We are not the same. We are changed. We are made new, a new creation, in the Holy Spirit, in God, and in Christ, as we, baptized or renewed in our vows, face the new dawn of Easter. It is a new day.
God is the same. Ever faithful. Ever triumphant and sorrowful. On the cross, in the grave, and now, raised from the dead, Jesus is Jesus is the one who leads the way. He is the first born of all of us.
We are a new creation. We are the ones God who created us redeemed and sanctifies and inspires.
This Easter is like no other and like all to come and all before it.
As Michael Curry pointed out in his Easter sermon, that first Easter nobody knew it was Easter. Except the Lord, of course.
As Greg Rickel pointed out in his Easter message, this time is different. It always is and this time it sure is.
We may learn something. We may learn something for awhile. Things pass, and time. We may forget.
Or we may not: we may remember what (we who are living then) what this time was like: and how we came together as we were separated. And looked after each other. And waited. For a new day.
***
One morning just before dawn I awoke in the Gloria Hotel near the Jaffa Gate in Old Jerusalem, and laced up my boots and made my way through the city streets to the church of the Holy Sepulchre. I really couldn't tell you what I was looking at, at first. A slab inside the front door. Steep stairs leading upwards. A small round building inside a large rotunda. And steps steeply leading downwards across the way.
The stairs leading up were leading down from Calvary. The slab was where they laid him. The small round building enclosed the tomb - and the place of resurrection. The steps steeply downwards led to the place that a piece of wood was found, centuries after his death, perhaps a piece of the execution engine upon which his body had been fixed on Good Friday. It was pretty quiet around there at 5:30 a.m.
Later that day I went back with a large group of pilgrims, who were quickly surrounded by much larger crowds. We slowly made our way up the line and in, in groups of six, inside that small round building. We knelt, three at a time, at the marble slab inside the inside room of that place. I laid my head on the stone. And closed my eyes. And lost time.
And woke up with a gasp. And wandered out into the relative daylight of the larger room. "This way, Father," the attendant ushered me.
And that was a new day too.
Easter Day
Early Service.
Romans 6:3-11
Matthew 28:1-10
Psalm 114
Principal Service.
- Acts 10:34-43
- or Jeremiah 31:1-6
- Colossians 3:1-4
- or Acts 10:34-43
- John 20:1-18
- or Matthew 28:1-10
- Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
Evening Service.
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