 |
| Happy Easter |
As I leave my apartment, people are lined up around the block waiting for the early Easter service at First Corinthian Baptist. At the Jay street station, I see women in fancy "bonnets" heading to the 5th Avenue Parade. I'm on my way to Beverley. It's Easter.
Here's what's on my mind this Easter Sunday:
All the years I lived in Pittsburgh, my neighbor Greek Orthodox priest, throughout the fifty days of Easter, would greet me with Alleuia! Christ is risen! and I would respond with Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!....and so today, we begin Easter...
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Easter....so many memories...for twenty years Easter began for me in Central Park, at the foundation stones of All Angels Church in Seneca Village, the buried, forgotten community of African-Americans and Irish and later German immigrants whose story is rising again....because it represented a multi cultural church, because if you try to silence people the very stones will cry out and because you cannot bury the truth forever...sooner or later it will come out...that's how my Easter began...
Memories of Easter go deeper...later this afternoon, my boys and I will go to Trenton to have Easter with my sister and my mother...they..and their cousins...are all adults now....but how can I forget the many years my sister took over for my mom and created the magical backyard wide Easter egg hunt to find all the hidden plastic Easter eggs filled with treats....from Berlin my son calls me and says, tell your grandson his chocolate eggs are for dessert...
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!
I believe Mark is my favorite version of the Easter story...it ends with the words... they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.....in fact, in the Greek, its a dangling preposition...they were afraid for...for what? and why? Man, there is so much space to explore there....
#Emptytomb
#Hesnothere
#Whatnow
and right now there is so much fear...as I was quoted last week's West Side Spirit and Our Town about fear:
Yes, there are, and the Rev. Robert Brashear, pastor of the West-Park Presbyterian Church on West 86th Street since 1995, ticked off a few of them, citing, “Fear of the other, fear of people who are different, fear of people who look different, fear of people who come from different places.” (http://www.westsidespirit.com/local-news/20180327/a-season-of-faith/2)
Yes a lot of us are afraid...and we need to speak to that...but EASTER....
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Let's get something straight...this holiday is not nor never has been about trying to prove that something extraordinary happened 2000 years or so ago. Can't be done. No cell phone shots, instagram posts, snapchat posts or tweets. No external verifications. None.
#wheredhego
#whereshenow
Even the earliest gospel just leaves us with an empty tomb and questions.
The earliest biblical witness is in Paul,1 Corinthians 15: 1-11....and the bottom line here is that we're right there with Paul, ok? We encounter Jesus just as Paul did no more...and get this ....NO LESS....
at the end of the day, if you want proof that Jesus is risen, look around you... it's you and me ...we're here...Christ is in us...and Christ is risen....
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Except wait a minute. Back to fear. As long as there is fear, the risenness is not yet complete. Jesus is still in the state of rising....and we need to be rising with him ......
And there are signs...
 |
| Central Park West |
 |
| Leaving Rutgers |
 |
| Students demand |
They don't accept that they are too young, that it's too hard, that there's nothing to be done...they're telling us they're disappointed in us and that something can be done...they give us hope....
 |
| With Steve Phelps |
Look...I get why the gospel ends with "Afraid"....resurrection is scary...
the easy part is to say, ok, it's over we lost, get over it...the disciples returned to their old jobs as fishers, John says...the scary part is to say no, the tomb is empty...the struggle continues...we are in the process of rising...that's what it is my friends, the process of rising...let us continue to rise together....
And we shared communion together. More friends and family than usual gathered. Even a baby, which always brings smiles and hope. And Geraldine shared her music. And then the traditional community meal in the fellowship hall.
And then, to the train. To meet my boys. Family. Easter.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Second Reading 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
1Now I should remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, 2through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you — unless you have come to believe in vain.
3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them — though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.
MARK
the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were
No comments:
Post a Comment