Lake Country Joint Easter Vigil – Noble Victory Chapel – SJNW Academy,
Delafield, Wisconsin/March 31, 2018
The V. Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
Christ is Risen!
There’s a story some would say is beyond belief: Christ IS risen!
Now, let’s see if we can amplify it a bit. Let me begin by telling you a story that I heard from Elie Wiesel. It is one of my favorite stories about four of the great Hasidic rabbis and it goes like this:
When the great Rabbi Israel Baal Shem-Tov saw misfortune threatening the Jews it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted.
Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Magid of Mezeritch, had occasion, for the same reason, to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say: “Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer.” And again the miracle would be accomplished.
Still later, Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sassov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say: “I do not know how to light the fire, I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient.” It was sufficient and the miracle was accomplished.
Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhin to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: “I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient.” And it was sufficient.
God made man because he loves stories. [The Gates of the Forest]
It’s true. God does love stories, and God loves us, which is what the story is all about. What is more, we love stories, too.
We tell stories all the time. Holidays, like Easter, give us the opportunities to tell them. Sometimes the stories help us understand customs that we have as a part of our family life. I heard one that made that point come home to me. It was about the family that always began preparations for the Easter feast by cutting the ends off the ham. They had done this as long as anyone could remember; it was simply part of the Easter ritual. Finally, as children are wont to do, one of the little ones piped up and asked, “Why do we cut the ends off the ham?” Her mother didn’t know, she just had seen her mother do it. So she suggested that they ask grandma, which they did. Her answer? “I don’t know. Mama always did it. Let’s ask her.” So when great-grandma came they asked her . . . and she began to laugh. “Well. I know why I did it, but you know I’ve never understood why you girls have done it all these years.” Pressed for the answer, through her laughter, she told them, “Darlings, I cut the ends off the ham because the pan I had was too small to hold it when grandpa and I were first married and I liked the pan.” Ask some questions this Easter – find out about those customs. Listen to the stories.
The power of stories was made fresh to me not long ago when I heard from several friends I’d not had contact with in years. Within minutes of finishing the obligatory catch-up stuff, we were telling stories. And as we told those stories the years melted away and it was as though we had never lost touch with one another. Stories draw us together as people. Stories help identify us and define the world in which we live.
The essence of our Christian faith revolves around the story of one person’s life. At Christmas time we tell the story of Jesus’ birth and during Holy Week and Easter we tell the story of his passion, death and resurrection. Christian doctrine may seem pretty abstract or esoteric and, sometimes, Christian worship can be formalistic, but neither need be the case, because at root they are stories. In fact, the best definition of Christian worship I have ever heard goes like this: Gather the folk. Tell the story. Break the bread. Go out to love and serve. So, this evening we’ve gathered the folk and we’re telling the story. We are telling it by words and music and actions. We’re telling it because it makes us who we are – to be ‘Christian’ is, really, to be identified as a “follower of Jesus Christ,” a teller of the story.
So, what is the story? We heard it a bit ago in the great narratives of the Old Testament that told us of our creation, our rebellion and the actions God took to draw us to become people of a new heart, dry bones reanimated, people gathered by God, with fortunes restored. We heard it in Paul’s words to the Church at Rome, reminding them, and us, that we are ourselves risen from the death of sin to the wonder of unselfish life. We heard it in the familiar words of Mark’s Gospel, the witness of three caring women and the testimony of an empty tomb. We will hear it – and witness it – again in the Baptismal rite as we are joined with Christ’s dying and rising with Eloise Claire Kramer.
When the early church proclaimed its faith in the Risen Christ, it did so because people had a life-changing encounter with the one they thought dead, whom they discovered alive. As they thought about this reality it was more to them than just an intellectual proposition to which they gave their assent. As they understood the resurrection, this story touched the deepest point of the human experience and offered a new sense of self and a new sense of belonging, both to God and to the whole of humanity. We so often get wrapped up in trying to ‘prove’ the intellectual proposition that we miss the point. The resurrection is the climax, the fulfillment of God’s identification with humanity. The resurrection is the triumph of ‘Emmanuel’ – God-with-us.
Irenaeus celebrated that triumph back in the second century by teaching, “God became man so that man might become god.” This is the point of the story – God shares all of life with us, even to the point that death is swallowed up in the Author of Life. God IS with us and with us at every point of our life’s journey and we become “partakers of Divine nature.”
I guess it’s a story beyond belief, though it comes right into the center of our life, because it is beyond words. This story is not “once upon a time” because it is about a present reality. When we greet one another – as I greeted you at the beginning of the sermon – we say, “Christ IS risen!” We are not talking about the past, but the present. The Lord IS risen – now, today, this very moment.
The Lord IS risen and the story continues to be told as each of us encounters the Risen One in the midst of life and sees who it is speaking to us. And, for each of us, there is the joy, the wonder, and the possibility of life renewed and transformed as we, ourselves, rise to a life centered in God and in others. The resurrection is present-tense. It happens when we hear our names, see the Lord, and approach life here-and-now in a new way.
The Resurrection, the Easter story, is a story beyond belief because it is a story that never gets over-told. You know stories like that; where we ask Uncle Stanley to tell the story about grandma and grandpa when they were young again. We want to hear the story again and again, because it is part of us, part of who we are, part of what makes us family. The Resurrection, the Easter story, is a story like that. The story we tell today affirms life and all of its possibilities. The story we tell today says that God loves us very much and that we, in turn, should love others in the same way. It’s a story that we can tell because it is our story, too. So, tell the story yourself today, for it is sufficient and, as you do, hear your own story; for Christ IS risen, in you, today!
Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia!