Of this acclamation, Frederick Buechner remarks, “If it is true, there is nothing left to say. If it is not, there is nothing left to say.”
Still, I feel the need to preach. (A bit like what Emily Dickenson, describes: “You cannot fold a flood and put it in a drawer.”) In any case, it does say “Homily” right there in the bulletin—which generally means a shorter sermon. I am mindful of the advice given to preachers by the 17th century Anglican Divine George Herbert, whose feast we recently celebrated. He said that sermons ought not usually to be more than an hour in length. So I suppose “homily” means something somewhat shorter than that. I’ll see what I can do.
George Herbert was also a great poet, of course, besides being a giver of advice to clergy (and advocate for sermon-listeners.) He was a troubador of the Love that precedes us, that opens for us the way of life, that leads us in the way and welcomes us home. He gave us some wonderful words for Easter:
“Can there be any day but this,
Though many sunnes to shine endeavor?
We count three hundred, but we misse:
There is but one, and that one ever.”
It is a curious thing how we reckon the days, and the years into which we bundle them. It is interesting to notice how our world designates those years.
Old Christendom gave us the legacy of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ as the watershed, the central point of demarcation in history, and so we learned to use “BC” (before Christ) and “AD” (the year of our Lord) in our vocabulary of time.
Now that we inhabit a more secular culture, these have given way to “CE” and “BCE”—“Common Era” and “Before the Common Era.” I don’t mind the newer usage as common parlance in a pluralistic society; it’s merely good manners, and a mark of respect to non-Christians not to insist that everyone use Christian nomenclature and symbol. Christendom is dead, and we are mostly better off for it. But it is striking that, after many centuries, such a simple, everyday reminder that human history is something purposeful—God’s unfolding plan of salvation, revealed in Jesus Christ—has been replaced by something more like the least common denominator, the path of smallest hassle—and that the new language carries no sense of anything other than commonality. It tells us that we are living all together in the same era, but it doesn’t offer any clues as to why we live at all.
What must such an age as this one make of our celebration here tonight? What could it possibly make of all this talk and song about a plan of salvation unfolding across the generations, lived out and carried forward in numerous lives, culminating in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ—and not stopping there? “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ has become a people.” (Kavanaugh) So here we are, celebrating Easter, and the world has to wonder, what is that all about? What difference does that make?
Recently, several writers have told us that the world would be a better place without religion. I was once on a retreat where the leader asked us to imagine a world without Christianity. What would things be like if it had never occurred to anyone that there was any reason to think in terms of BC and AD? For most of us on that retreat the question became, “What would our lives be like without Christ?”—which is very different question than a question about the Christian religion. I, for one, had plenty of Christianity before I knew Jesus. I was 15 and had been going to church all my life before I chose to become a follower of Christ, as some of you are choosing tonight. Without Christ, in suburban southern California in the mid-sixties, my life would probably have been a variation on one of three prevailing slogans: “Tune in, turn on, drop out”; “Love it or Leave it”; or “Burn baby, burn.” Nihilism, hedonism, materialism, militarism—what ‘ism’, which of the ideologies of our Common Era, which myth would I have lived—which would have lived me--if not for Christ? And where would I be today, if Christ were not raised? As St. Paul said, if there is no resurrection, we are truly worthy of pity.
It was a fruitful exercise, that retreat meditation. It certainly sends me running with all my heart to shout our Easter “Alleluia”. We are not without Christ. Because of the Resurrection, as the poet says, “I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and this Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond, Is immortal diamond.” (Hopkins) Because of the Resurrection, no place is without His Presence, and His mission is going forward everywhere—even where He is not recognized, even in this secular age. We are never without Christ; nothing can ever separate us from Him. This is His world.
History only makes sense in terms of Easter. C.S. Lewis said, “A man really ought to say, ‘The Resurrection happened 2000 years ago’ in the same spirit in which he says, ‘I saw a crocus yesterday.’ Because we know what is coming behind the crocus. The spring comes slowly down this way; the great thing is that the corner has been turned. There is, of course, this difference, that in the natural spring the crocus cannot choose whether it will respond or not. We can. We have the power either of withstanding the spring, and sinking back into the cosmic winter, or of going on into those ‘high mid-summer pomps’ in which our leader, the Son of Man, already dwells, and to which he is calling us. It remains with us to follow or not, to die in this winter, or to go into that spring and that summer.”
Time is most accurately reckoned pre/post Easter. Our lives are best reckoned pre/post Easter. Since Christ is risen, it’s a radically different world, and life can never be the same. Every decision, every commitment, every action by every one of us and by all the powers, groups, and causes that we serve must now be reckoned in this way. What do they signify in terms if this unfolding reality? How do they serve it? Or resist it?
The Resurrection is the true watershed and point of demarcation in our lives, as the Baptismal Covenant makes clear. When a new candidate for Baptism is publically enrolled, the Celebrant asks them, “What do you seek?” The answer is, “Life in Christ.” In the Baptismal Covenant, we again choose this life.
One more poet:
Juan Ramon Jimenez:
“No more to build
With illusory paste.
Since I have achieved heaven’
I have only to live.”
Tonight, we choose again this life. Christ is risen. We are raised with him. We have only to live.