By James Richardson, Fiat Lux
Showing posts with label Easter 2012. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Easter 2012. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Photos from Easter Sunday
As promised yesterday, here are photos by Bonny Bronson from Sunday morning's Easter services. Enjoy!
By James Richardson, Fiat Lux
By James Richardson, Fiat Lux
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Incense and smoke alarms
Our wonderful friend Barbara Crafton sent this missive this morning about the Great Vigil of Easter at the church in New Jersey where she is serving as interim rector. This is definitely worth a read, and see below this post for photographs from our Easter Vigil at St. Paul's from last Saturday evening...
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St. Luke's Episcopal Church, Metuchen, NJ
Great VigilYou can read more of Barbara Crafton on her website The Geranium Farm.
By Barbara Crafton
It had been some time since incense was used in this church -- so long that the charcoal had expired, it seemed, and was hard to light. Eventually Deacon Bob managed to coax a modest smolder from it, though, and we were off. Because you need incense for the Easter Vigil -- incense and darkness and candles. You can't do an Easter Vigil in a church that's lit up like a convenience store -- no, convenience has very little to do with it. There's no point doing an Easter Vigil at all if you don't want mystery -- that would be like the lady who wrote into the paper asking how she might make a pecan pie that wasn't so sweet. Just don't make a pecan pie, the cooking columnist wrote back.
Oh, it was lovely. People turned out for it, I having harped on it in the bulletin for weeks beforehand and promised strawberries and champagne to anybody still standing after it was over, and the church was respectably filled -- not packed, but respectable. Some of our best readers read the ancient stories. There were no babies to be baptized this year, so the people signed one another with the cross in holy water, their faces tender and beautiful in the candlelight: a son blessing his father, a husband blessing his wife, sisters blessing each other. And the incense was just right -- we didn't want to smoke them to death the first time out, just a gentle plume of sweet-sharp mystery to perfume the reading of the Gospel.
That's when the smoke alarm went off.
They've made huge advances in smoke detection, it seems. The alarm sent out strobes of piercing white light, and the sound of it must certainly have disturbed the repose of the beloved dead out in the memorial garden, not to mention that of our living neighbors. The mood of mystery vanished -- in a puff of smoke, as it were -- and soon firefighters in full regalia and a police officer appeared at the door. You should have been there.
It fell to me to restore reverence after the firefighters left. This would be a challenge, but it is why we study homiletics. Come here, Jesus, I said silently, and began.
What if -- what if---what if it hadn't been a false alarm? What if it had been a real fire? What if this 150-year-old building had gone up like a torch, the building and everything in it: the needlepoint kneelers, the old wooden pews, all the hangings and the purificatory and corporals and all the prayer books? We would have gotten out safely, but the walls would have blackened and then crumbled to the ground, the beams would have plunged to earth, glowing orange as the setting sun. The stained glass might have melted -- certain the lead holding it would have. I wonder if the brass would have melted? The silver would have.
Thoughts would rise in the dark: I was married here, and my kids were baptized here. My wife made the kneelers. My husband' funeral was here, and my son's confirmation. Four generations of our family, all baptized here, in the same white dress.
We would have stood out on Oak Avenue in the dark and watched the firefighters struggle to save it. But in the morning -- Easter morning! -- there would have been a smoking pile of charred wood where one of the prettiest churches you've ever seen used to be.
We would have wept at the sight. Of that I am certain.
But then what? Well, I would have to find us a new place to worship -- if the parish hall were intact, I guess we'd use that. And we'd have been on the phone to Church Insurance, to see about all that. The vestry would have begun the long process if deciding how to rebuild -- because we would rebuild. Without doubt.
Of course, the church we finally built would not be just like this one. No -- we wouldn't make a replica of it. It would be different -- first, because they don't make them like they used to in 1868 and second, because we are not who we were then. We wouldn't make the Stepford version of St. Luke's as we have it now. The church that would rise from its ashes would be different.
The resurrected Christ was different. People who had known him well didn't recognize him. How he was different, I do not know -- I wasn't there. But something about him was so powerfully changed that encountering it changed the lives of those who did, as it continues to transform those who encounter Christ today. A mystery, he was. In broad daylight.
Copyright © 2001-2012 Barbara Crafton - all rights reserved
Photos from the Great Vigil of Easter
Posted here are photos from the Great Vigil, and tomorrow I will post photos from Sunday.
Pastor Heather Warren preached one of the finest Easter Vigil sermons I have ever heard. You can hear her sermon by clicking HERE (it is about 15 minutes), or read the text HERE.
Easter blessings to all!
Sunday, April 8, 2012
He is not here! He is Risen!
May you have a joyous and wonderful Easter season!
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Alleluia! The Lord is Risen!
“Mary!”
“Mary!”
This humble peasant woman from the town of Magdela hears her name, and just like that, she knows – she knows who is standing in front of her.
She had come here to the garden in the dark to anoint his body.
She had seen him killed by the Romans on a cross. Others fled, but not her, not Mary Magdalene.
In the darkest hour, Mary finds his tomb empty, and she runs to tell the others. John the Beloved disciple arrives ahead of the others, and declares that Jesus has risen from the dead just like the Scripture foretold.
But Mary isn’t buying it, not yet. All she can think of is that grave robbers have taken his body, and her grief is all the worse. She sees someone standing in front of her, and she thinks it the gardener.
Then he says her name.
“Mary.”
In this one instant, everything – everything – in Mary’s life snaps into focus.
Everything makes perfect sense because he knows her name.
Mary.
