There was a warm-hearted, but over-anxious secretary whose boss died suddenly one day, leaving on his desk a number of letters that he had been preparing to sign and send out. The helpful secretary put the boss’s rubber stamp signature on them, and then, after a moment’s thought, added the following postscript to each letter: “Since writing the above letter, I have died.”

A funeral happened to be passing by as an armored truck from a bank pulled up to an intersection. Since he couldn’t get through the procession, the driver joined it. An onlooker, impressed by the spectacle of the funeral cortege, remarked to a friend: “What do you know? You can take it with you.”

I’m going to be morbid for a few minutes, and I mean that literally. The word morbid comes from the Latin word mors, which means death. I’m going to talk about death. Do you ever think about death? I suspect that most of us who are middle-aged or older think about death fairly regularly, not dwelling on it, mind you, but having it come to mind. And I imagine that even younger people from time to time think about it. Michael Jackson’s and Farrah Fawcett’s untimely deaths just a couple of days ago certainly brought all of us face to face with our own mortality.

We surely do a lot to stave it off. We try to have healthy lifestyles, take vitamins, get our physicals, take medications to keep our blood pressures from being too high or too low, to keep our cholesterol down, and so on. Why do we do these things if not to keep away from death’s door for as long as possible? These are all good things. God gave us life. He intends for us to enjoy our lives, to live them to the fullest, to love life.

But death is something that will happen to each of us. We know that and we think about it. I am reminded of an anthem that may be said at the service of burial: “In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek for succor, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?”

Here death is linked with sin, which should remind us of the third chapter of Genesis, where we are told that death entered the world through the sin of Adam and Eve. But does that refer to a spiritual death, because their relationship with God was severed and they could no longer walk with him in the garden, or to physical death?

Our life of faith is very much related to death, for it begins with death—death to self. When we are baptized, we are baptized into death and raised to new life in Christ. The whole point is that this is the most significant death we can experience and when physical death does come it will be a transition into the nearer presence of God. Of course, the life of faith is one of learning what it means to die to self that the risen Christ may live in us. What does it mean to die to self with respect to my spouse, my employees, my boss, my friends? Would that argument I had with my wife gone any differently if I had remembered to die to self? Would I spend my money and my time differently if I really had a lifestyle of dying to self?

H. King Oehmig tells the story of a twelve-year-old girl by the name of Hope Stout who, in 2003, “was fighting bone cancer (osteosarcoma). Officials from the Make-a-Wish Foundation came to ask her, amid family, flowers, and cards, to make a last wish to take her mind off her terminal illness. Would she perhaps like to attend a teen fashion show? Have lunch with a movie idol? Visit a resort?

“She asked, ‘How many children are waiting for wishes to be granted?’ On learning that the agency was aware of 155 in her part of North Carolina, she declared, ‘Then my wish is to raise money to grant all of their wishes.’

“Hope herself never made it to the extravaganza that was organized to raise the money, because she died a few days beforehand. But in an interview taped before her death, she explained, ‘I just saw that God had given me a whole lot, and I had already been to Disneyworld and stuff. But I figured a lot of other kids hadn’t.’”

Hope Stout, at an early age, had learned something of what it means to die to self, even as she was anticipating her physical death. Perhaps the very immanence of her own death made her more open than most of us to thinking about those things in this life that have eternal significance. If I had been in Hope’s position I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t have been so selfless. In fact, I most likely would have asked to go up on the space shuttle!

The raising of Jairus’s daughter, another twelve-year-old girl that we heard about in today’s Gospel, led me to reflect on life and death, on the two kinds of life and death, spiritual and physical, and on their relationship to faith and salvation. It may be a stretch, but I believe Mark intended for his readers to contemplate these things when he recounted this story of the raising of Jairus’s daughter.

So let me ask you another question. What is the mission of the Church? Would you agree that the mission of the Church is the salvation of souls? Our catechism puts it differently: “The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” In other words, our mission is reconciliation, the reconciliation between God and his people, and among his people. That reconciliation is salvation, the saving of souls.

What does this have to do with life and death? “In the midst of life we are in death,” for without being reconciled with God we are spiritually dead, and that spiritual death causes us to be isolated not only from God, but also from one another. The Church, that is, you and I, is called to be a sign to the world of this salvation, this new life in our Lord Jesus Christ. We have died in our baptism. We are a resurrected people living in a community of resurrected people, the Church. We are called to live out this reality in community.

And so we gather, week after week, on the day of resurrection, the Lord’s Day, to remind ourselves of our calling, to hear scripture, to pray for one another, to confess the ways we have failed to live into our calling, to be renewed through the Body and Blood of our risen Lord, and to support and encourage one another in our calling. It’s a high calling, brothers and sisters in Christ, but it is the path to life, everlasting life.

When you come up to this Altar to receive Christ, think about what you’re doing. Don’t think about who you’re passing on your way up to the Altar, or the fact that the mass is almost over, or what you’re going to be doing later on. Think about renewing your covenant with God and the fact that you are about to receive him anew into your life. Be thankful that God has brought you out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life. While we do think about death, we no longer should see it from a morbid perspective, for we are people of the resurrection.

Have you ever been in a violent storm at sea? When I was in high school, a friend of mine had a small sail boat that we took out on Lake Erie one fine day. He was the boater; I was a novice. We got into the middle of the lake, and what began as a fine day began to look threatening, so we started to make our way back, but we didn’t make it back before it started to rain.

At that time in my life I knew that my plans included seminary down the road. My friend calmly suggested that if I had an appropriate prayer, now might be the time to say it. That’s when I started to be concerned about our situation!

