thought was our Saviour is dead. But I think everyone can feel that something new is about to break out.

Even though my faith community did not have any baptisms last night, it is good to remember that, after we've told ourselves these stories from Genesis and Exodus and after we've heard the words from some of the prophets, those we have nurtured in their study and prayer for the past 40 days stand up, curse the darkness and then are immersed in the water; they die with Christ and are ready to rise to new life on the eve of this season when all is made new. All the rest of us gathered also remember that we have cursed the darkness; we repeat the vows we've taken that bind us to this life, directed by Christ.

Once we've done this; once we've renounced all these things, the new thing breaks out! We find the empty tomb and nothing is the same!

But in my experience of this last night, as we began our Easter celebration, I could feel that everyone was still reeling from this desert time in Lent.

We unleashed our Alleluias! They (literally) floated up to the ceiling (attached to balloons). We proclaimed that He is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! But this word has been shut away for so long that it felt awkward on our lips.

For my part, I wanted to sing at the top of my lungs, but I was so accustomed to those minor key songs and chants that the new keys felt awkward.

And really, I think all of this was okay. The Lord is risen, but who in the world expected a dead man to rise? Nobody really knows what to do with an empty tomb. An empty tomb is a frightening thing. In the Gospel reading, it says twice that we should not be afraid (which is, of course, easier said than done) but even if we disregard our fear, we still find ourselves coping with this strange and wonderful mystery; Jesus the Nazarene was killed, brutally, by the Romans and now that same man is up walking around and talking with his old friends.

I have a couple take-aways. The first I shamelessly take from my priest. He pointed out the question that is asked of the women who go to Jesus' tomb, "What are you looking for?" In Matthew's version, the angel says, "I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here." But no matter how you respond to the women, all you need to do is put yourself in their shoes. When you come up onto the tomb on Easter morning, the question that is still posed to you is "What are you looking for?" For all of Lent, we could have answered "I am looking in the desert for the presence of God." But now, if we look anyplace that we expect Christ to be, we will not find him. The truth is that the Lord has risen! Sometime during the night, he got up and now he is out there in the world.

Which kinda takes me to the second take-away: the uncertainty of the whole thing. Those reading closely will recognize that we've seen all this before, whether it's Lazarus rising from the dead or talking to the women first or just being unexpected... but I don't think any of those stories include the "what comes next?" question. As a disciple of Christ, we can celebrate that our savior is not dead, but nonetheless, we are still left with the aching uncertainty. We are still left asking "what are we to do next?"

In all honesty, I do think there is a lot of joy in the potential answers to that question as well as all the uncertainty in them. And I don't think there are any simple ways to answer what we are to do next. But for my part, I'm going to spend some time meditating on that and posting some blogs in an attempt to explore this question: "How are we to live in the light of the Risen Christ?"

I hope you'll join me on this journey. I hope you'll feel comfortable commenting now or in the near future to share your own reflections on where this path is leading.

Alleluia! The Lord is risen!

Holy Saturday

Waiting.
What are we supposed to do now?

Last week, we came into the city.
We were singing and dancing.

Yesterday, our savior died.
All bets are now off,
All we thought we knew is turned upside down.

Today we sit in uneasy silence;
Hiding from those who are trying to find us,
Like a triumphant fanfare that doesn't resolve.

Good Friday

God died today.

There's a movie that came out recently that has caused a lot of controversy.

Movie poster taken from Filmofilia

It's all about whether or not God exists. Which isn't really a question that I'm interested in debating anymore. And this blog isn't about that topic, anyway.

I assert that God does exist. I also assert that on this day, on Good Friday before Easter, God does in fact die on the cross. After being betrayed last night, tortured this morning and then hoisted up on a cross to die a painful, humiliating death, God in Jesus dies.

And when God dies on the cross, all bets are off... What are we supposed to do when our King and Savior, the one who was supposed to rescue us, has died?

