| With "Glory to God in the highest" and repeated
"Alle-luias" we welcome the victory of Christ over sin and death. For us,
nature itself seems to support the whole idea of new life and the blooming
forth of evidence that makes hope spring forth in us.
At 5:30 this morning as I was taking a walk outdoors, the full moon, the mild air, and the sound of a loon crying out were all confirmations that life is being renewed and hope is alive in our midst. During the forty days of Lent and especially during this Holy Week we have witness-ed the journey of Jesus Christ through suffering, death, and finally resurrection victory over death. We rejoice and are glad at this good news, this cause for singing out our alleluia, our praise of God. We have learned from Christ Himself the meaning of per-severance, of faithfulness to God and God’s faithfulness to us. We have seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears and experienced in our own hearts the good news that is Christ’s life, the very meaning of His coming. The Easter celebration is more than a rite of spring, of course. The full moon will di-minish in the next few days; fall will come in a few months; and the loon will head to a warmer climate as the lake once again freezes over. We have a young monk here, Brother Claudio, who assures me that in the southern hemisphere it is already fall, and maybe Easter hope has an altogether different aspect to it there than in the north. As grateful as we are for this changing season, experience convinces us that rites of spring are no substitute for Christian hope. |
Jesus Christ has not only shown us the way but
is Himself the Way, He kept His eye on the goal, yes, but He could still
cry out in His suffering, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" The glory
that was to be His was reached only through death, a death suffered for
the sake of others, a service rendered that cost Him all He had. And in
His victory He promised us a share pro-viding we die with Him so as to
be raised up with Him.
Jesus Christ continues His journey in us and with us. He lived out the meaning of God’s covenant with hu-manity by Himself being faithful for humanity to the covenant that binds us to God. If we would live with Him then we must die with Him, and dying with Him means our own decision to remain faithful to our covenant with God and the covenants we have to be faithful to one another. Like Jesus Christ, our life is a journey. Every part of our life is a piece of that journey. Our Christian spirituality is inseparable from the events of that journey and, in fact, is given meaning by the way we make that day-to-day jour ney. To take seriously that our journey is Christ’s is to keep our focus on his goal and travel with him through life and death to the resurrection that comes to those who are faithful. There are crises along the way of that life, crises that would tempt us to depression or even despair. Whether it is adolescent anger at not being considered fully mature, or middle age frustration
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at not reaching ambitious goals, or senior citizen
angst at knowing one will never become president of the world - all of
these are confron-tations with the death that spoils dreams of success
arising out of our personal wish to be omnipotent.
The believer in Christ and His victory, on the other hand, recognizes the invitation to see death as the gateway to resurrection and the fulfil-lment of the plan of God. Maybe today we are be-ginning to get past the era of self - fulfillment programs and the cosmetic hiding of our aging process. When we have met Christ and have by His Spirit entered into the hope of the resurrection, we can afford to put aside ambitious thoughts and seek after, with hope, the only goal that has eternal value. So the moon will soon be a crescent, the fall of the year will come again, and the loon will fly south. And we will continue to grow older and experience the loss of friends and see ourselves replaced by the young and the vigorous who will themselves get old before they know it. But that’s the journey, the spirituality of the gospel, the way of the cross that leads to resurrection. What we cele-brate tonight is not the end of the journey but the hope that is ours that the journey we are now on is worthwhile. God is faithful to the covenant. We are asked to be faithful, not to "Glory to God" or to "alleluia," but to the One who preceded us on the jour-ney and remains for us the Way: Jesus Christ who is risen from the dead. With St. Paul we can say, "For me to live is Christ, to die is gain."
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