Sermon delivered on Easter 4C, Sunday, May 12, 2019 at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Westerville, OH.

If you prefer to listen to the audio podcast of today’s sermon, usually somewhat different from the text below, click here.

Lectionary texts: Acts 9.36-43; Psalm 23; Revelation 7.9-17; John 10.22-30.

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday, which always falls on the fourth Sunday of Easter. Accordingly, this is what I want us to look at this morning. Is your notion of Jesus as the Good Shepherd big enough to truly honor him and get you through the dark valleys of life?

What do you conjure up when you think of the term shepherd? For most of us living in a post-agricultural society, I suspect when we think of shepherds we think of some quaint fellow leading his sheep to pasture. In other words, if we think about it at all, we think of shepherds as being pretty irrelevant to our lives. But shepherds meant something very different to the Old and NT writers. When they spoke of shepherds they had in mind a king who would not only lead his people but also protect them. And the best way for a king to lead and protect God’s people Israel was to encourage them to be faithful to their covenant with the Lord. Doing so would ensure that they would receive his blessing and protection as Moses made clear to God’s people Israel as they prepared to enter the Promised Land. When the Bible speaks of shepherds, it has something quite different in mind than we do. Life, happiness, blessing, and safety are not possible without a Good Shepherd.

And this ought to make sense to us because we live in a world that has been invaded by evil and hostile powers, powers that were unleashed on God’s good world by human sin and folly. These dark powers are death-dealing. They hate us and want to destroy us. Combined with our proclivity to elevate and worship self over God, the dark powers often have an easy time finding human agents to assist in dealing out death to us. Think of the rash of bombings and mass murders that have occurred over the past month. Hundreds of Christians were blown up in Sri Lanka as they celebrated Easter. Another synagogue was attacked in CA. Then of course we have yet another school shooting. We see the devastating results of those who allow themselves to be used by the dark powers to bring death and sorrow and anger whenever they can. Christians seem to be especially targeted by the dark powers and their agents. While not prevalent in this country—at least not yet—did you know that in 2017 there were some 215,000,000 Christians who reported being persecuted for their faith, and that today 4 out of 5 people being persecuted for their faith are Christian? Never have Christians been more widely persecuted. Just this past week, Asia Bibi, a Christian Pakistani woman who had been sentenced to death for preaching blasphemy and who was finally exonerated, was allowed to leave for asylum in Canada. Yet even there she is not safe as Islamic extremists have vowed to hunt her down and kill her. She has become one of their favorite targets to hate. Our Lord surely knew what he was talking about when he warned his disciples that they would be hated because the world hated him first (John 15.18-23).

As we think about these things, we dare not develop an “us vs. them” mentality. Without the help from an outside power stronger than the powers of Evil and Sin (God), we are all capable of collaborating with the forces of Death. As our culture becomes increasing less Christian, our innate desire to elevate ourselves over God will only increase and so will the darkness that ensues. The Vatican apparently recognizes this trend as well as it recently opened up its exorcism summit for the first time to those outside the Catholic Church because of the unsettling rise of satanic worship and demonic incidents throughout the world. It seems that ever since Eden, we humans seek to worship and follow anything but God, the only Source of Life. 

Given this reality, we instinctively know that we need a shepherd in the true biblical sense who can guide and protect us from the forces of Evil and Death that hate us and want to destroy us. We wall ourselves up in gated communities, we refuse to get involved with issues of justice or deal with people who are “not like us,” we seek all kinds of power to insulate us from the darkness of this world, we stockpile our wealth and other material goods, hoping that they will protect us from all the darkness that life can bring. But this is just delusional thinking. All the money in the world, all the fame, all the power, all the gated communities cannot protect us from sickness or madness or growing old or loneliness or alienation or death. Nothing in this world is capable of doing that. Nothing. Even if we are faithful Christians, if we do not have a grown up conception of who our Good Shepherd is and a resurrection hope that is lively and robust, we are most to be pitied because we are play acting and whistling through the graveyard, hoping all our futile self-help efforts will suddenly and magically work. They won’t. As we have just observed, self-help is of this world and nothing of this world in its current configuration has the power to give life. Nothing.