Anyone who knows Lake Erie knows that it’s a shallow lake, and that even minor storms cause fairly large waves very quickly, which is not unlike the Sea of Galilee, which is also a shallow lake. In only a matter of minutes we were in a life-threatening situation. The boat was being tossed to and fro, and with every wave it seemed like the boat could capsize. It was also nearly impossible to know where the shore was. At least, I couldn’t see it. I prayed a lot during that time. My friend was an experienced boater, though, and eventually we made it to shore, thanking God that we were all right.

When I took a group to the Holy Land several years ago, we saw a 2000 year old boat that had been found in 1986 along the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. Carbon-14 testing confirmed that it had been constructed and used between 100 B.C. and 70 A.D. It was 26 feet long and 7 feet wide and could carry 15 people. It is probably just this kind of boat that Jesus and his disciples were in as they were crossing the Sea of Galilee.

Jesus had spent a full day teaching and preaching. He was worn out. He needed rest. So he told the disciples that it was time to get away, and the only way to do that was to go to the other side of the lake, where there weren’t crowds of people. When he got in the boat he went to sleep, and he was so tired that the storm didn’t wake him. But the disciples were terrified, fearing for their lives. Keep in mind that several of these disciples were experienced fishermen, and should have known when there was a real threat.

We know how the story ends. The disciples wakened Jesus. He calmed the storm and then chastised them for their lack of faith. Surely they should have known that he would not let them perish. After all, he had told them that he wanted to go to the other side.

This story of the calming of the storm has two levels of meaning for us today. The first is the obvious. Jesus could not only teach and preach powerfully, not only could heal people and even raise the dead, but also he had power over the forces of nature. Even wind and seas obeyed him.

Now I know that there are some skeptics in the congregation who believe this is just another pious tale for gullible people. In fact, there may be some mothers and sons and daughters here today who are only here because their husbands or fathers asked it of them as a favor for Fathers’ Day. They may not “buy” this religious stuff at all.

There are others who can accept the spiritual teaching of Jesus, but find it difficult, even superstitious, to believe that Jesus did anything that a truly charismatic person of any age couldn’t do. That attitude is nothing new, of course. Thomas Jefferson concocted a “gospel” in which he took out of the four gospels all things supernatural—no water turned to wine, no walking on water, no sight to the blind, no raising of the dead, and certainly no calming of the sea. There are even Christian biblical scholars today, who are teaching our future clergy, that begin their scholarship with the presupposition that anything supernatural in the gospels must be explained metaphorically. In other words, it must be explained away.

I have no illusions that this sermon will change the course of that kind of thinking! But for those who hold those beliefs, and they are beliefs, no more provable than what they negate, I say, to borrow a phrase from (I believe) John A. T. Robinson, “Your God is too small.”

While our faith in Jesus does not rest on any of the things I have mentioned, our faith does rest on the greatest supernatural event of all—the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. I would suggest to you that the God who was able to accomplish that, would be able, in Jesus, to do everything else attributed to him. I also must say that a faith in Jesus that will not allow for his complete uniqueness, including that which is supernatural, is a convenient faith that allows one to revise the foundations of the faith to suit one’s own sensibilities, rather than to submit oneself to that which has been revealed—and that is a very slippery slope indeed. And yet, that is where much theological thinking is today in our seminaries, where the object is to re-image Christ. As someone once said, “In the beginning God created man and woman in his image, and ever since we have been attempting to return the compliment.”

But there is another level to the story of the calming of the sea, and that level is—are you ready for this?—metaphorical. The same Jesus who has power over the forces of nature is able to calm the storms in our lives. You may have lost your job, you or a family member may be ill, your marriage may be in a rough spot, your child may be having trouble with drugs, you may have just broken up with your boyfriend. You fill in the blank. Many, if not all, of us have a storm going, of some sort, most all of the time.

Whatever the problem, there is nothing that can happen to you or me that will defeat us if we put our faith in Christ. Here is where the metaphor ends. That doesn’t mean that when you have faith whatever storm you’re experiencing will cease. You may not get the job you wanted, or be cured; your marriage may still be rocky, and your child may still be addicted to drugs, although faith in Christ can also calm these storms. What you will be able to do, no matter what the outcome, is withstand anything that life brings with that supernatural peace that passes understanding. I can’t prove it, but I believe it.

John Wesley, an Anglican priest in the 18th century, was crossing the Atlantic, headed for Georgia, when a violent storm arose. He feared for his life, along with almost everyone else on board. There was a group of Moravians, however, who were not fearful. They stayed together as a group during the storm, praying, reading scripture, and singing hymns. Wesley was deeply moved by their faith and witness, and wanted that kind of faith himself. Later on in his life, he experienced the presence of God in a new way and in which he felt that he had been granted that kind of faith—a complete trust in God’s providence.

I didn’t have that kind of faith when I went through that storm on Lake Erie, but I believe I do now, and I pray God will grant us all that faith that calms the storm.

When you’re dedicated and faithful enough, the seeds will always grow!

It just isn’t true, but, we wish it were so! Pastors & businessmen alike talk about some of the major myths of growth like: (a)If you are dedicated enough your church will al-ways grow and (b) all God ever expects is faithfulness. They speak about church growth conferences where dedicated pastors finish leaving feeling more guilty, frustrated, inade-quate than when they arrived. These men and women are faithful to God’s Word! They pray feverently! They are solid preachers! Sometimes their churches just refuse to grow. Why? Maybe it’s just a poor fit? Or, maybe the pastor is running out of gas? Perhaps the leaders have the will, but not the updated skills nor right tools? Maybe the timing is bad? Maybe the church just doesn’t pray hard enough or work hard enough? Let’s change the metaphor: If you’re dedicated and pray hard enough, your life and your job and your men-tal health will all always be fine! Tell that to the thousands who have now lost their jobs, to the man/woman who’s spouse just died, to a young child cancer patient, to a person drown-ing in the giant spiderweb of depression & inactivity! Where’s my growth? Where’s God?

