Christus Vincit! Christus Regnat! Christus Imperat!

(Christ conquers, Christ reigns, Christ commands!)

The Lord is Risen Indeed!

But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries.

There is a nice symmetry in this: Death initially came by a man, and resurrection from death came by a man. Everybody dies in Adam; everybody comes alive in Christ. But we have to wait our turn: Christ is first, then those with him at his Coming, the grand consummation when, after crushing the opposition, he hands over his kingdom to God the Father. He won't let up until the last enemy is down—and the very last enemy is death! As the psalmist said, "He laid them low, one and all; he walked all over them." When Scripture says that "he walked all over them," it's obvious that he couldn't at the same time be walked on. When everything and everyone is finally under God's rule, the Son will step down, taking his place with everyone else, showing that God's rule is absolutely comprehensive—a perfect ending! (1 Cor 15:20–28, The Message)

And:

Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. . . . The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven. What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed . . . (1 Cor 15:45–51, NRSV)

A Hymn to God the Father

i.

Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.

ii.

Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
For I have more.

iii.

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore ;
But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore ;
And having done that, Thou hast done ;
I fear no more.

John Donne, 1623

The God of Hosts

They reviled us both together.
I was made wet all over with the blood
Which poured from his side, after he had
Sent forth his spirit. And I underwent
Full many a dire experience on that hill.
I saw the God of hosts stretched grimly out.
Darkness covered the Ruler's corpse with clouds,
His shining beauty; shadows passed across,
Black in the darkness. All creation wept,
Bewailed the King's death; Christ was on the cross.

from "The Dream of the Rood" (or Cross), Anglo-Saxon, ninth century, trans. Richard Hamer.

the Body and the Blood

posted for Brenda D.

The Thursday before Resurrection Sunday Christians all around the world gather around a table to have a meal with Jesus.

This special meal reminds me that God can take our broken lives and make something beautiful for himself. Jesus Christ came, remember, to heal the broken hearted, to set the captives free, to open the bars of those whose lives are in bondage and to restore that which is damaged through the hurt and trauma of life.

Our God is the God of new beginnings. When a human being commits their life to following Jesus Christ the Bible tells us that person is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come, everything is made new and our God, the miracle maker, can do exactly that for every one who seeks him.

Gathering with his disciples around a table in a small upper room, Jesus took a loaf of bread and He gave thanks to God the Father and He said take it, eat it, in remembrance of me – this is my body. With those same disciples at that same meal Jesus also took a cup of wine and thinking about the blood that He was about to shed for the sins of the whole world on the cross so that we could be forgiven, Jesus said; this is my blood that is poured out for the sins of the whole world – do this in remembrance of me.

This is the God whom we worship this resurrection weekend; our God who is with us, ready to forgive our sins as we confess them, ready to touch our lives as we welcome him. The God of new beginnings!

Come, you weary and restless,
come, all who hunger and thirst.
Jesus calls us to dine as friends,
come, God’s feast of welcome awaits us.

Late Have I Loved You

Late have I loved you, O beauty so ancient and so new. Late have I loved you! You were within me while I have gone outside to seek you. Unlovely myself, I rushed towards all those lovely things you had made. And always you were with me, and I was not with you.

All those beauties kept me far from you—although they would not have existed at all unless they had their being in you.

You called,
   you cried,
      you shattered my deafness.

You sparkled,
   you blazed,
      you drove away my blindness.

You shed your fragrance, and I drew in my breath, and I pant for you. I tasted and now I hunger and thirst. You touched me, and now I burn with a longing for your peace.

—Augustine of Hippo

Let His Blood Be On Us

Posted for Gary Fitzgerald

Yesterday was by far the most dramatically wrenching observance of the Christian liturgical calendar. Christmas is more popular (also cuter, more nostalgic, or more personally painful, depending on your life experiences to date), Easter is more foundational (and so far not nearly as culturally debased as Christmas), but nothing exceeds the heart-rending emotional nosedive of Palm Sunday.

As a group, we are the healthiest, most long-lived, wealthiest, freest, and most secure people who ever walked the earth, so it’s very difficult to imagine the joyful hope that Jesus represented that day as He entered Jerusalem for the last time. It’s very hard to think of our God being silent for 400 years—it’s as if no one had a word or sign from God for all the time Europeans have lived in North America. And it’s even harder to imagine being part of a poor, oppressed society living under foreign occupation in a world crossroads that was universally regarded as a pit of pestilence.

And now, after all this time, all this struggle, Jesus shows up—not as one more charlatan magician with a bag of tricks, but as one who speaks with authority, announcing the Kingdom that is at hand, and confirming His word with healings and miracles so outside anyone’s experience that even the Pharisees are afraid.
 