Even if we have a healthy understanding of the nature of Christ as our Good Shepherd and an accompanying resurrection hope that is lively and relevant to us, it doesn’t make us immune from the dark valleys of life. But God never promised us this. We note that the beloved 23^rd psalm doesn’t tell us that the Good Shepherd keeps us out of the dark valley. No, the Good Shepherd promises to be with us to strengthen and comfort us when we are confronted by the darkness of this world and our sins and ultimately the darkness of death. We aren’t told why a good and loving God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, allows Evil to operate in his good world to corrupt it. No one has that answer, not even our Lord Jesus when he walked this earth. What Christ gave us was much better. He gave us himself. He gave his life to free us from the power of Sin so that our destiny is life, not death—after all, only Christ is the resurrection and the life—and here is where we have to be crystal clear in our thinking about our resurrection hope because it is the key to us living life with a tenacious and dogged hope, even when confronted with the reality of death. 

As St. Paul reminds us in his first letter to the Corinthians, Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said, and that he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. This is how the powers of Evil, Sin, and Death are defeated. Christ died for our sins so that we can be spared God’s good and right judgment on our sins. And in raising Christ from the dead, God showed us that even the universal power of death is destroyed. Not completely yet, of course, but it’s coming and Christ’s resurrection is historical proof that God’s promise to destroy death one day is true (apparently God’s word isn’t good enough for us; we need historical proof as well, another reminder of why the cross is so necessary for us to be reconciled to God, but I digress). The dark powers did their worst to Christ. They had him arrested, tortured, humiliated, reviled, and killed in the worst and most degrading manner ever devised by human depravity. The result? Christ is risen! Death is overcome by life! God showed us decisively his intentions for us: life, not death, thanks be to God! Amen?

And when the New Creation is ushered in fully, we see two things happen. First, we see the abolition of death on a universal basis, at least for the followers of Christ. Death is destroyed forever. Second, we see the implementation of God’s perfect justice. Human justice, no matter how just and right it can be, is never complete. Murder victims, for example, are still dead. Lives are destroyed, the loss is still real. Not so in God’s new world. Evildoers are vanquished forever, the dead are restored to life, all brokenness and imperfection is healed, along with our memories, and we shall live directly in God’s presence with his attendant protection and healing forever. Let me give you a personal example. In 2008 my mother had a massive stroke and lingered for three days. She died a hard death and it was painful to watch. She died when Dondra and I were out for supper. When I returned to her room I saw her corpse lying there. It was ugly and unnatural. It showed the recent signs of her physical suffering. My mother was a good woman and a faithful Christian. You’ll find no better mother around. She didn’t deserve to die in this way, a death that was made more painful by our decision, made out of ignorance, not to hydrate her. This awful vignette encapsulates the entire history of human sin and folly. Sin results in death, in this case my beloved mother’s. Human folly was involved, in this case my ignorance of the importance of keeping her hydrated which only increased her suffering and my guilt when I found out what I had inadvertently done to her. There was grief over the loss of a dearly loved one and its permanent alteration of my life. She was my last surviving parent and even at aged 55, I felt like an orphan for the first time in my life. Nothing in this world can change any of that. I could run after false gods, choose to dampen my pain in a variety of ways, tell everyone what a great person my mom was, seek to increase my bank accounts, or try to increase my status, but none of it will bring her back to life. That’s not how this world works.

But now let’s shift our attention to our epistle lesson to see what I am talking about in terms of having a resurrection hope. In it, St. John shares his glimpse of the heavenly throne room. It isn’t a vision of the future; it is a vision of the present heavenly reality. And what did he see? A huge and countless throng of people from every tribe, language, and nation. They are wearing white robes and waving palm branches. They are in the direct presence of God and his Lamb, Jesus Christ our crucified and risen Savior. St. John is asked the question we want to ask. Who are these people? An elder tells him that they have come out of the great ordeal (they have survived being persecuted and suffering, even unto death). They lack nothing because they are living in God’s direct presence and are now under his eternal protection, and God himself has wiped the tears of sorrow and suffering from their very eyes. Think about that! Think about God wiping your tears from your eyes and how wonderful and restorative that must feel! The Good News is that you’ll get to find out one day.