What do today’s lessons really tell us? All of Mark chapter 4 is about sowing and producing: the parable of the sower, then today’s Gospel: the soil producing grain by itself and the Parable of the Mustard Seed. In the Old Testament, the prophet Ezekiel warns us to “be careful how we use our towering strength lest it be cast down according to its own wickedness.”

So what can we learn from these stories? (1) Good things can indeed begin in small sizes. In the Arab world today the phrase, “as small as a mustard seed” is still commonly used. Often the tiniest seed sprouts to gigantic heights of 14 feet or more. (2) Of course the disciples were discouraged! Their initial flurry of growth had given way to increased opposition, disappointments and then abandonment. That’s why it says in Mk. 4.33, “He spoke the words to them as best they were able to hear it.” So,Jesus told the disciples today’s parables to encourage them never to give up! We’re inspired not to get sucked into the contemporary demands of instant results, numbers, success. (3) You and I and the disciples are reminded that God’s growth takes time.His timetable will never be the same as ours. (4)As Biblical and contemporary writers remind us, God wants us to be faithful, warns us not to abuse our gifts and asks for our loyal trust and patience.

So,thinking about all of this and Redeemer what can we say? First, after 15 years, you know that Fr. Fred is only basically interested in your spiritual growth & personal well being. He doesn’t care about numerical growth nor regular church attendance! Am I not right?? Almost? Perhaps I should adjust a little and admit that he wouldn’t mind if we had both, spiritual and numerical growth. Of course, the two do go hand in hand! That’s why we have Redeemer’s Strategic Parish Plan -spiritual & numerical growth. Second, this all ap-plies to the parish as a whole, but perhaps most intentionally to: the Saturday night Con-
temporary Service, Sunday Hispanic Mass, Small Group Ministries development, greater overall parish mission and sharing opportunities. Redeemer continues to be very interested in all spiritual and numerical growth in the total parish, but perhaps now especially in each of these four above mentioned areas.

Finally, let me add an important aside. Obviously, one commonality in all of Redeemers areas of spiritual (and numerical) growth is the pow-erful presence & action of God’s Holy Spirit within & amongst us. Without His presence there is no growth. Clearly to me God’s Spirit is alive and well at 7: 30 and
9: 00 and 11: 00. But, how He expresses Himself in the Men’s Ministry Groups or the Saturday Night Contemporary or the Sunday Hispanic Masses continues to be both a challenge and an opportunity for Redeemer! Put another way,God’s One Spirit certain-ly fits all, but perhaps one size may not completely!

Now what can we say about ourselves and today’s Gospel and Ezekiel’s pro-phesies? Can we really believe that good things do often start in small packages? Can we faithfully handle the inevitable disappointments and frustrations of life plaguing us all? Canwe resist the temptations to always look for immediate rewards and growth? Are we patient with God and ourselves? Do we gratefully accept our God-given gifts, yet always careful not to abuse or overuse them? Do we believe, as the saying goes, that “ you only have one life to live ” or can you see it all more as a series of interconnected, but not predetermined new beginnings ,each filled with its own tasks & possibilities, joys & despairs, yet all designed to lead in the same direction-towards happiness & fulfillment? How do you see your life ?? How do you travel ?? It makes a difference!

The Collect for Today: [ Perhaps this is helpful!! ]

“Keep us, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through
your Grace we may always proclaim your truth with boldness and justice and compassion.” Prop.6

Have you ever thought about how connected we are to one another? John Donne thought about it, when he wrote “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

We are connected to one another. Take for example how we communicate with one another. We couldn’t begin to express our thoughts, our feelings, our needs if it were not for language. Where did that language come from? It developed over hundreds of years, even thousands. As people discern a need to describe something they affix a word to it; then they let others know, and we are able to communicate. The language is refined over the generations, and rules of grammar are devised to make our communication ever more precise.

If two adults had to come up with a language all by themselves, without any prior knowledge of how a language is developed, it would take them a long, long time to come up with what the average third grader knows and takes for granted. But what that third grader knows he or she knows because of the interconnectedness of the human family. “No man is an island.” Language is just one example of how dependent we are on one another.

God made the creation that way, so that every part of creation needs every other part. He could have created things differently, if he had desired to do so. God could have created every individual element to be totally self-sufficient. I can’t even imagine what that would look like. Our science would certainly look entirely different, if God had made his creation in such a way.

As it is, creation mirrors how God is in himself—in relationship. The Father abides in the Son and the Son abides in the Father, and the Holy proceeds from the Father and the Son. The three persons of the Trinity are in perfect relationship with one another, so perfect that while there are three persons, the unity resulting is such that there is one God.

The unity of God’s creation, however, is not so perfect, especially with respect to humanity. God gave us free will at the same time that he created us to live in unity with him, with one another, and with the rest of the created order. He intended for all people to live in the bonds of love, yet as we are painfully aware in the particularity of our own lives, that goal of God was not achieved. The history of salvation that is recounted in Holy Scripture is a history of how God has been actively working to bring about the unity that he intends for all people. How he chose Abraham and his descendents to be his people, that they might mirror that unity that he desires; how he never gave up on the Hebrew people, as they continued to live in ways that thwarted that unity, by calling the prophets to speak for him; and finally how he sent his Son to suffer and die in order to effect reconciliation between his people and himself is the drama that we reenact throughout the Christian year, and in fact, in a very abbreviated form, at every eucharist. The Church was brought into being in order not only to bring members of the Church into unity with him, but also to be a sign to the entire world of the kind of life God intends for every human being.

