Easter Vigil Homily (11 April 2009)

Easter Vigil: 11, 12 April 2009
(John 20:1-18)
Rejoice and Sing: Christos Anesti

Glory be to God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – now in this world
and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Beloved of God and my beloved, as the darkness of this night is dispelled by the flames of the paschal candles I greet you with the ancient proclamation of the church, with the proclamation that dispels all darkness: Christos anesti – Christ is risen! Al­­ithos anesti – He is risen indeed! This is not the night for lawyers to quibble over marriage contracts and debate pre-nuptual agreements. This is the night for the wedding party to rejoice and sing, for the bridegroom has arrived, and we, as wise virgins with lamps trimmed and glowing, are invited to the feast. Christos anesti – Christ is risen! Al­­ithos anesti – He is risen indeed! This is not the night for weary slaves to dread another dawn and the making of bricks without straw. This is the night for free men and free women to rejoice and sing, for Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us, and the Paschal Lamb who was slain has risen victorious from the grave, trampling down death by death. And we, as sons and daughters and slaves no longer, are being led forth by the mighty hand and outstretched arm of our God Almighty. Christos anesti – Christ is risen! Al­­ithos anesti – He is risen indeed! This is not the night for the race of man, the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve, to bewail their fallen state – their corruption and alienation. This is the night for the image-bearers of God to rejoice and sing, for Christ, the new Adam, has made all creation new, restored the divine image in man, and reconciled man to God. Christos anesti – Christ is risen! Al­­ithos anesti – He is risen indeed!

Once we sang the song of exiles, or held our tongues in silence because we could not sing.

1 By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, *
when we remembered you, O Zion.

2 As for our harps, we hung them up *
on the trees in the midst of that land.

3 For those who led us away captive asked us for a song,
and our oppressors called for mirth: *
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”

4 How shall we sing the Lord’s song *
upon an alien soil (Ps 137:1-4, BCP 1979)?

Once we sang the song of exiles, or held our tongues in silence because we could not sing, for we were “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12, NKJV).

But now in Christ Jesus [we] who once we far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

Now, therefore, [we] are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom [we] also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the spirit (Eph 2:13, 19-22).

Now we sing the song of citizens. Now we cannot hold our tongues in silence.

When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion,
then were we like those who dream.
Then was our mouth filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy.
Then they said among the nations,
“The LORD has done great things for them.”
The LORD has done great things for us,
and we are glad indeed (Ps 126:1-4, BCP 1979).

This is the night to rejoice and sing. Christos anesti – Christ is risen! Al­­ithos anesti – He is risen indeed!

Once we groaned in the bondage and corruption of all creation, groaned with the labors of birthpangs, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our bodies. Now we rejoice for Christ dwells in us and though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus dwells in us, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in us (cf Rom 8:9 ff). This is the night to rejoice and sing. Christos anesti – Christ is risen! Al­­ithos anesti – He is risen indeed!

Once we were deaf to the song heaven, to the praise which resounds continually around the throne. But on this night the tomb is opened and so, too, are our ears opened to hear

the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice:

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
To receive power and riches and wisdom,
And strength and honor and glory and blessing!”

And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, [we hear] saying:

“Blessing and honor and glory and power
Be to Him who sits on the throne,
And to the Lamb, forever and ever” (Rev 5:11-13, NKJV).

This is the night to rejoice and sing. Christos anesti – Christ is risen! Al­­ithos anesti – He is risen indeed!

This is the night, when all who believe in Christ are delivered from the gloom of sin, and are restored to grace and holiness of life. This is the night to rejoice and sing. Christos anesti – Christ is risen! Al­­ithos anesti – He is risen indeed!

This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave. This is the night to rejoice and sing. Christos anesti – Christ is risen! Al­­ithos anesti – He is risen indeed!

This is the night, when wickedness is put to flight, and sin is washed away. This is the night to rejoice and sing. Christos anesti – Christ is risen! Al­­ithos anesti – He is risen indeed!