We notice several things from this poignant vision. First, we note that the palm branches the throng waves are symbols of their victory over the dark powers and Death. The Christian dead have this victory because the blood of the Lamb has taken away their sins and made them pure and able to stand in God’s holy and life-giving presence, without which we are all walking dead. Their white robes symbolize their Christ-endowed and life-giving purity. Notice carefully that St. John doesn’t tell us that the people standing in God’s heavenly throne room are the ones who did the most good or went most regularly to church or are a superior race or ethnic group. No, everyone is there because of the love of Christ for them, not because of who they are or what they’ve done. Likewise with us. 

We notice too that we see the risen Christ with his transformed body in heaven. Does it surprise you that human bodies can exist in heaven? I know it surprised me when I first was taught it. The vast throng are not yet risen. They are not yet fully alive as Jesus is, but they are alive because they are with the Source of Life and their destiny will be like their risen Savior’s because they belong to him, just like we do. Even in their pre-resurrected state, the Christian dead find life and they suffer no more. Whatever injustices they had to endure are made right and their memories are healed. We know this because they are worshiping God and the Lamb for redeeming them from the darkness of Evil and Death, just like we do when we give thanks for the Resurrection in our Eastertide liturgy. Did you notice that? And because they are in the presence of God and his Lamb, they are protected from evil of any kind because no evil can survive in God’s holy presence. Returning to the story of my mother’s death, this is the only satisfactory hope I could have to sustain me in my grief and loss. I know when I see her next, the memories of that hospital room and her dead body will be erased forever, in part, because when I see her next she will be alive! And when the new creation comes in full, she will have an indescribably beautiful body that will also be indestructible. The injustice of her death will be made right. Her death will have been swallowed up in life. Works for me. Worked for Dorcas in our NT lesson, short-term and for eternity. How about you? 

Clearly, St. John intends this vision to encourage us in our suffering as well as give us an indomitable hope because we realize our present and future are secure if we are the Lamb’s, and we can be sure we are his because we hear his voice and obey, not perfectly, but we hear his voice nevertheless and seek to obey him. And he assures us that we will remain his. Nothing can snatch us away from him because nothing is stronger than the love and power of God. He tells us this in our gospel lesson. But what if the worst you have suffered for your faith is having to endure long sermons by your preachers, especially when Fathers Sang, Bowser, and Madanu preach? Then what? How can this lesson encourage you? My only response is that suffering of one sort or another will come before your mortal life ends and you had better be ready with the power of the risen Christ when it does or you will be left without hope. The encouragement found in this story will help you develop that needed power. But what if you have suffered for reasons other than your faith that are beyond your control? Then what? Well, consider this. What if our present suffering is a result of those dark powers working against us and not God punishing us, especially if we cannot directly attribute our suffering to the consequences of our sin, stupidity, or folly? What if God uses our afflictions as opportunities to test us and to draw us closer in our suffering to our Lord Jesus who suffered and died for us? St. John’s vision testifies that Christ will use our suffering to draw us closer to him if we have a resurrection hope that allows us to see that nothing is beyond the redemptive power of God, not even death itself. So be ready. Your hour will come. Draw then on Christ’s power.

Of course, our hope must remain just that until it is realized in the new creation. We will still grieve our dead and have to deal with all the hurt and sorrow and brokenness in this sin-corrupted and God-cursed world. But there is no one or nowhere else to which we can turn. Only in Christ is there hope and life because only Christ has been raised from the dead to break the power of Sin and Death. Only the resurrection offers a real future with full justice and restoration and healing. It is too breathtaking for us to fully contemplate because it comes from God, but contemplate it we must; otherwise we die of hopelessness, wallowing in our sin. And if you are not a fan of delayed gratification, think of the alternative: Hopelessness and no future at all in the face of darkness and the finality of death. So let us persevere and rejoice in Christ, our living hope. Let us resolve to stop seeking life in the world of the dead. Instead, let us embrace fully our Good Shepherd who takes away the sin of the world. Let us live joyfully in the power of the Holy Spirit who makes our risen Savior available to us, even in the face of suffering and death, so that by God’s grace we can show the world and each other what a true and lively Easter hope looks like, and thus encourage each other. To him be honor, praise, and glory forever and ever. Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Sermon delivered on Easter 3C, Sunday, May 5, 2019 at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Westerville, OH.