In the Gospel for today we heard part of Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer. As he is preparing to die on the cross, to reconcile us with God, he prays for unity. “Holy Father, keep them in thy name,… that they may be one, even as we are one.” Jesus is praying that his sacrifice may bear the fruit it was intended to produce to effect the reconciliation of the world to God. We often think of salvation in very individualistic terms, especially those of us in the United States, where we have such a strong tradition of rugged individualism. Yet Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer paints a much different picture, pulling us back to our interconnectedness. I’m reminded of one writer who said, “He who goes to God without his brother, is likely to find not God, but the devil, who will bear an embarrassing resemblance to himself.”

I have just finished a book titled The Sistine Secrets, by Benjamin Blech and Roy Doliner. It’s about Michelangelo’s painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Painted in the 16th century, it reflects both the terrible and the wonderful things that were going on in the Church. During that time, Jews in Italy were undergoing tremendous persecution by the Church, the papacy was corrupt, and there were many who wanted to bring about massive reforms in the Church. It was during this time, of course, that Martin Luther and others were trying to effect reform.

Pope Julius II commissioned the famous sculptor Michelangelo to do a painting that would glorify his papacy. Amazingly, he gave Michelangelo a great deal of freedom in designing the frescoes for the ceiling. Michelangelo, who was thoroughly schooled by Florentine free-thinkers, was sympathetic to the Jews as well as to much of Reformation thought. Nevertheless, his ideas of toleration and brotherhood had to be cleverly disguised or they would never be allowed to remain. The writers of the book claim that the disguises were so effective that they weren’t discovered until the cleaning of the ceiling in preparation for the Jubilee in the Year 2000.

Michelangelo and others of like mind were not successful in their goals. The Jews continued to be persecuted. The reformers ended up splitting the Church, rather than reforming it. We have lived with the split so long that it seems like the way things ought to be, rather than the scandal that it is. In our own Southwest Florida territory, we have an Episcopal bishop, a Roman Catholic bishop, a Methodist bishop, and a Lutheran bishop. A bishop is supposed to be a symbol of the unity of the Church. And we have far more churches that don’t recognize the office of bishop than those four represent. The Church is called to be the sign to the world of the unity God desires for the whole human family.

Yet our Lord’s prayer for his Church remains that we all may be one. Every time we celebrate the Holy Eucharist we acknowledge that fact as we pray for unity. And there are signs of hope. The ecumenical movement continues. There are numerous documents between Church bodies concerning what we really can agree upon. There is even interfaith dialogue among Christians and Jews and even Muslims, which are extremely important.

But the issue of unity is not just for religious bodies, but for individuals as well. Our Lord wills for us to be reconciled to one another. True reconciliation comes only through him, and through his grace. The best way that we can celebrate the resurrection is by acknowledging that Christ indeed makes us one and by living into that reality through our words and deeds, for truly, no one is an island.

John 20 (1-18) 19-31

Living In His Resurrection- It’s not so much that we take it on, but rather that it (He) takes us on!!

So said one of my great Episcopal Church heroes, Bishop John Coburn of Massachusetts when I rediscovered his words:“Living In His Resurrection-It’s not so much that we take it on ,but rather that it (He-Christ) takes us on!!”But, what does it mean? How can we,“live in The Resurrection? Is it something about not going it alone, but instead letting God’s Holy Spirit carry us?

I thought about 2009 Easter Images: Easter Vigil-beautiful liturgy and music, Dylan and Isabel shouting, “I do!”, happy smiles and tears; Easter Day-majestic choirs and organ, “Christus Vinchant, Christus Reingnat, Christus Impérat”, Nakita, our young Russian woman security guard saying with teary eyes that she liked Redeemer because it is like her childhood Russian Orthodox Church, 9:00 communicants trying to get out and 11:00 o’clockers unable to get in, home commun-ions with a Spanish family expecting a baby boy on Monday. My family; 2 young grandaughters!

Then I remembered, Fr. Robert E. Terwilliger, in 1973 Director of Trinity Institute (study/ conference center for clergy) & professor at The NYC General Theological Seminary, who wrote a book entitled Christian Believing. It was the first in a new adult Christian education study series written for, “the average lay person”and one of the clearest basic theology books I know. In the chapter on “Experiencing The Resurrection”, Fr.Terwilliger makes some candid statements like:

*Christian believing is an action, something we do because of what the Holy
Spirit does in us. We are pulled along, dragged along!*

* In our Western Church, we have developed “an upside-down pattern”with a tre-
mendous emphasis on The Passion and Crucifixion, but then somehow we lose the great joy of the 50 Days of Eastertide. The festival is never fully celebrated!*

* Fr. Terwilliger talks about the beauty and meaning of the Liturgy in the Eastern Orthodox Church (much like Redeemer) where, “….. the resurrection is an actuality; not merely an event in the past, but an experience which we enter into.”*

Are we beginning now to find some clues about how to, “live into Christ’s resurrection?”

Maybe, today’s Gospel (John 20) provides some more answers, but we may also find new surprises.There are three sections: (a) vv. 1-18, on the first day of the week, the empty tomb- Mary Magdalene-Jesus (“Rabboni”); (b) vv. 19-23 that same evening, the disciples behind locked doors “for fear of the Jews”, Jesus says “Peace be with you!”plus the Commissioning gift of The Holy Spirit ; (c) vv. 24-31 a week later, the story of doubting Thomas. Watchfully reading, we discover the chapter’s main idea is not “Peace be with you!”nor “Doubting Thomas”, but is found in verse 31-“But these (words) are written that you may believe that Jesus is The Christ, The Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”Revisiting Bishop Coburn’s words, we ask ourselves again how can we truly believe and live in (into) His resurrection? Is it possible that a renewed faith will generate new beliefs which then will create new life within us?

