Spring is here; Whether we see it or not

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!

This is the ancient festal shout of Easter. Which we, as members of the Body of Christ, shout vigorously on Easter Sunday (like, at each other) – the day that we confess that Jesus broke down the doors of death some 2,000 years ago.

In the weeks that follow that greatest of feast days we continue to hear that same refrain over and over again – Christ is risen! Alleluia!

It becomes the greeting of the faithful, as if we have some great news to share and can’t help blurting it out at random moments.

“Alleluia! Christ is risen!

What are you plans for Easter?”

 Or 

“The Lord is risen! I’m going to the store, do you need anything?”

On the Tuesday following Easter, when our Paschal zeal is still humming just beneath the surface, I actually had a professor email me about an assignment which began with:

“Dear Shane,

Alleluia! Christ is risen! Do you happen to have another copy of such-and-such?”

My reply was, of course:

“The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! Attached to this email you will find….”

It’s inescapable. It’s everywhere.

The news cannot be unheard. 

Alleluia!

Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed!

Alleluia.

And yet now, just a few short weeks after we first proclaimed the radical news of the Resurrection – having just unearthed the great Alleluia after its long exile during the season of Lent – the shout has become a bit quieter.

The alleluias are still there of course (we’ve already said it a few times this morning; and I just keep saying it), but it’s not everywhere – not in the same way.

We still confess that Christ is risen, and that this reality is the source of our Hope and our Joy; yet things are gradually returning to normal.

The altar is still decked out in in its Easter best, but the Easter flowers have gone.

The paschal candle is still lit (proclaiming the presence of the risen Christ among us), but it’s a bit shorter and seems less proud and commanding upon its stand.

We can look back upon young men and women with hand-bells and brass instruments,

Easter egg hunts and sermons about extinct and vaguely unsafe automobiles.

But things have otherwise kind of gone back to normal.

and yet, everything is different. Everything is new.

The Lord is risen.

And because of that, nothing will ever be the same….

The Christ Event shook the foundations of this universe.

The Incarnation (made known in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ), has altered the very natural order.

• ·        The Virgin has given birth.
• ·        The youth teaches his elders
• ·        The blind see, the deaf hear, and the mute speak.
• ·        The great King, the promised one, dies humiliated and naked, nailed to a cross.
• ·        But, most wonderfully, the tomb was opened and that which was dead has been raised to New Life – a new mode of Being Human.

These are things we actually confess happened, every time we gather together;

We blatantly admit that the laws of nature and reason bended and warped around this man, Jesus, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world.

In the Incarnation something profoundly immense and mysterious began,

Something that challenges everything we thought we knew about ourselves, nature, and God…

and in a very real sense, whatever “this” is - it's still happening.

But my taxes are still due this Tuesday, and I really need to shave, and life seemingly goes on…

About a month ago I had to take a Psychological Evaluation for my Diocese in Illinois, which is a standard requirement for anyone pursuing Holy Orders, as a Deacon or a Priest.

(Don’t worry, I passed, I think.)

Part of the evaluation included a test of my general awareness; did I know my name, could I fold a piece of paper, did I know the date…

But one of the interviewer’s questions especially stood out to me: he asked me if I knew what season it was.

Now for some background: the date was March 24th, so the Spring Equinox had just passed, therefore it was technically spring.

But the weather was very much like it is today, and I had just driven three hours through a snow and ice-storms to get to the interview.

So after he asked me if I knew the season, I just looked at him for a moment and asked him if that was a trick question.

According to the calendar date, were we very clearly in spring; but looking outside one could reasonably assume that it is still very much winter.

We’ve had days of warmth, sure; I put on my flip flops every time the weather gets above freezing.

Yet wintery days like this can quickly make us forget those warm days, and all the sunny days of the seasons to come.

When it snows in April, it’s quite easy to ask whether or not it’s ever going to be warm again.

The apostles and those first followers of Jesus witnessed the turning of the seasons in a different kind of way. They walked with Christ and saw the first glimpses of the Kingdom that comes in his wake.  In his life, death, and resurrection they saw the first-green-shoots of a greater spring breaking through the ice.

