Easter, the celebration the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, means everything this year. We are in a time when similar forces of hatred and fear are raging, often at the cost of the wellbeing and even the lives of innocent people. These are the same forces that were given full voice by the crowds in Jerusalem calling for the crucifixion of an innocent man. Sometimes I am asked, as I’m sure you are, my fellow followers of Jesus, “So what is the church doing to address the pain and the injustice and ugliness of the present times?” It’s a very important, disruptive question, isn’t it? What is the church doing? The pace and ferocity of the changes happening in our nation and from our nation, into the world, are disorienting, as we wonder what is real, what is true, what is the rock on which we stand?
Easter gives us our response. The first and maybe the most important thing we do is to celebrate that undeniable truth that God chose to enter this world of sin, and meanness, and injustice in Jesus. He came as an outsider, with an accent of an uneducated worker in rural Palestine. He took on all the cruelty that humanity can dish out on one human being. He was loved, then betrayed by those who thought he would do more to liberate his people. He was executed after being wrongfully condemned. He entered this world, our world. He did this willingly and freely to prove to his people and to us, that hatred, fear, rage, scapegoating are nothing compared to the love of God. And his rising on Easter proves that righteousness wins over sin, hope drives out despair, life is stronger, always stronger, than death. He came into a world full of malice, and he brought beauty peace, kindness, and life. Easter invites us to join in that resurrection joy for the healing of the world.
What is the church doing in our day? We are proclaiming in our worship, in our care for each other, in our love for those whom society counts as unlovable, in our showing up on behalf of a just society, in our presence, at places that may not feel safe to go. And we show up with the boldness of those who have burst out of a tomb. We splash water and bring others into the risen body of Christ, we tell the stories of God showing us how to love, how to feed, heal, comfort, accompany, and keep vigil. And God surprises as God always does again and again, with a beauty that turns all the ugliness of our lives and our world into something new and glorious. What is the church doing? We show up, like Jesus did, in rooms full of fear and timidity to bear a message of Peace that surpasses all reason. We are following a way of life that is beautiful and just.
Every Sunday, I go into rooms throughout the diocese and I see people who are building anew a way to live that defies sin and death. The expressions of love and the call for fairness and mercy that are evident both within our walls, and extended well beyond our walls, are undeniable signs that the stone at the tomb has been rolled away and the Risen Christ lives among us. That’s what the Episcopal Church is doing to address the present distress of these days.
There is little that I can say that will add to the Good News of Jesus Christ’s rising from the dead that is ours in Easter. But what we all can do, as fellow disciples with you of the risen Christ, is point to the surpassing peace, the astonishing beauty that this rising gives us, in our day. Glory to God whose power working in us is doing things far greater than we can ask or imagine, Glory to God in the Risen Body of Christ, even the Church, all of us, now and forever. Let us all stand firm in our faith and hope in the death-defying, ever-Eastering love of Jesus.
Alleluia. Christ is Risen. The Lord is Risen Indeed. Alleluia.