Now just a little bit more! The Church teaches that the primary evidences for the Ressur-rection of Christ are three: (1)the dramatic, drastic and rapid changes which came over the apostles & the early church; (2) generations upon generations of life-giving experiences of death and new resur-rections; and (3) above all, our own personal experiences and feelings and then knowing The Risen Christ in our lives. One last time, let’s listen to Bishop John Coburn’s Words: “The very heart of the Christian Gospel is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…. A new dimension comes into our lives causing us to live differently….It appeared to Paul and it now appears to us….That new dimension is living love and doing truth- being in Christ, obeying, living with Him. It’s not so much a reality that we take on, it takes us on….we who repudiate our desire to always get our own way- are by faith and then belief made partakers of His resurrection….To live in Christ’s Spirit is a heavenly promise, but it is also a present reality to be lived now….What’s im-portant is that we we ever strive to live into the Resurrected Spirit -New Life of the crucified and risen Christ today!”

“ !Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus impérat!”

Christ conquers! Christ reigns! Christ commands!

Alleluia! Christ is risen! Years ago I was taught the same proclamation in Greek: Christos anesti! Christ is risen. Alethos anesti! He is risen indeed! That phrase is the heart of our faith, whether in English, or Greek, or in any of the other hundreds of languages in which it is said on Easter Day. Christ is risen! He is alive!

We proclaim it every time we say the Creed. We proclaim it in every Eucharistic prayer. Whether we realize it or not, every time we speak of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit we proclaim the resurrection, for God is not dead, but is living. When I have been in England, one of the things that I always noticed about their prayer book is the way they end all of their collects of the day. That ending is “through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever.” “Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive.” Our collects say the same thing, but in different words: “Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns…” I think that saying “through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive” is a much stronger way of saying it. It’s harder to miss the point.

That proclamation goes back to the first Easter Day, that day when the tomb in which Jesus’ cold, dead body had been placed, was found empty. Jesus in his resurrected body appeared to a few of his followers. The Gospel accounts don’t agree on who was actually the first to see him, which makes perfect sense if you think about it. Let’s say an accident occurs at a busy intersection and is witnessed by several people. Each one who saw the accident is interviewed, and not one of the accounts will completely agree with any of the others. It happened quickly, it startled everyone who saw it, and recall will be subject to individual perceptions. The one thing you know is that if two individuals agree completely on every detail, there has been conversation between the two. That would be the one testimony that would be suspect.

Likewise, the fact that none of the Gospel accounts agree on all of the details attests to their authenticity. If they all agreed on the details there would be no doubt that one had copied from another. What they all agree on is that there was an empty tomb, it was discovered first by at least Mary Magdalene, and the resurrected Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene and to the disciples. They all agree on that. It wasn’t a ghost or an apparition. It wasn’t a strong feeling of a spiritual presence. It was Jesus in his resurrected body. That body was certainly different than it had been before his death. At times, they did not recognize him. It had the marks of his wounds, but he was healed. He could appear and disappear. But he could also eat, and he invited Thomas to touch him.

The disciples had not expected this outcome. They had thought that Jesus was the Messiah, but when he died the ignoble death of a common criminal, all of their hopes in him were dashed. It was only the bodily resurrection of Jesus that changed their thinking and made them realize the true nature of their Lord.

The resurrection is the heart of the Christian faith, yet from the beginning there have been skeptics. An ancient form of denial of the resurrection was a heresy called Docetism. In this form of thought, the whole earthly life of Jesus was not what it seemed. He only appeared to be human, according to the Docetists. He only appeared to suffer and appeared to die. So the resurrection was just one more magical act. A good deal of the Nicene Creed was directed at the Docetists, making sure that the Church affirmed the full humanity of Jesus.

In our own day, in fact in the whole modern era, the concept of the resurrection has been attacked as a vestige of an ignorant, superstitious age, from which we have, thankfully, emerged. In this way of thinking, if Christianity is to be relevant it must see the resurrection in a metaphorical way. Jesus had been such a strong teacher, that his teachings lived on in such a way that his followers spoke of Jesus as living on. The resurrection stories grew out of that mindset, as a way of coping with their grief in losing him. Anyone who thinks otherwise is labeled unenlightened, ignorant, fundamentalist, unscientific, conservative, and so on.

N.T. Wright and Craig Evans, in their book, Jesus, the Final Days: What Really Happened, state that this way of dealing with the resurrection stories is totally implausible. They state: “We know…of several other movements where the leader was killed, the one upon whom everyone had pinned their hope; but at no point do we find such movements then suffering from the blessed twentieth-century disease called cognitive dissonance, where they make up stories about something glorious that has happened in order to try to come to terms with their grief. That just doesn’t work as history.”

But most all of us grew up in that skeptical environment, or in the case of our young people, they are growing up in that environment. I believe in the resurrection as an actual event because of what it did to the disciples. Every one of the original disciples, minus Judas, plus Matthias, who took his place, and with the exception of John, died a martyr’s death, simply because they believed that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. I don’t believe they would have done that if he had not been raised.

Admittedly, it’s easier on us all if it is a metaphor. If that is the case, then Jesus is not unique. He is not God, any more than any of us is God. There isn’t a Holy Trinity, and all of the other world religions are just as true as ours. Furthermore, there is no real need in that case to evangelize. My truth is no better, no truer, than someone else’s truth. That seems so much more enlightened, it certainly is more politically correct, and let’s not forget it, it is so much more comfortable. A belief in Jesus’ resurrection as metaphor demands nothing of us other than what we want to make of it, for it is truth that is purely subjective. But make no bones about it, it isn’t Christianity.