If you prefer to listen to the audio podcast of today’s sermon, usually somewhat different from the text below, click here.

Lectionary texts: Acts 9.1-20; Psalm 30; Revelation 5.11-15; John 21.1-19.

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Did you catch the sense of transformation, hope, and power in our readings today? It’s all there. But what is the basis for the transformative hope and power of Christ’s resurrection? This is what I want us to look at this morning.

We start with our gospel lesson. Despite the fact that Jesus had previously appeared twice to his frightened and hiding disciples and commissioned them proclaim the Good News, they are now in Galilee and have returned to fishing. We aren’t told why they chose to do this, only that they did. It’s easy for us to understand this, especially since we have not witnessed the risen Lord in the manner they did. We look around and see evil running rampant despite the NT’s proclamation that the powers behind it have been defeated on the cross of Christ. The old corrupted order seems to be thriving despite the fact that Christ’s resurrection proclaimed the beginning of God’s new world with its ultimate defeat of death. Like St. Thomas, we sometimes become skeptical about the reality of our crucified and risen Lord and get discouraged. Whatever the reason, the disciples returned to their old order of business just as we often do. 

But then they encounter a stranger on the shore after a futile night of fishing. He tells them to throw out their net and they suddenly have a huge catch of fish. The beloved disciple recognizes the stranger on the beach as the risen Lord and soon they are eating the breakfast he has prepared for them. More about that in a moment. St. John then says something quite peculiar. He tells us that none of the disciples dared to ask Jesus who he was because they knew he was Jesus. We want to say to St. John that if they knew who Jesus was, why would they have to ask him? Here we get a glimpse into the nature of Christ’s risen body. Whatever it was composed of, it was different from Jesus’ mortal body. One commentator wryly notes that none of the disciples came up to Jesus, slapped him on the back, and very casually said to him, “Welcome back, Jesus!” New creation doesn’t work that way. There is continuity (they recognized the Lord and he had a body), but there was also discontinuity (he appeared different to them so that there was an element of newness). 

And why wouldn’t we expect this? If Christ’s resurrection really did launch God’s new heavens and earth, and if in his resurrection Christ has gone through the dark valley of death and emerged on the other side, we would expect things to be different, even if we can’t imagine a world without suffering and death, without sickness and sorrow, without alienation and conflict, without brokenness and deformity. But that’s exactly the world Christ’s resurrection announced! As St. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15, when the dead are raised, death will be vanquished forever! And because God’s new world is almost impossible for us to imagine because it transcends human power and imagination, we are tempted to discount it like the disciples apparently did because we are so regularly pummeled by the chaos and evil in God’s current world. But we dare not let our resurrection hope fade away because if we do, we give up our inheritance and will lose hope—defined as the sure and certain expectation of things to come. We have been given a glimpse of our future in Christ’s resurrection in the testimony of his first followers so let us embrace God’s gracious gift! Not only do we see Christ transformed in St. John’s story, our perception of God is also changed in light of Easter. In the vivid imagery of our epistle lesson, the countless multitude of heaven proclaim the crucified and risen Christ as deserving of the honor and praise and glory of God. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and only God can take away sin. Listen if you have ears…

Here we see the power of God defined. In Christ’s death, the dark powers are defeated and our slavery to the power of Sin is destroyed, not perfectly in this mortal life, but destroyed nevertheless. God’s power, we are told, is made known in suffering love for his wayward and rebellious creatures, you and me, and none of us deserve a lick of it. But by his wounds we are healed and find the only kind of freedom that really counts: freedom from the powers of Evil, Sin, and Death. We know this is true because we know that God raised Jesus from the dead; and because we are baptized, we too share in his death and life. Our mortal bodies will one day moulder in the grave but that is not our destiny, new creation is: Endless and perfect life without a trace of evil, corruption, sin, or brokenness of any kind. If this does not give you hope in the midst of darkness and joy in the midst of sorrow, nothing can, my beloved. Only the power of God can accomplish this.

And in their encounter with their risen Master on the seashore, St. John is inviting us to see another transition. No longer is the focus on Christ’s death and resurrection. It is on commissioning his followers to take up his love and work and proclaim it to the world. In the poignant story of breakfast for his disciples who may have doubted and wanted to cling to the old order of things, an order than can never end up right, and in the restoration of Peter, St. John is reminding us of two things we all desperately want to hear. First, he reminds us that in Christ we find God’s forgiveness that changes our status with God so that we have the awesome privilege to do his work, and second we are given God’s power to do the work he calls us to do. 

