The Day of Resurrection
The Rev. Nigel Taber-Hamilton, Rector
I want to tell you a very brief story which came to me as the result of my trip to England last week for my brother's wedding. Once upon a time a couple met, married and lived happily ever after. See, I told you it would be brief!
When most of us were a lot younger this was the fantasy sold to us as the epitome of what a marriage should be: perfect, exclusively happy, always getting better, never stressed. If the story was a Western the couple would ride off together into the sunset!
Why am I talking about marriage today? Well, it's not so much marriage I'm talking about but the way we can end up living our lives out of a whole series of fantasies sold to us by others rather than out of the reality that, in our saner moments, we know to be the real truth about living.
For instance, there's a fantasy about Christian faith that's more prominent than you might think in our 21st Century world - it goes by many names, such as the "prosperity gospel" - and it sounds something like this: Just believe in God (or, at least, the "God" we're selling you) and back it up by supporting your church financially, and everything will be fine - you'll have those financial gifts returned to you in spades, money will pour down on your heads like rainwater.
Very occasionally this actually happens - in fact, those rare occasions are used as proof that such "faith" really works. It's a very Old Testament view of the world: the good are rewarded, and therefore, if you haven't been rewarded, you must in some way be bad.
At the very least - since the majority are not "rewarded" - this theology is really bad for most folks' self-esteem, because it does little but promote guilt - ultimately, however, it's the "bad" bit we hear - we are all bad, evil people, this says.
There's another fantasy that's also prominent, and, I think, more insidious, and that's the one that only sees the story of Jesus is all sweetness and light - gentle Jesus, meek and mild - and in this story nothing ever goes amiss. Perhaps we get sucked in to this because that's how we want our own lives to be and hope that if we somehow affiliate with a person - Jesus - whose life was like that then some of it will 'rub off'. That's how many people think of God - if we can just find a "God" who is all-powerful and well-meaning and sweet then that Good life will be ours and we can skip the nasty bits.
That's not the reality. On Friday - Good Friday - I told the story of Hana Brady - or, rather, Hanika Bradyiova - a young Czech Jewish girl born May 16, 1931, who, on October 23rd 1944 arrived at Auschwitz labor and extermination camp in Poland. She was sorted toward the building with the tall, smoking chimneys, and sent down the steps toward a door way over which was the words "Bath House" were carved in German. In fact, these were the gas chambers, and soon thereafter Hana was dead.
Hana didn't make her last Journey down into hell alone - another Jew, named Jesus, made it with her, as he does with us every time we descend into some hell of our own or other's making. If our faith has nothing to say in the difficult times it has nothing to say, period.
Most of us have, as they say, been around the block a few times by now - we know that life's not all sweetness and light. Rather life's a tapestry of joy and sorrow that forms the backdrop for our journey; life's not always joyful, not always easy, not always right. And, for that matter, we're not always perfect either - we're not always generous, not always loving, not always kind and compassionate, not always joyful - we're just not - that's life and human beings.
Here's the thing: embracing the real, the reality of life, is a gift to us because it's what helps us recognize when we come across something precious. We know what's genuine, and meaningful, and right, and we know what isn't any of those things, both in the world and in ourselves, if we're willing to be honest and open about life.
In the end we're blessed if we're able to recognize and embrace a vision of life as about being intentional; learning from the experiences we do have; learning that life's about who we journey with and how we make that journey together; that life's about learning the courage to move forward from the challenges that have wounded us into the new life that can bless us, because that's the kind of courage that the story books don't write about. But we know about it, and we know it's real.
Today - this moment when we celebrate Jesus' resurrection - tells us that, reminds us of the profound wisdom of celebrating this day only in the context of the one that has gone before. The Church has long celebrated the Triduum, the Great Three Days, realizing that cross severed from resurrection leads to a dark and destructive view of life, and of God; and resurrection severed from cross leads to a shallow and empty celebration that cannot sustain us and does not connect us to the God we meet in Jesus.
This Triduum, this Great Three Days offers us the opportunity to figure out what's really important in life - in one way or another we've all been through that refiner's fire that separates lead from gold - we've had to make the difficult decisions about what's ultimately important for us in life, about how to journey, and we each have had glimpses of glory along the way, glimpses of resurrection, glimpses of what can happen if we put our trust in God.
Now we bring the fruits of that experience into this present moment, and pray for another glimpse of glory, the gift of God to the people of God, life in its fullness that ultimately defeats all that is death-dealing in ourselves and in our world.
That's the vision of resurrection that comes to us this day - one that can sustain us.
So today - this moment - is a time of profound celebration made deeper by what has gone before. We have the opportunity - been gifted with the realization - that if we journey with each other from here on out and with the God we meet in Jesus, freshly born from death, we will find out what really matters, which, in the end, is each other, and our journey together into God's reign. Blessed resurrection! Happy day! Grace and peace from on high! They are ours this day and every day. Alleluia! Amen.
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