If Jesus was indeed raised from the dead, then he really has ascended to the Father, his Spirit is with his Church, and he will lead us into all truth. All that he said about himself is true. We have been given that revelation and we are to live it out in our daily lives, and we are held accountable for it. “Of him to whom much is given, much is required.”

The irony of the Gospel, though, is that when you really allow yourself to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, not metaphorically but physically, that he is alive, that his Spirit is with his Church; and if you allow this Jesus truly to be Lord of your life, it is the most freeing thing that can happen to you and it is truly life-giving. When we say Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! May we truly mean it.

Watch out! Holy Week has begun and with it the re-presentation of those events that brought about the salvation of the world. As we experience once more the events of Holy Week, they have the power to change your life and my life. So I say again, watch out!

That being the case, I am going to give you a few tips on how to keep that from happening, on how to make Easter Day as much like any other day as possible. In other words, here are a few tips on how to make Easter Day as bland and meaningless as possible.

First of all, plan right now not to be a part of any services this week, but only to be present on Easter Day. Don’t come tonight to Evensong, when Dubois’ Seven Last Words of Christ will be sung as the anthem. The music might just touch your heart and inspire you to want to be here for other services.

Secondly, don’t spend any extra time in prayer or the reading of scripture.

When the Paschal Triduum starts with the service on Maundy Thursday, that’s when you really need to avoid being anywhere near the church. Those are the three most important days of the Church Year. If you miss being present for the liturgies on the first two days, Maundy Thursday evening and Good Friday, then you will have robbed Easter Day of much of its power, and therefore of its ability to change your life.

Certainly don’t fast on Good Friday. Fasting, when combined with prayer, makes that prayer more intense. So, have a big, juicy hamburger on Good Friday, just to make sure there are no hints of any sacrifice on your part that day. Even small sacrifices on our part can remind us of Jesus’ sacrifice, and that’s something you wouldn’t want to do this week, especially if you want to assure yourself of a bland and meaningless Easter.

In order to make sure you are successful in staying away from the church this week, and especially during the Triduum, fill your schedule with other things, so that you can be ready with a good excuse. Plan to play golf, if you’re a golfer, as much as possible. If you have children, plan an outing on Good Friday, perhaps going to Disney World. Even watching television instead of coming to the services will suffice. And if you can’t think of anything else you’d rather do, then just use the excuse that you’re not religious, and anything other than going to church on Easter Day is for religious people.

The devil really likes that excuse, because it always fits every occasion. Will you pray daily? Oh no, I’m not religious. Will you participate in the Paschal Triduum? Oh no, I’m not religious. Will you fast on Good Friday? Oh no, I’m not religious. Will you confess your sins, help the needy, serve on a committee, give for the work of the Church? Oh no, I’m not religious. It works for all occasions, and it is especially effective during Holy Week.

To summarize, keep this week as secularly as possible. Make the most important thing you do in preparation for Easter the buying of new clothes or the preparation of the meal for Easter Day. That will make sure that this Easter Day will be no different from any other day. If, on the other hand, you wish to make Easter as meaningful and rich as possible, then……….Oh, I guess I really don’t have to go into that now, do I?

Where do you go to be close to God? Perhaps you might find a beautiful, secluded spot, where you can hear the birds sing and you don’t have the distractions of the computer and cell phone. Or perhaps you might come to the church and sit in the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament, and light a candle, and say your prayers. Or perhaps it’s not a particular place at all, but any place where you can have your prayer book and your Bible and a little peace and quiet.

People have probably always found the beauty of nature to be a place where they could contemplate on the meaning of life and pray to their god. And of course people of all religions have had places that are holy, where the presence of God as they understood him could be most keenly encountered.

For the Hebrew people, there was one place on earth where that divine Presence could be encountered in the fullest way possible, and that was the place where Abraham had brought his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice, and where God had provided instead another sacrifice. It was the place on which the grand and beautiful temple had been built. If you had had a baby and wanted to thank God for that birth, you would come and make a sacrifice in that temple. In fact, you were supposed to do that. If you could, you were supposed to offer a sheep; but if you were poor, two doves or two pigeons could be substituted. They were much less expensive and could be bought outside the temple for about a day’s wage.

Any offering, however, had to be without blemish, and if you bought your offering outside of the temple, you ran the risk of the inspector finding a blemish, and then you would have to buy your pigeons in the temple anyway. In buying an animal in the temple you couldn’t use your Roman money, which you used in every other aspect of your life, because Roman coins were stamped with the image of the emperor. The emperor was considered to be a god, and so coins stamped with his image could not be used at any point in transactions in the temple. So if you bought something in the temple, like two pigeons, you first had to exchange your Roman coins for Palestinian shekels.

It was big business. Enterprising souls had a bird’s nest on the ground, so to speak. Inspectors could always find a blemish, and what could be sold outside the temple precincts for a day’s wage could be sold for much more within the temple. And you could charge a tidy sum just for changing people’s Roman coins for shekels. Even some of the clergy gave up their love for God in favor of the almighty dollar. As one commentator put it, “Most notably the High Priest whom Jesus was brought before, Annas, along with his five sons who succeeded him to that position,” had reigns “that can best be summed up with the words, ‘The Marketplace of the family of Annas.’”

What was supposed to be a holy place, a place of prayer for all people, had become something that resembled the kind of thing that Bernard Madoff and his like did to people in our own day. It was detestable. It took advantage of everyone, but especially of the poor, who couldn’t afford it and yet who were obligated by God’s law to make sacrifices in the temple.

