EASTER GIFT - EASTER JOY
Dear Friends in Christ:
One of my colleagues said recently that she hadn’t live through forty days of Lent to have just one day of Easter. This “Queen of seasons bright” with its fifty days is longer than Lent, longer than the twelve days of Christmas, longer than Advent. We need all fifty days – and perhaps more besides – to celebrate the gift and the joy of this season.
Although the Church has rightly emphasized Easter as Christ’s victory over sin and death, it has far too often seen that victory too narrowly. Easter is not only about the forgiveness of our sins or about the promise of life after death. At the Easter Vigil, we are reminded of how much more there is to the Easter victory as the Exsultet is chanted:
This is the night, when you brought our fathers, the children of
This is the night, when all who believe in Christ are delivered from the gloom of sin, and are restored to grace and holiness of life.
This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave.
How wonderful and beyond our knowing, O God, is your mercy and loving-kindness to us, that to redeem a slave, you gave a Son.
How holy is this night, when wickedness is put to flight, and sin is washed away. It restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to those who mourn. It casts out pride and hatred, and brings peace and concord.
How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined and man is reconciled to God.
The Easter victory frees us to live grace-filled lives, lives that show forth the self-giving love that led Jesus to the Cross. Yes, we are forgiven for our sins, but we are also given the power to resist sin, the power to be, in the words of Paul in the Letter to the Romans, “more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Romans 8:37) Yes, we are promised the gift of eternal life, but that gift is ours now, and not just beyond the grave. As our lives are transformed by God’s grace, we can live more and more the life of eternity.
Several years ago I heard the story of a large city parish where the youth group had hung out a banner for Easter where neighbors and commuters on a nearby highway could see. It read, “Jesus is Alive!” Around the middle of August, an older parishioner asked the rector when the banner was going to be taken down. The rector replied, “Why? Isn’t it true anymore?”
God invites us to live in the presence of the One who was dead and is alive for ever and ever, (Revelation 1:18) and not just on Easter Day or even during the fifty days of Easter, but each day.
Your brother and priest,
Daniel+