Notice that despite a huge catch of fish, our Lord didn’t need the disciples’ fish to cook them breakfast. He already had what he needed. There were fish already cooking. Yes, Jesus invited them to bring some of their fish, but he didn’t need them. Sometimes we Christians think that Christ calls us to be his disciples because he is totally dependent on us and our efforts. We think we have to organize or proclaim the gospel, that we have to be his hands, eyes, mouth, and heart, because without us Jesus can’t get anything done. What a bunch of caca. Christ has the power and he gives us a share of his power by giving us his Holy Spirit. That was the whole point of last week’s gospel lesson. Receive the Holy Spirit, he told the disciples. Only then did Christ send them into the world to do his work. When we free ourselves from the delusion that Christ needs us instead of us needing him, it frees us to work tirelessly and joyfully for our risen Lord because we are relying on his power and his strength, not our own. We see the logic of this in St. Paul’s conclusion of his massive treatise on the Resurrection found in 1 Corinthians 15. After proclaiming the abolition of death and all evil when the dead are raised at our Lord’s return, St. Paul doesn’t tell us to have a big party (although we should have one in anticipation of our eternal party in God’s new world). No, St. Paul says this: “So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless” (v.58). Too often we focus on the results of our work on the Lord’s behalf and too often we don’t get the results we hoped for or wanted. We might try to persuade a friend or loved one to believe the Good News and we get rebuffed or reviled. Or we try to do the right thing by someone only to receive evil in return. Because we don’t keep our resurrection hope at the forefront of our lives, we tend to get discouraged because it appears we are not making a difference. Not so, St. Paul admonishes us! Christ is risen and you live and move and have your being in his power even when it is not self-evident to you. Don’t fall for the lie. Don’t believe the enemy or a hostile world. Because the Lamb lives, you operate in his power and he will finish what he started. Yes, we are given the wondrous privilege of doing Kingdom work. But we are not called to bring in the Kingdom. We don’t have it in our power. Only God does and in Christ’s resurrection we have a clear demonstration of that power. 

Which brings us to the second basis for our call to follow Christ—forgiveness. In all our lessons, we see the power of God’s forgiveness at work. As we saw in our epistle lesson, the heavenly host proclaim the Lamb’s saving work and worship him as a result. Jesus truly is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Because of Christ’s sacrificial death for us on the cross and because in that death the power of Evil and Sin have been defeated, we are called to have a new and restored relationship with God, a relationship that can only end in life. God has dealt with our sins on the cross and we are forgiven if we have the good sense to accept God’s forgiveness. Our call to be his healed and restored kingdom workers along with the promise that we will one day reign with Christ in God’s new world—something we currently can’t see and do not experience—is intended to give us hope as we labor in darkness and are confronted by the powers of Evil. St. John intends for us to worship the Lamb who was slaughtered for us so that we are strengthened and find encouragement in our struggles in this mortal life. Forgiveness is the basis for this. 

But—and this is massively important to anyone who struggles to be forgiven—it isn’t just one size fits all forgiveness. In our gospel lesson, we see Christ deal with a deep hurt and painful memory to restore his beloved disciple, St. Peter, and Christ tailors his forgiveness accordingly. Recall that in a moment of false bravado with which so many of us are afflicted, Peter arrogantly proclaimed that he would never deny or leave Jesus, no matter what happened. Then reality set in and Peter betrayed his Master three times. Notice carefully that Jesus didn’t come to Peter and name his sin. He didn’t say, e.g., “Simon, you were a cowardly little weasel when I needed you most and you denied me. You boasted you never would do that but you did. What a loser. But I forgive you, dude. Love you, man.” Why didn’t Jesus do that? Because he didn’t have to. We are told elsewhere that St. Peter went out and wept bitterly because of his betrayal and we all know that feeling only too well. Like Peter, we sometimes wonder if Jesus can ever forgive us because we know our transgressions and our sins are ever before us. Stating the obvious to St. Peter would have only rubbed his nose in it and Jesus didn’t do that. Instead, he asked the only question that could lead to St. Peter’s healing and restoration: Do you love me, Simon? Do you love me despite your failures and your fears and your cowardice? The Greek for this interchange is interesting as Jesus uses agapao in asking and Peter uses phileo in response, a lesser form of love than agape love, until finally Christ used phileo in asking Peter if he loved him. Was our Lord meeting his beloved follower where St. Peter was, as do all good pastors? We aren’t told. What the story tells us is that Christ gently got to the heart of Peter’s sin and then forgave it; and in that forgiveness St. Peter found the power of Christ to shepherd his early Church, God be praised!