But it was the way it was done. Most everyone accepted it as the price you had to pay for faithfulness. And the temple was beautiful, and it did cost money to run such an operation. Jesus could have just gone along with it. He would be popular with the people, but he could also curry the favor of the leadership.

But our Lord didn’t see it that way. He loved the temple. It was his Father’s house, and it was intended to be a place of prayer for all people. Instead, it was a den for thieves and robbers dressed in religious garb.

Well, we know the story. According to John, Jesus’ first act, you might say his first official act in his ministry, after he had turned the water into wine at the wedding at Cana, was a most violent act. He made a “whip of cords” and drove the salesmen and moneychangers, along with all of the animals, out of the temple, pouring out their coins on the ground and turning over the tables. He probably wasn’t going to get an invitation any time soon after that to say the invocation at the local Chamber of Commerce!

John tells us that the people who witnessed this act asked him, “What sign have you to show us for doing this?” It seems a rather calm question after such a violent act. Perhaps it was more like, “How dare you?!” Jesus responded with the words that make this Gospel so appropriate for Lent: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Of course, he wasn’t talking about the building, but about his own body. He was predicting his crucifixion and resurrection.

It was just this sort of thing that got him crucified. As John Hines, a former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, said, “They did not crucify Jesus for saying, ‘Behold, the lilies of the field, how they grow.’ They crucified him for saying, ‘Consider the thieves of the temple, and how they steal.’”

Even the very things that are meant to bring us closer to God can be twisted to suit the tempter’s ends. The self-centeredness of our human nature can turn the purest of God’s instruments into instruments of the forces of evil. As today’s collect puts it, “we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves.” But what we do have, that the people in the temple did not have, is the power of the risen Christ within us. For as he predicted, he was put to death, that temple of his body was destroyed, and in three days he was raised. The risen Christ is with us. there is no greater power on earth than that Presence.

You and I have what we need to live in the Presence of God, no matter what is going on around us, and that being the case, there is nothing that can happen to us that can overcome us. That is, if we do not trust in our own power, but put our trust in him.

Where do you go to be close to God? He lives within you, and so wherever you are you can be close to him.

Gen.22.1-14,Rom. 8.31-39

his Lent, if you’ve tried everything else; “Why not try God?”

Listening to the National Weather Report last Monday and smugly watching the Nor’-easter “Mega Storm” roar up the Eastcoast, I thought about past winters in Boston and New York City (worse in Syracuse and Minneapolis-St. Paul). I remembered many past Lent’s: snow storms galore; Palm Sunday blizzard Processions; Good Friday White Out’s. Then I rediscovered an old friend, Slow Down ,written one stressful (snowy?) Springtime in Syracuse, N.Y. by Fr, Joseph Champlin, Rector of the R.C. Cathedral of The Immaculate Conception. I bought his book three years ago at the Tampa Franciscan Retreat Center. Turns out that Fr. Champlin had written a series of short Lenten pieces for the local neighborhood newspapers which focused heavily on the topic of stress. A creative advertising executive picked them up on the local radio station three days a week, throughout the day and at 5:43 P.M. right when all the listening audience were driving home in the ice and snow. At the end of each sixty-second “public service” spot, the following tag line message was repeated over and over again: “You may have tried everything else; why not try God?”

So, recalling Fr. Fred’s words last week about dying to self so that we may live for others and for Christ; seeking to find our own real selves once more; picking up Fr. Champlin’s Lenten sound bite phrase “Why not try God?”; and looking at today’s powerful lessons, let us begin!

Today’s Old Testament Genesis Lesson is the indomitable story about Abraham’s plan-ned sacrifice of his son Isaac and God’s last minute intervention on Mt. Moriah; which is seen as the prefiguration, preview, of Christ’s (God’s only begotton Son) Passion. In the Epistle to the Romans Paul shouts out that nothing (no matter how hard) can ever separate him or us completely from the love of God. In Mark’ Gospel chapter 8 we hear again the fundamental truthful words of, “The gospel within the Gospel”: ‘…whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.’Mk. 8.35 So, how do we gain back, find our life again? By giving it up to Christ and all those around us and then receiving it back in spades and re-discovering our true selves! Let go! Let God! Find self! These stories are the Bible’s, but they’re also my stories (“my real stories” as I told Jay Crouse Friday morning at the “Y” ) and perhaps they’re your’s too! Then, we hear today’s Collect’s piercing words:“……. bring us again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchange-able truth of thy Word, Jesus Christ thy Son; …..!”

Over the years you and I have all climbed our share of “sacrificial mountains”, often to be saved at the last minute up on the top by God. We all know too that after all is said and done, no matter how tough the going gets, when we remain faithful and endure, God will always be stead-fast with us; never forget us nor leave us alone. And we have also learned again and again that the Christian key, the life key, TO LIFE is letting go and giving away and then receiving back more than we ever gave out in the first place. And so the words of these three commanding lessons today call us back to Fr. Champlin’s compelling Upstate Syracuse, New York wintry words: Dear broth-ers and sisters in Christ, this Lent, why not try God again, even more than before?

Of course our dilemma is that we’re all like Peter! What do I mean? Look a moment at The Gospel! Three verses before today’s story Jesus asks, “Who do people say that I am?” Peter replies, “You are the Messiah!” Then Jesus begins to teach that He must suffer, be rejected, cruci-fied. Peter is aghast, thinks He’s insane, rebukes Jesus. Messiahship does not include suffering! Then Jesus’words, “Get behind me, Satan!” Jesus proclaims, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me!”Not words Peter or we really want to hear!

