Homily for
The Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Sunday 16 April 2017
The Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
A Parish of the Diocese of Bethlehem and The Episcopal Church
Readings:
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Preaching Series on the Creed
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I believe in … the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
During Lent, we have explored the Baptismal Creed. Lent has come and gone once more. Here we are celebrating the first day of Easter, the Great Feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. There is yet one portion of the Creed that we have not yet explored. Today we take up that last portion; the Resurrection of the Body.
The resurrection that we chiefly celebrate and proclaim today is that of Jesus. Only remember that Jesus was not raised for himself but for us. Last Sunday we read the Passion Gospel of Saint Matthew. You may recall that I said last week that there is a portion of that reading that is unique to Matthew’s Gospel. This Evangelist shares with us that when Jesus died, many of the saints who slept in the tombs were raised, and when Jesus was raised and exited the tomb in victory, these saints who were also risen from the dead joined him in Jerusalem and were seen and heard walking and talking among the living. The power of Christ’s resurrection was clearly shown to have an effect not only of Jesus but on those whom he had grasped by the hand from the place of the dead to number them among the living.
We are not told who was among these ones raised with Jesus. Truthfully it really doesn’t matter. The significance is that those whom Jesus grasps receive the power of the resurrection. This is a great comfort for us. I say that because this gives us the hope that indeed as we hear at every Requiem Mass, “life is changed, not ended,” for us who belong to Christ, when our mortal bodies die. With each passing year, each of us have an ever-growing list of persons whom we love but see no longer, whom we have commended to the grace and mercy of Christ in the hope of the resurrection. In my forty years, for me, this includes my parents, my grandparents, and countless persons whom I have had the honor to accompany through the hour of death and to the grave as a priest of the Church.
Ever since Easter 2003, the day that my grandmother, who was my Lois (the grandmother of my own patron and namesake, St. Timothy, Bishop of the Church and student of the apostle Paul), has been on my mind as I keep glad Easter. It was on that Easter Sunday that she reposed in the Lord whom she loved and served so faithfully that even among those who do not share the Christian profession of faith who knew my grandmother, were struck by the appropriateness of the fact that she died on the day when Christians commemorate the resurrection of Christ. Today I invite you to remember those in your own walk with Christ who have inspired you to be faithful to Christ who now rest from their labors and feast with Christ forever. The power of Christ’s resurrection which ripples out throughout the whole of the people of God comforts us and gives us the hope that these ones also are not dead but alive with Christ!
Now remember that the power of the Resurrection of Jesus is not for the dead alone. It is for the living, even for us who still live by faith and not by sight in our own day and generation. The world around us is terrified at the thought that even now we are drawing closer to the day and hour of our own death. We do all that we can in order to avoid the topic of death, and when we must be faced by it, we do everything imaginable to paint a picture of death as if even the mortal remains that lay before us in a casket are not dead but only sleeping.
The world outside the Church cannot help themselves, for they face death without the saving knowledge of Christ and his resurrection. Today, my friends, we fix our eyes upon Christ, proclaiming with joy that death is not victorious. Christ is risen from the dead, and by his death and resurrection, he gives us the hope that when we die, we too shall be raised to live with Christ forever.
In that hope, we are reminded that it is the Gospel Easter, not the Hallmark Easter, that we celebrate. We need not fear death. Christ has defeated it. We need not wonder at what will happen when we die. We know that we will be with Christ, who has so loved us with such power and beauty that nothing shall separate us from him and his love for us, not even death.
It was the power of this resurrection, and the gift of the life-giving Holy Spirit, whom Jesus breathed upon the apostles in whose midst the resurrected Christ stood and revealed himself, that emboldened them to proclaim the Gospel in word and deed. Let me remind you, my friends, that we who are the baptized have received this same Holy Spirit. Here again Christ stands in our midst as the Lord of Life who shows the power of the resurrection for us and for our salvation. For here in the place once more, in the breaking of the bread, we see and know Jesus to be in our midst.
Outside the walls of this Holy House, the world is keeping Easter with the likes of candy and feasts, with the Easter Bunny in the midst of it all. We have something better to offer. We are called to bring Jesus to the world. And this we can do, for again we receive Jesus in the Bread of Heaven and the Cup of Salvation. Jesus is alive, and has given us the hope of the resurrection that calls us all to see life eternal within our reach, and to grasp it as the free gift of grace given to a dying people who can never earn such blessing and mercy. We have needed to receive this gift again, and now we have it. The world about is needs now to receive, and Jesus has selected and commissioned us to be his hands and his voice in whom the world around us will come to know Jesus, and follow him into everlasting life.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Father
Timothy
Alleman
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