Likewise with St. Paul. Here we see Christ forgive in a completely different manner because St. Paul’s sin was much different than St. Peter’s. St. Paul was a murderer and vigorously persecuted  the early Church. Strong action was needed and strong action was taken. There was blindness followed by fasting and prayer. But there was forgiveness and a great commission that could only be undertaken in the healing power of Christ’s forgiving love. None of us are St. Peter or St. Paul, but all of us desperately need Christ’s healing forgiveness to be his as they did. These stories and images proclaim exactly that. Will we be too stubborn or proud to accept the forgiveness that we need and in the way we need it, whatever that might look like? God forbid that we be so stupid!

When we accept our Lord’s forgiveness and power, we are made ready to do his work and proclaim his story to others, and it all starts with this parish family because charity starts at home and we are called to do this work together. When we accept Christ’s forgiveness, it humbles us because we realize we don’t deserve any of it (and if we think we do deserve Christ’s forgiveness, we’re outside of the Kingdom entirely). This realization creates humility in the power of the Spirit and that humility helps make us patient and allows us to endure all kinds of things, especially from our brothers and sisters, just like healthy families endure all kinds of baloney for the sake of each other. We realize we are in the same boat, but we also realize we share a common destiny—reigning with Christ in God’s new world. None of us are equipped for that call! But we do not answer the call in our own power. We answer in the power of Christ and with the faith-driven knowledge that we are loved and forgiven; and because we are, we are called to the privilege of being part of God’s family. Like the power of the Christ’s cross, this power is not the kind the world recognizes, but it is the power of God nevertheless and it is a sign of God’s new world breaking in on us. Hear the minister of one of the bombed churches in Sri Lanka testify to this power: 

We are hurt. We are angry also, stated Zion’s senior pastor, Roshan Mahesen. But still—as the senior pastor…, the whole congregation, and every family affected—we say to the suicide bomber, and also to the group that sent the suicide bomber, We love you and we forgive you. No matter what you have done to us, we love you, because we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ [emphasis added].

Jesus Christ on the cross, [sic] said, Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing, said Mahesen. We also, who follow the footsteps of Jesus Christ, we say, for the Lord, forgive these people.

This is the power of God’s suffering love made known in a hate-filled world. It is new creation power based on Christ’s death and resurrection that announce our forgiveness and freedom from the corrupting powers of Sin, Evil, and Death. The world may scoff, but we dare not because this is our call, my beloved. God willing, we will never be bombed or shot up. But if we ever were, this must be our proclamation as well. Regardless of circumstance, we show the world Christ’s power by our generous love and care of each other, by patiently bearing each other’s foibles that irritate us and with which we disagree. We are gracious and humble with each other because we know we’ve been given the gift of eternal life and are greatly beloved by God despite our unloveliness.

This is the Easter Faith we are called to proclaim and live. This is the God we worship, the God who creates new things out of nothing and who raises the dead, the God who forgives us and heals us and equips us to love others and to embody his love, goodness, and justice to others, even when they don’t want any of it. This God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, has sent his Son to restore us fully to himself and makes himself known to us in and through the power of the Holy Spirit and in the sacraments of baptism and holy Eucharist. Our worship of this God and his Lamb calls for us to celebrate and feast during this joyous season of Eastertide (are you partying like it’s the eschaton?), even as we love each other and forgive each other as well as a world that is hostile to us and to our crucified Lord. Come what may, let us resist our urge to fall back into our old ways. Instead, let us worship and serve Christ with joy and faithfulness all our mortal days because our present and future are secure in his great and healing love. To him be honor, praise, and glory forever and ever. Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! 

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.