LAKE JAMES

NORTH CAROLINA

Easter Day + 3/23/08 + St. Paul’s Church, Lake James

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

   It is Easter, a day on which we sing Alleluia! again, a day when we are surrounded by repeated proclamations of the fact that Jesus, the Lord, really did rise from the dead, a day when the Church sounds a note of hope and confidence of life beyond our present existence.  The Bible is clear, even blunt about that, and there really is no Christianity without belief in the central affirmation of that Faith, namely, that Jesus is risen!  He is risen indeed! 

    Without a belief in the Resurrection, St. Paul writes that we would deserve more pity than anyone else in the world, we would have been believing in a fable, a fairy tale, living a life based on nothing more than foolishness.  My intention this morning is not so much to condemn others who may seek to have a version of the Christian religion which avoids or even denies belief both in Christ’s Resurrection and resurrection for all, but rather, to state as clearly and concisely as I know how, the magnificent and awe-inspiring gospel of resurrection and eternal life which has been believed in and taught for two thousand years by the Church, and which is our faith as Anglicans.  But that’s not so easy to do.  For one thing, some of our vocabulary, some of the symbols to which we have become accustomed, can be misleading.  “Resurrection,” for some is an unbelievable expression of make-believe or primitive folk-religion adopted by the Church, but totally contrary to reason or the rational expectation of contemporary intelligent, thinking people.  As an example of how our own formularies have contributed to such views, let me share with you these words from Saint Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians:  “One word of command, one shout from the archangel, one blast from the trumpet of God, and the Lord Himself will come down from heaven.  Those who have died in Christ will be the first to rise, and then we who are still living on earth will be swept up with them into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air…” 

    The fact is that, at least in the Anglican tradition, most people do not really expect to be swept up into the clouds to meet the Lord in the air!  So when those words are read, they feel uncomfortable, if not slightly dishonest in appearing to accept something they don’t actually believe.  Another difficulty is that, for years, in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, that particular reading was assigned to be used as the Epistle at all funerals. Given the nature of our pluralistic society, funerals have long been apt to be one of the times when those gathering in the church for the service tend to come from many different religious backgrounds, very much including non-Episcopalians. In fact, for many who are not of our tradition, weddings and funerals may be the only experience of Anglican faith and worship they ever have.  And so, for some people, Anglicans (and many other Christians as well) have been thought of as those strange folk who expect to meet Jesus somewhere up in the clouds! 

    If you are as old as I am, you may remember the sneering comments of the Russian Cosmonaughts when, having orbited the earth, they were able to return and report that although they had been “up there,” they had seen no sign of a God, a heaven, or angels.”  They were somewhat surprised when their observations didn’t trouble most Christians in the least! The perception of some non-Christians of what constitute our beliefs and expectations just don’t fit the reality of our faith and doctrines at all.  Perhaps even worse, is that I suspect there may be some of our own who are not significantly more clear than their non-Christian friends!  If I asked each person here this morning, “What are your expectations, what is your faith concerning death and resurrection?”  What kind of answer would you make?

    My duty, and great privilege as a priest, is to stand before you on this holiest of days and affirm the truth of the fact that Jesus, the Son of God, truly died on the cross, truly rose from the dead, and truly ascended into heaven.  Through Him, we too can look forward to being with God eternally and actually, in a conscious and living way.  We can trust with all our hearts and minds that we will not be bound to an eternal nothingness, or an everlasting sleep, but rather we will enter a larger life, a life in which we will be reunited with our loved ones who have gone before us, and that we will be in the very presence of Almighty God.  That is as basic a belief as can be and is undeniably the what has been taught through the centuries as the authentic Christian Faith. 

     But another matter entirely is the language with which we express our belief.  Language, after all, is the verbal picture we use to portray what we mean by such terms as “resurrection, life after death, and reunion with God.”  Let’s go back to Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonian Church.  Probably few is any of us would have trouble with the symbol used in the phrase “one blast from the trumpet of God” – that is, I doubt that any of us would be apt to take those words so literally as to spend endless hours wondering of  what metal the trumpet is made, what color it is, in what key it plays, or who cleans it from time to time.  There should be little need to stress the point that St. Paul was using the imagery and cosmology  current in his century as he wrote about the resurrection of Christ and his expectation that the Second Coming would be amazing, dramatic, overwhelming, and would take place when God the Father chose.  Similarly, the use of words such as “up” and “down” – (Christ will come down from heaven, we will all be swept up to the clouds in the air) reflect a first century understanding, but one which might be quite different for contemporary Christians without in the least altering our belief in the basic truth as taught by St. Paul. 

     The examples could go on and on, but let it suffice for now to say that belief in the resurrection of ordinary beings like you and like me is what we proclaim.  That means that the death of one’s physical body does not end the existence of anyone, and that, in the true presence of God, we shall be together again with our departed loved ones.  That fundamental doctrine of the Church rests on the reality that we worship not a dead Jesus on a cross, but the living Son of God.  That through his conquering of death, we also conquer death.  So there it is: simple, heartening, exciting! 

    Being somewhat of a traditionalist, I rather miss the old use of black vestments at funerals, expressing so well the reality of human grief and loss.  But even more, I welcome the new use of white vestments with their emphasis on hope, resurrection, and triumph.  While it may be a bit much to expect that most of us would be happy, shouting out “alleluias” at the funerals of our loved ones, if we really understand and accept the teaching of our religion, we can and do give glory to God, thankful for the new life given to the departed even in the midst of our grief and sense of loss.

    During the 40 day period called Lent which just ended, we prepared ourselves through worship, alms-giving, and service to others for what we are doing this morning – that is, celebrating the resurrection of Christ.  We do so as those who are one with Christ by virtue of our baptisms, by virtue of being part of his mystical Body the Church, and in full assurance that when the time comes for our bodies to die, our lives shall be changed, not ended, as we enter a larger and magnificently beautiful new life with our Lord.  Secure in that faith, we need not be troubled at the imagery used over 2000 years ago to describe what will be, we need not worry about being swept up into the clouds, for in the words of the Collect for today, we delight in the fact that through Jesus, death has been overcome and the gates of everlasting life have been opened to us.  God’s word is trustworthy, His promise is dependable.  Our Christian faith and hope is realistic.  And for all that, we thank God!

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The Reverend Alfred T. K. Zadig, Sr.

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