The sermon today: (1) urges us to trust God and remain steadfast in our faith.(2) It re-minds us that the best way to find and/or rediscover the true meaning of life is to Let Go, Let God, then Find Ourselves! Finally, (3) we are encouraged this Lent by the snowbelt Upstate New York words of Fr. Champlin, “You may have tried everything else, why not try God?”

We’re called today: “to embrace and to hold fast to the unchangeable truth of God’s Word!” With God’s help, let us all try to do so this Lent once again! AMEN

I have heard that English is one of the most difficult of all languages to learn as a second language. The difficulty lies in our verbs, since there are so many irregular verbs. A good example of this is the verb to go, the past tense of which is went, which bears no resemblance to the verb go. It’s amazing we learn the language at all, and as our children learn to talk, they often say the darnedest things, to borrow a phrase from Art Linkletter, which I realize really dates me!

Our children were so much fun watching them learn the language, as all children are. I can remember our daughter, Rebecca, having some trouble with the verb “to eat.” When she had eaten something, she would say she “ot” it. “I ot my potatoes.” she’d say. One night as I was saying prayers with her at bedtime, I noticed she said, “Our Father, who ot in heaven,” and I realized her picture of what she was saying must be that our heavenly Father, whom she had not seen, must have quite an appetite, which was not unlike her earthly father, whom she had seen.

The Lord’s Prayer is full of words that children don’t understand—temptation, trespasses, hallowed, and, of course, art, in Rebecca’s case. Some people might question the practice of teaching a child something that he of she cannot possibly understand for many years to come, but of course we teach our children these things now so that they become a part of the fabric of their lives, so that later on, when they do understand, they will know how to pray, and will have a reservoir of spiritual teaching that will aid them in the chances and changes of this life.

In today’s Gospel we heard again of how Jesus was baptized and how he went from that baptism into the wilderness. His baptism was a prefiguring of his death and resurrection, and his time in the wilderness was a time of preparation for his earthly ministry. Just as our Lord’s baptism was only the beginning of his ministry, our baptism is only the beginning of our life of faith.

We often live as if our membership in Christ’s Body, the Church, is a static reality, that by virtue of our baptism we are made members of the Church, and that’s the end of it. But baptism is only a beginning in our pilgrimage as Christians. Through our baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ we are beginning a lifetime of learning what it means to die daily to sin and rise to newness of life. And just as our Lord was tempted in the wilderness, so we, too, encounter many temptations throughout our lives that would take us away from that central reality begun in us at our baptism. As we teach our children the content of the faith at an early age, our hope is that they will have the resources to withstand temptation, and also to know that when they do fall, which they will, they will know that their heavenly Father forgives them.

The lesson here, however, is of course not just for children and how to train them, for we all encounter temptation, and are subject to falling away from that course that always takes us to the cross. The philosophy that Linda and I used to train our children and that so many of you use or used to train your children is really the philosophy that is best for us as we seek to be faithful. Pray daily, read the Holy Scriptures, be present on Sunday for the Eucharist, not because we may be in any particular danger of falling on any given day, although that is always a possibility—actually, it is a probability—but because we need to build the spiritual strength for those “big” tests of faith, and if we have not been conditioning ourselves our resources will be slim.

It is so easy to get caught up in the various activities that consume our time—work, sports, television, plays, the opera, movies, and so on—to forget the discipline that is so essential to Christian life. It’s not dramatic, but it must be present if we are to grow as Christians.

This being the First Sunday in Lent, we are beginning a journey and we are doing it together. Always on this First Sunday in Lent the Gospel has to do with the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness. Matthew and Luke in their accounts of the Gospel give us the substance of Jesus’ temptations, but Mark, which we heard from this morning, does not. He tells us very little, but the little that he tells us is interesting indeed. The first part of the Gospel is about Jesus’ baptism. It’s a wonderful picture that Mark paints for us, with the heavens opening and God’s voice saying “Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.” Immediately after this very affirming action by God, the Spirit of God then drives Jesus into the wilderness. Jesus has accepted his role for the salvation of the world and has begun his ministry by being baptized. But there is no baptism party afterward. God then drives him into the wilderness where God knows Jesus will be tempted by Satan. That doesn’t sound very encouraging—not much of a reward for doing what God the Father wants him to do! As I believe Mother Theresa once said, “God, if you treat those who love you like this, no wonder you don’t have many friends.”

And I wonder how Satan tempted Jesus. As I said, Matthew and Luke give us some specifics, but if Jesus was truly tempted, which the scriptures assure us he was, then the Tempter had to have been subtle, and what Jesus was tempted to do must have seemed to be an attractive alternative to what the Father wanted him to do in his ministry.

That’s the way temptation works. The snake didn’t tempt Eve to be evil, but to be like God. The fruit was attractive and tasted good. Likewise, we aren’t tempted to be evil. We wouldn’t find that tempting at all. We are tempted to disobey God because we think that it’s really alright this time, or just one time won’t matter, or it really won’t hurt anyone because no one will know. The second time we’re tempted it’s even easier to rationalize. And the third time we might not even think about it. Just do it.

Our Lord recognized the temptations for what they were. He knew what God wanted of him and he did not allow that course to be altered. He had a spiritual reservoir that he called upon to answer the Tempter. He used the scriptures he had been taught from childhood to fight those temptations.

We take our ability to talk for granted, yet the learning of the English language takes years to master, and the art of communication is a lifelong pursuit which must be worked at continually. The life of faith is no different. It begins in baptism, but it takes a lifetime to live into that baptism. Take a moment to think about the nature of temptation in your life and ask your heavenly Father to help you in resisting that temptation.