Taken from 1stfriday.ca

Maundy Thursday

So this is the first of the Three Holy Days, or the Triduum. It is a major turn in the Holy Week story. The name "Maundy" shares the same root with "commandment" because there are a is something that Christ commands us to do in this story. We are told to love one another just as Christ has loved us. And in doing that, in telling this story, the Church has established two things.

I've often felt that the words of this story could be slightly tweaked... What if, instead of a brief statement when we're receiving the Eucharist, we were told something like this: "Child of God, take this and eat it. It is broken for you because you are broken. Let it nourish you; let it sustain you. It is Christ. Always strive to be like Christ, who was broken to heal our brokenness."

I imagine these words whispered in someone's ear. And they seem so much more intimate. Less like Da Vinci's Last Supper and more like this:

Picture of the Last Supper taken from Kirk of the Keys

Maundy Thursday, or Holy Thursday, has been important to me because it establishes two things. One is the Eucharist, which we are invited to participate in. Christ gave it to us and it is something that I think is essential to our efforts to create the Kingdom of God. Because the Eucharist is a little piece of the Kingdom and it is given freely to us. I like imagining that this is was first offered in the company of friends.

The second thing that wasn't so much established, but kind of encapsulated at the Last Supper was Jesus' servant ministry. He had been serving others in many ways during his ministry, but then we get an image like this:

Picture of Jesus washing Peter's feet taken from Artilim

Jesus washing the feet of his friends is a really controversial thing. Because in it, we see the Messiah, this great and awesome king, humble himself to be a servant (and in the picture, Peter doesn't seem too pleased about it at all). And it is exactly what we're all called to be; servants. Our Christian mission is to serve. We're called to give from ourselves to others. Just like how the Eucharist is given as well. They're two sides of the same coin. Two pictures of Jesus, but the same God.

What else do you think about on this first day of the Three Holy Days?

Palm Sunday

I've determined what I want to do for Holy Week. Rather than providing reflections, I want to share a few items that I feel are meditative. Reason being is because the reflections I write, while I love to write them, require a lot of energy and they take me a couple of days to generate. Holy Week doesn't afford much time at all for that kind of lengthy reflection; each turn in the story just keep coming on the heels of the one before. But, in the meantime, there are images that stick with me from year to year. And those are the things that I want to share.

So let's start, shall we? I know that I just shared this clip from the 1973 Jesus Christ Superstar in my last blog post, but it's directly pertinent today, so I share it again:



Some thoughts I have on this one:

The guys at Pulpit Fiction pointed out this week, among other things, that the term "hosanna" means "save us." I was struck by this because I've always been fascinated with the way this song plays with that word. So now I hear the crowd singing so energetically "Save us, Jesus Christ!"and there is such a juxtaposition there, that they're happy and excited for this person who is portrayed so humanly.

And that's the other thing I'll offer: the expression on Jesus's face is so telling as the crowd sings through the verses. The start in the song with "Hey J.C., J.C.! Won't you smile at me..." and then they go to "you're alright by me" and it really does seem like these poor and oppressed have finally got a leader who pays attention to them. And then the next time they sing that line, they say "Hey J.C., J.C.! Won't you DIE for me?" and the camera stops on the actor's face. The image in that split second is one of a Jesus who knows he is going to die for all these people and he doesn't even know whether they understand what they're asking of him. I know a lot of people who don't like Jesus Christ Superstar for this exact reason; that it portrays such a human Jesus. But I like it. It emphasizes for me that Jesus was a real person, not just some deity that co-mingled with its worshippers about 2,000 years ago.

This Palm Sunday, I'll be thinking of this image as the whole congregation participates in the Passion. We'll be the ones that both praise Jesus and condemn him.

I want to ask you to think of something this week at church, too. What are your meditations on Palm Sunday? Does this video make sense with your experience? Or is your experience far and away from it? If you want to share your thoughts in the comments, I would love to read them.