How great would it be, after generations of frustration and struggle, to suddenly think, “This is the one—finally God has heard us!” What an enormous rush it would be to think, “It’s finally happening, and I was here to see it—now things are going to be great!” And how deeply would it cut, to be part of the crowd that’s screaming “Crucify him” with the same energy it gave to “Hosanna” just a little while ago. 

Although Scripture, and especially the Good News, was always meant to be heard more than read, it has become a long-standing tradition for congregations to take an active part in the reading of the Passion Gospel. We like to do things in threes, so we rotate yearly between Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This year, Year A in the lectionary, we used the Passion of Matthew, the only version which contains this powerful sentence, said by the whole congregation:
 
“Let his blood be on us and on our children.”
 
I believe this is the most explicitly vicious thing in the entire New Testament. I don’t denigrate or belittle the harsh cruelty of crucifixion, but in the cultural context there actually wasn’t anything unusual or unique about it—Jesus wasn’t singled out for special treatment, it was just what the Romans did. But this oath will be part of the Christian story until the end of time, and what a fearful thing to contemplate, being so consumed as to intentionally call down the wrath of God not only on yourself but on your children! And what a thing to have to say together in church—and we do have to say it—fifteen minutes after singing with gusto “All glory, laud, and honor to Thee, Redeemer King!”
 
And then, how incomprehensibly amazing to realize again what has been done for us by Jesus’ sacrifice. No longer a curse or an oath, but the centrality of our life in Jesus:

Please, Lord, let Your blood cover me, and my children! You had a choice, and You made it on my behalf and theirs. Help me to apprehend this more clearly, more deeply and more completely as I contemplate all that Holy Week means for those who know You, and for those who don’t know You yet. For what You did, what You’re doing, and what You’re going to do, deepest heartfelt thanks. Amen.

What do you think about everyday?

We're nearly at the end now. Today is Palm Sunday, the Sunday of the Passion. It's an awkward day, liturgically; I've sometimes thought Palm Sunday deserved its own day. But here it is together: you start with praise and move to Jesus’ death. I guess the church recognizes that it would be inappropriate to jump the Sunday Scripture readings directly from Palm Sunday’s brittle praise straight to Easter’s Resurrection celebration; parishioners who miss the Good Friday service and the readings of the crucifixion would miss just about the whole point.

But keeping Palm and Passion together is useful too. We still hold our palm branches and the echo of our Hosanna still lingers in the air when we come to our part in the Gospel reading, and together we cry “Crucify.”

I heard once that the ashes on Ash Wednesday—remember you are dust—are made from the branches from last year's Palm Sunday. If that is so, it is just. We are marked with our limitations, reminded of our need for grace even to make our praises more meaningful than lip service. We need grace to follow Jesus, for the road is harder than we expect, and suffering is part of it.

Praise offered from our own strength is as fragile today as was the praise of those in Jerusalem before Jesus’ arrest. I’ve seen enough devastating failures from seemingly devoted Christians over the course of my own life, too, to recognize that praise is only part of being a disciple. Pondering my own heart, I certainly am in no position to feel smug about either type of failure.

But God's grace is greater, and the resurrection of Jesus—and the resurrection promised for us too—is so far beyond our expectation of anything God would do. Yet the cost . . . We do well not to jump too fast to next week's joy. We do well to slow down this week, to pay attention, to watch and pray, to own up to the brittleness of our good deeds and the depth of our shortcomings, to our limitations and our need for God to intervene for us.

In the past two days, Mark and Tyler both mentioned the concept of attention—in part, paying attention to God as a way of becoming more fully human. Earlier this week, a blog I follow from the creators of a web software package I use touched on the same theme in a post somewhat outside the normal line of “business.” The author is not at this point, so far as I know, a follower of Jesus, but his post puts into words a concept I've been pondering this Lenten season, and his story will be helpful for us to ponder.

Telling a story about his seven-year-old son, who collects coins (read it all; it's short and memorable), he concludes:

You become what you think about all day long.

If we want to really achieve something, we can learn a lot from a seven year old who has never read books on setting goals, or attended success workshops, or watched motivational videos. He simply intuitively understands that the secret to success is to focus on your goal. Every moment.

What is your goal as a follower of Jesus? Are you getting to the point where you would back up your praise of him with a courageous stand for him? Are you coming to think and act like him? Is his life transforming yours?

What do you think about all day? Each season? The liturgy is a gift that can help us focus. This week in particular the church asks us to focus on the cost Jesus paid for the life you can now have. Let’s pay attention.