These first Christians were so fired up by what they had seen, heard, and felt that they began giving up everything which they owned  – sure that the Kingdom of the risen Christ would be manifest in all of its glory at any moment.

The Spring of God’s Messiah has come, winter can no longer hold us!

Alleluia!

But the winter winds continue to blow, and sometimes that Easter Joy and the Fiery Warmth of the Resurrection seem far off – distant memories of sunny days.

And yet spring is here; the Lord is risen.

In Jesus Christ, things beyond our understanding have been put into motion; and across time, those machinations of the Holy Spirit continue to work in us, continuing to form us according to the Image of God in the Son… even some 2,000 years later.

Though it is not always easy to see…

As the John the Elder wrote in his First Epistle (which we heard from this morning):

“Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.”

Though we cannot always see it in a way that seems obvious, we have already been grafted into the life of Christ through the sacrament of Baptism.

When we approach the altar and partake of Christ’s Body and Blood, we truly are entering into a new mode of existing; being united to him in our very flesh and our very blood as we eat of the bread and sip wine from the cup.

We truly are Sons and Daughters of the Most High, even if we can’t always see it ourselves.

In order to discover who we truly are we must look into the face of Christ, for that is our end and that is our destiny, to be as Christ is.

That is the destiny which we approach every time we gather for Holy Communion.

And as we walk away from the altar railing we are called to carry the presence of Christ out into the world;

having been renewed as fellow Sons and Daughters of the Most High God we are called to present the Image of Christ - the very Image of our Heavenly Father - that the world might be transformed by that Resurrection Power in us… 

  just as the snow is melted by the rays of the sun.

In a work called “The Weight of Glory,” C.S. Lewis wrote the following:

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal."

I love that quote so much that I ended up posting it on Facebook yesterday, and a friend of mine (a rabbi from California) commented with a story about the Baal Shem Tov, a Rabbi who lived in the 1700’s and was largely responsible for the founding of Chasidic Judaism:

According to the story,

A man ran into the Baal Shem Tov one day, and the Great Rabbi asked if he could join the man and his family for Shabbat dinner that Friday night. All week, the man and his family prepared in their excitement.

On Friday, just before sunset, a beggar knocked on the door asking if they had room for one more at their table for Shabbat.

The man didn't want to insult the Rabbi, his honored guest, and turned the beggar away. The Baal Shem Tov arrived and they had a lovely dinner and time for singing.

Before the Rabbi left, he let out a deep sigh and the man asked what was wrong. The Rabbi said, "I was sure that the Messiah was going to be here tonight."

The man realized what he had done, but didn't quite remember what the beggar looked like. So from that day forward, the man treated every person as though they might be the Messiah, so as to never make that mistake again.

We may not always see the presence of the Risen Christ among us, we may not always see the Image of God stamped upon our brothers and sisters throughout the week; but Christ is among us, in the flesh.

Christ is present in our friends, our co-workers, and even in annoying relatives.

And though it may be difficult to see the Face of Christ in the face of our enemies, even then we are called to draw out the image of Christ buried deep within them by presenting the face of Christ to them – just as others have done for us.

Remember, the risen Jesus is not some ghostly apparition, but flesh and blood raised up to a new kind of life – a life in which now we share as members of his body.

We are therefore called to actually embody that reality; with our hands, in our touch, letting our feet take us where we need to go, speaking the words that God has placed on our hearts, and letting our gaze fall upon the beggar at the door, seeing the image of Christ present in them beneath the grime of this world.

Beloved, the power of the Resurrection didn’t end on that Easter Sunday, 2,000 years ago. The Incarnation continues in us.

The Image of Christ shines in the face of every person here, and though we cannot always see it as we would like to, we experience it in the Love that we show for each other and to all those who still have yet to come through those red doors.

When the beggar comes to the door and asked for a simple piece of broiled fish to eat, I pray that we may recognize our savior in that person, and that we may rush to feed him with the same haste that the disciples had when the risen Jesus asked the same.

The Lord is risen.

He walks among us.

And, whether we see it or not, he is making all things new.

Alleluia.

(Lessons used:  1 John 3:1-7 and Luke 24:36b-48)

(Image Credit: "Christ appears to the Eleven," James Tissot)