Archbishop Donald Bolen's Easter Vigil Homily
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Volume 23 Number 3 spring 2020 Archbishop Donald Bolen’s Easter Vigil Homily Brothers and sisters, ponder what it was like to be there. Amen to that. Tonight’s celebration takes us from When the angel in brilliant light comes, This evening I want to offer you - people chaos and darkness to light and removes the boulder from in front of of God spread from Consul to Carnduff creation, from slavery to freedom, from the tomb, and sits on it (a wonderful to Canora, and all places in between, alienation to covenant, and from death detail!), Matthew says the two soldiers and some beyond - two thoughts to to life. We awoke this morning, many of guarding it were terrified, “were like ponder as we launch into the Easter us, with the thought of Jesus in the tomb, dead men.” Quite a response from those season. The first takes its lead from and began the movement from grief to about to hear that the dead man whose today’s second reading, where St. expectation. This morning I found an tomb they were guarding was not dead Paul speaks about the implications of extraordinary passage, which I later anymore. And the two Marys, as the the resurrection for us. We who are discovered comes from the Orthodox angel speaks to them and tells them baptized into his dying and rising will Morning Prayer for Holy Saturday. It that Jesus is risen, are at once terrified be united with him in the resurrection, reads: “Today a tomb holds him who and overwhelmed with joy; and holding insists St Paul; we will live with him; we holds the creation in the hollow of his all that emotion, while they set out to tell are dead to sin; death has no dominion hand; a stone covers him who covered the unthinkable to the other disciples, over him, and no dominion over us; the heavens with glory.... Come, let Jesus himself appears to them, and we are to live in newness of life. Such us see our Life lying in the tomb, that they fall down before him. And he says strong statements. Paul is calling us to he may give life to those that in their what the Risen Jesus so often says, a new way of living, what I would call tombs lie dead.... Unto him let us cry “do not be afraid.” And then he sends paschal living, life transformed by the aloud: Arise, O Lord... for measureless them forth to go tell the others that he dying and rising of Jesus. Of course we is thy great mercy and thou dost reign is raised from the dead, and that he will aren’t done with sin or death, but we’re for ever.” meet them in Galilee. somehow called to live ‘on the other side of death.’ Belief and trust in the Tonight’s Gospel also takes us on a Bishop Rob Hardwick, the Anglican resurrection bring with them an invitation transition. It begins in the darkness; bishop of this territory, and I, have to see this human life - including death - Mary Magdalene and the other Mary - shared our Easter reflections, and I differently, and to live it differently. there are many Marys in Jesus’s circle want to read a little excerpt from his of disciples - set out at the first break of powerful Easter sermon in the context There are some good reflections out dawn. They are in despair, and follow of this pandemic. He notes: “Caiaphas, there about how the COVID crisis is their hearts to the tomb where Jesus Pontius Pilate, the Soldiers at the tomb, going to change us. I have read some was buried. Satan and the (political and) religious good challenges, like “when this ends authorities of the day could not prevent and we can go back to normal, we For our world today, I think it was less the resurrection and, thanks be to God, should be discerning which parts of difficult than usual for people to think neither can COVID-19.... The Good normal are worth rushing back to.” In this about Jesus in the tomb, and to enter News that there is no sin we have intense period which creates a space for into the Good Friday service, as a heavy committed bad enough, that through many to experience a lot of solitude and shroud covers our land these days. We repentance, Jesus cannot forgive... quiet and time for pondering, this can be understand going to pray at a tomb. There is no situation we are in, so dark, a time of transformation. I think we all For those who have lost loved ones that the light of Christ cannot shine into need that. We shouldn’t come out the in the past weeks, where there could it... There is no storm we can encounter same on the other end of it all. be no proper funeral, there is an extra that the Lord cannot calm.. And there resonance. Jesus too was not given a Much more so, the experience of is no death that is beyond our Lord’s wake or funeral, but his body was simply the resurrection should change us. redeeming and resurrection. And even placed in a tomb. Normally there is a Resurrection brings transformation on today, and even to us, into our locked, finality to that. the deepest level possible, and its power and isolating rooms; into our fear filled is to be at work in our lives even now. But as G. K. Chesterton noted, our world; into our darkened and anxious So we do well to ask: Where is fear God is “a God who knows his way out homes..., the risen Lord enters and dominating in my life, and where is the of the grave.” Death does not have the speaks his Peace to us and breathes the grace of God inviting me to learn to live last word. Our imaginations do well to Holy Spirit into all who would receive.” page 3 - the arch, Spring 2020 with greater trust? Where do I still dwell in darkness, and how can the light that In the primal sympathy comes with the resurrection transform Which having been must ever be; that? Where do sin and death hold sway In the soothing thoughts that spring in my world, and how can I participate Out of human suffering; in God’s undoing of the power of sin I the faith that looks through death.... and death? How does resurrection Thanks to the human heart by which we live, faith shape the way we are called to Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, live in the midst of this pandemic? To me the meanest flower that blows can give Resurrection faith is an invitation to live Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. deeply, fully, generously, joyfully, justly, Wordsworth points to presence of God at the depths of our human experience, courageously, and compassionately, in the ordinariness of it and the beauty of it. because that is how God deals with us. So, that’s a first line of thinking for So I invite you to listen for the voice of the Risen Lord, and see the paschal you to ponder in the coming weeks. dimension of life, in experiences, encounters and events that are part of our lives: The second thought I want to set The exuberance of Spring, before you tonight is about witnessing. the smell of the moist earth, The women at the tomb went to see the feel of earth running through your fingers; a dead Jesus, and what they found the song of the meadowlark, the first time you hear it in the spring; was a Risen one, who filled them the reality of birth, with joy, but also gave them a task: and holding a newborn in your hands; go tell the others. The early church the vastness of the sky, is a community which has a tangible the smell of clover in the heat of the summer, experience of the resurrection, a series and the lights of combines on late august nights. of encounters with the Risen Christ, Acts of unexpected kindness, and they want to share that with others. the simple goodness of people. We too are called to be witnesses, moments of inherent excellence, of love which abides, but not witnesses in that same direct walking down a prairie road, way because our experience isn’t the embrace of a loved one, exactly the same. 2,000 years later, dinner with the family, a conversation with a friend; our witness is going to look different, singing an old favourite song. but like theirs, it needs to draw on our The way the Word sometime burns within us when he hear it, experience of the Risen Lord. And it is comes alive in a way that rounds with what we know to be true; here that most of us struggle a little, to the experience of forgiveness when we don’t deserve it, name that experience. and receiving mercy within mercy within mercy; Albert Einstein once observed, “The the sacred memory of those who have gone before us, Lord God is subtle, but malicious he is the ways they continue to be with us; not.” God’s ways with us, the presence the courage of people reaching out to those in need, of the Risen Lord and the Holy Spirit and love, the giving of self, whenever we encounter it; in our lives, is a presence that we the tender mercies of life, don’t always see, that we sometimes the blessing that sometimes comes after hard experiences; struggle to see, even though Jesus an elderly couple holding hands, promised that he would be with us a loaf of bread, a chalice of wine, to the end of time.