Dear members and friends,

What do the baseball season and Easter have in common this year?  They both came early…. The season began on March 24th instead of the first week of April, with the Red Sox beating the Athletics in Tokyo.    And Easter was early also, coming on March 23rd.

Rabbi John Sherwood sent me an email containing the following:
The next time Easter will be this early (March 23) will be the year 2228 (220 years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913 (so if you’re 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that!).

The earliest Easter you will ever experience is over… or is it?  In the New Testament, Easter was a spectacular event; yet arguably even more spectacular is the continuing effect of Jesus’ resurrection on the world.

Without the resurrection, Jesus would have been a footnote in history, the New Testament and the church would not exist, billions would not know God through Christ, and all the tremendous works of compassion and education resulting from Christian mission would not have happened.

Even so, the resurrection of Christ is undervalued, both in society and in the church.  A couple of weeks ago, I wanted to put together an Easter hymn medley that went beyond the standard once-a-year hymns we sing on Easter.   So I looked over a couple of hymnals for compositions that speak to the resurrection in at least one stanza.   I only found one or two.

I was amazed to find the vast majority of hymns that trace the Christ-story go right from the cross to the second coming without even mentioning the risen Christ.   How Great Thou Art , one of my favorites, exemplifies this trends, moving from the cross in stanza three, to the return of Christ in stanza four, skipping over the resurrection entirely.  Most of our hymns are from a few decades when perhaps some theological truths were emphasized and others were not.

But resurrection is coming back into our music!  Several songs written in the past decade come to mind: Mighty to Save  “you rose and conquered the grave,” also You are My King “ I’m alive and well, your Spirit is within me, because You died and rose again,” and finally How Deep the Father’s Love for Us “I will boast in Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection.”   The church seems to be gradually rediscovering the power of the risen Christ, at least in our music.

Some of you may know that one of my favorite theologians is N.T. Wright.   Bishop Wright preached the following in his Easter sermon this past Sunday:

Easter is about real life, not escapist fantasy. Easter is about God’s judgment, calling the world to account and setting up his new, glorious creation of freedom and peace, and summoning all people everywhere to live in this new world. Easter is about God’s rich welcome to all humankind. We Easter people are called to celebrate all of that in practical ways, as well as in glad and uninhibited worship.

And it’s all because Easter is about Jesus: the Jesus who announced God’s saving, sovereign kingdom; the Jesus who died to exhaust the power of this world’s rulers; the Jesus who rose again to be crowned as king over all things in heaven and on earth.

Hear it again:  In the Risen Christ, we are called to glad and uninhibited worship.    I think we experienced a bit of that on Easter Sunday, as our skillful and prayerful musicians did more than perform, they led us to worship the risen Christ with voice, organ, guitar, trumpet and drums.

Hear it again:  Easter is about God in Christ setting up his new, glorious creation.  In another sermon, preached at a Christian hospital dedication, the bishop spoke of the hospital’s ministry in light of God’s new creation:

(The hospital) offers healing and hope, not just as a crumb of comfort before we leave this world and go somewhere else, but as a genuine anticipation, and advance foretaste, of the new creation in which all wrongs will be righted, all hurts will be healed, and God will wipe away all tears from all eyes.

I am delighted that our church is sponsoring two surgeries at the CURE International hospital in the Dominican Republic.  We look forward to hearing about how God’s new creation, with the power of resurrection healing, will change the lives of two children and their families.

Bishop Wright closed his Easter sermon with these words:

God give us grace, this day and from now on, to live as Easter people, celebrating Jesus’ love and joy at his table and making his kingdom and justice known in his world.

May our hearts and voices continue to resonate with the sounds of resurrection; may our hands extend God’s rich welcome to everyone; may our feet take us to places where new creation needs to happen the most.

Christ is risen indeed!

Pastor Ted