This is the night, when the fallen are restored to innocence and those who mourn to joy. This is the night to rejoice and sing. Christos anesti – Christ is risen! Al­­ithos anesti – He is risen indeed!

This is the night, when earth and heaven are joined and man is reconciled to God. This is the night to rejoice and sing. Christos anesti – Christ is risen! Al­­ithos anesti – He is risen indeed (Exsultet, adapted)!

Let no Christian remain silent on this holy night. Let all heaven and earth together rejoice and sing. Christos anesti – Christ is risen! Al­­ithos anesti – He is risen indeed!

The Day of Resurrection! Let us be illumined, O ye people! The Passover, the Passover of the Lord! From death unto life, and from earth unto heaven hath Christ our God brought us over, singing a song of victory!

Christ is risen from the dead!

Let us purify our senses and we shall behold Christ, radiant with the light ineffable of the Resurrection, and shall hear him say, in accents clear: Rejoice! as we sing the song of victory.

Christ is risen from the dead!

For meet is it that the heavens should rejoice, and that the earth should be glad, and that the whole world, both visible and invisible, should keep the Feast. For Christ is risen, the everlasting joy!

The Day of Resurrection! Let us be illumined, O ye people! The Passover, the Passover of the Lord! From death unto life, and from earth unto heaven hath Christ our God brought us over, singing a song of victory!

Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down Death by death, and upon those in the tomb bestowing life (Easter Service, Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church, Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America).

Tonight, the wise ones of this age, the skeptics will shake their heads in wonder that gullible ones still cling to myths of resurrection. They will doubt, but we will rejoice and sing, for Christ is risen from the dead, the everlasting joy!

Tonight, the academic theologians will debate atonement theories and the role of resurrection in our salvation. They will debate, but we will rejoice and sing, for Christ is risen from the dead, the everlasting joy!

Tonight, the merchants will hawk their wares: cards and chocolate bunnies and crème-filled eggs – resurrection as commodity. Wait one day and you can have resurrection on sale. They will take their profit, but we will rejoice and sing, for Christ is risen from the dead, the everlasting joy!

Tonight, the world will turn as always – though we know everything has changed – the world will turn as always and turn blind eyes and deaf ears, oblivious to the glory and power of God in the resurrection of Christ. They will ignore the resurrection, but we will rejoice and sing, for Christ is risen from the dead, the everlasting joy!

Lift up your heads, O ye people,
and be lifted up, O ye saints of God,
for Christ is risen from the dead
trampling down death by death
and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.

Lift up your heads, O ye people,
and be lifted up, O ye saints of God,
for the Kingdom of God has come
and Christ has begun his reign.

Lift up your heads, O ye people,
and be lifted up, O ye saints of God,
for this night we can rejoice and sing
and give voice to all creation:
Christos anesti – Christ is risen! Al­­ithos anesti – He is risen indeed!

Amen! Alleluia!

PODCAST OF THIS HOMILY

Homily: Ash Wednesday (25 February 2009)

Ash Wednesday Homily: 25 February 2009
(Joel 2:1-2, 12-17/Psalm 51/2Corinthians 5:20b-6:10/Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21)
Where, O death, is your sting?

Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One, have mercy upon us.

I came to liturgical worship in mid-life – not so very long ago – so I well remember kneeling at the altar rail for the first time to receive the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday. My wife was to my right with our daughter between us. As Father John made his way from penitent to penitent he reached them first. As he signed each of them with the cross he intoned the ancient words of scripture and the church: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” And for the first time, though I had known death before, I was struck that night in a profound and visceral way by the unique human condition: we alone among all creatures are aware of our mortality. Such is the power of sacramental action, of the signs and symbols, the rites and liturgy of the church. I knew in that moment that everything I cherished most in the world – those two who knelt beside me – were dust and to dust must return. I have not yet recovered from that first Ash Wednesday; pray, God, I never do.

On Ash Wednesday, more than any other day, the church reminds us that we are mortal, that we all must die. Death is our common human inheritance, bequeathed by fallen Adam to all his fallen children. There is a strange, spiritual symmetry here, the church tells us. Adam’s sin brought forth death, and now, death brings forth sin among Adam’s children. The awareness of our mortality – of our impending death – stirs and awakens passions within us. Because we sense we were made for eternity we rebel against mortality. These passions propel us into a quest for power: every act of dominance, from the sarcastic comment to war among nations, is a futile show of power in the face of death. We will conquer; we will survive. These passions propel us into narcissism and self-absorption: every botox injection, every facelift, every overweight middle-aged man who leaves the wife of his youth for the ideal nymph, testifies to man’s vain effort to forestall age and death. We will not go silent into that dark night. These passions propel us into mind and body numbing stupors – anything to ease the aching awareness of mortality: every eating or drinking binge, every abuse of drugs, every sexual hook-up is an injection of existential novacaine that fails to deaden the nerve of our approaching end. Death stirs and awakens our passions and these passions bring forth our sin. “Where, O death, is your sting?” Paul asks. He well knows: “The sting of death is sin,”(1 Cor 15:55-56). Death is the enemy; it destroys us – if it does – through its power of sin.

So the church teaches. We have inherited the fallen human condition – we have inherited death. Awareness of death stirs passions within us, passions that strive toward eternity, quite often in vain and destructive directions. Sin is born of these passions. So, whatever in this world or the next, is the church thinking when she says to us, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” as she confronts and seals us with the sign of our mortality? Why does the church stir up these passions within us? In the wisdom of the Holy Spirit the church knows that these passions must be awakened and confronted through the power of the cross, through the power of the sinless One who conquered death by dying and who rose to life everlasting.

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.
Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:55-57, NIV).

This is the wisdom and power of God, that when Mother Church traces on our foreheads the sign of our mortality she does so in the form of the death-conquering, life-giving cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

This is the wisdom and power of God, that when Mother Church stirs our passions she arms us for the ensuing struggle: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand” (Eph 6:12-13, NIV).

Yes, Mother Church equips us for battle with the passions – passions St. John describes as “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16, NKJV). We battle the lust of the flesh – all our sensual indulgences – through abstinence: prayer and fasting, the church prescribes. For the lust of the eyes – all our selfishness and greed, our compulsive need to acquire – the church prescribes almsgiving, a free gift of the material goods entrusted to us. The pride of life? For this poison of control and domination the church offers as antidote the basin and the towel, the cross, and the way of Jesus – a way of humility and service.

These Lenten disciplines are the church’s way of struggle against the passions which lead to sin and alienation from man and God. But, they are far more: the Lenten disciplines are a way of transformation of these passions into the one, all-consuming and life-giving passion for God. The church is not naïve; passions cannot simply be defeated once-for-all or, worse still, repressed. Passions must be transformed by the cross and resurrection of Christ. The season of Lent, which can seem like a via negativa, a negative way of renunciation, must be experienced instead as a via positiva, a positive way of transformation. We fast from food that we might feast on prayer and Scripture and the Eucharist – the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation. We give our alms that we might store up treasure in heaven; we sell all lesser pearls that we might buy the one pearl of great price. We serve, we become least of all, recalling Christ’s words that he came to serve to set us an example, and that the one who is least of all is great in the kingdom of heaven. The church, in her Spirit-inspired wisdom, prescribes for us practices to transform our lesser passions into the one passion worthy of those created in the image of God: to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength.

So, let us fast that we might learn to feast. Let us give, let us empty ourselves, that from God’s abundance we might receive the fullness of the Spirit. Let us serve that we may follow the way of Christ. Let us face our mortality, awaken our passions, and transform them through the cross of Christ. Let us exchange the things of earth for the things of eternity (Laudable Exchange, John Michael Talbot).

Let us pray.

O Lord, who hast mercy upon all,take away from us our sins,and mercifully kindle in us the fire of thy Holy Spirit.Take away from us our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh,hearts to love and adore Thee, hearts to delight in Thee,to follow and enjoy Thee, for Christ's sake. AmenSt. Ambrose of Milan, adapted (AD 339-397)