From that moment, the story of Jesus of Nazareth would continue, written on the heart of Mary Magdalene, and on the hearts of everyone else who would follow.
Mary and these first followers of Jesus, the Risen Christ, give us this precious gift of Easter so that we may believe that there is more to life than what we see here now, that the Christ who is risen is with us still.
Centuries follow. The Church tries to make sense of this story with complicated dogmas and doctrines, philosophy and theology.
But on this first Easter morning, there is no “begotten not made,” no creeds, no catechisms, no abstractions.
There are no candlesticks, no prayer books, no cathedrals, no bishops.
No, on this first Easter morning, there is a garden, and Mary who hears her name, and she knows in her deepest heart who is calling her – the One she calls Rabbi, the One who had died: that same Jesus of Nazareth who she has followed.
And Mary Magdalene’s life – and our life – is about to change in ways that neither she, nor we, can scarcely imagine.
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Last August, Lori and I traveled to Jerusalem with a group of 29 pilgrims from the United States, Canada and Australia. We became very close.
One morning before dawn, in the cool breezy darkness, we gathered at the place where Pontius Pilate’s palace once stood.
We walked through the narrow streets where tradition holds that Jesus walked on his way to the Cross.
We paused at those places that tradition claims that Jesus stopped, the places where it is said that Jesus stumbled, where Simeon of Cyrene picked up his cross, where women like Mary Magdalene watched and weeped.
The sun rose above the rooftops; we could soon feel the heat. The Old City of Jerusalem began to wake up. People hustled past us on their way to work, some pushing clattering carts stacked with vegetables to the street markets.
The ground was wet, hosed down in the early morning hours. The smell of rotting garbage filled our nostrils. There are no sweet smells on the Way of the Cross.
Finally we reached the stony hill where Jesus was crucified – Golgotha – the place of the Skull: The place of death.
In the time of Jesus, Golgotha was an abandoned rock quarry just outside the city gates. It was a perfect location for the Romans to hang criminals and rebels – and advertise their vicious power.
The Place of the Skull is now covered by a huge basilica, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
The basilica has been built and rebuilt many times since the Fourth Century. The quarry is buried beneath centuries of Christian tradition and conflict, and the Place of the Skull has not seen daylight in 1,600 years.
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| Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem |
An African Coptic monk, clad entirely in a black robe from the top of his head to his toes, swept the courtyard as we quietly chanted a psalm.
It was here where Mary Magdalene came that first Easter morning before dawn to find the tomb empty; it was here where Peter and John came when they heard the news that his body was gone.
And it was here, in this place of suffering and pain, where Jesus called Mary by name:
“Mary” he said. Jesus knew here name, just as Jesus knows your name – every single one of us.
On this beautiful Easter morning you’ve been given the most precious gift you will ever receive:
The promise of the Risen Christ, who knows your name, who promises to be with you no matter what, in your joys and sorrows, in your faith, and in your doubts.
This precious gift is yours, free of charge, and it is yours forever.
Take this gift, this story of Easter – it is your story. Hold it close. Live this precious story to the fullest every day of your life – this story of new life, of grace, of forgiveness, of healing.
Easter is yours forever, marked on your heart by the One who knows your name, the One who is with you on whatever path you walk, and to the end of time.
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As I stood in the courtyard of the great basilica of Jerusalem, the holiest shrine in all Christianity, I looked up at the sun glistening on the dome, the sun shining brightly on the faces of everyone standing near me, and all I could think of was this:
“He is not here! He is Risen! He is everywhere!”
Alleluia! The Lord is Risen! Alleluia!
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Icon of Mary Magdalene by Brother Robert Lentz, OFM
By James Richardson, Fiat Lux
Saturday, April 7, 2012
Give thanks for Easter. Give thanks for Resurrection. Give thanks for the presence of God incarnate in our midst
Our celebration continues Sunday at 8 am, 9:15 am, 11:15 am and 5:30 pm (note there is no 10 am service). Please join us for as much as you can!
Here is the Easter message from our friend, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori:
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Easter 2012
One of my favorite Easter hymns is about greenness. “Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain.”
It goes on to talk about love coming again. It’s a reminder to me of how centered our Easter images are in the Northern hemisphere. We talk about greenness and new life and life springing forth from the earth when we talk about resurrection.
I often wonder what Easter images come in the Southern hemisphere, and I think that the church in the south has something to teach us about that.
I was in Japan a month or so ago, and visiting the area of Japan that was so affected by the tsunami and the aftermath of the earthquake. The earth there is — was at that point — largely colorless, brown, in the middle of winter. No greenness. But at the same time the work of the Nippon Sei Ko Kai, the Japanese church in that part of Japan, has brought a great deal of new life, life abundant for people who have been devastated and displaced, who are still mourning their loss of loved ones, the loss of their homes and employment.
New life comes in many forms, even in seasons that seem fairly wintry.
As we began Lent, I asked you to think about the Millennium Development Goals and our work in Lent as a re-focusing of our lives. I’m delighted to be able to tell you that the U.N. report this last year has shown some significant accomplishment in a couple of those goals, particularly in terms of lowering the rates of the worst poverty, and in achieving better access to drinking water and better access to primary education. We actually might reach those goals by 2015. That leaves a number of other goals as well as what moves beyond the goals to full access for all people to abundant life.
In this Easter season I would encourage you to look at where you are finding new life and resurrection, where life abundant and love incarnate are springing up in your lives and the lives of your communities. There is indeed greenness, whatever the season.
Give thanks for Easter. Give thanks for resurrection. Give thanks for the presence of God incarnate in our midst.
The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church
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