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Easter Sunday 2025

Welcome!!!  Welcome all!!!  Happy Easter!!!

You are many and you are here!


Some of you have been here all week, some of you are back from last Sunday, some of you are back from Christmas, and some of you are back from a previous Easter.


Some of you have never been here until today.


You are welcome here!!!


Some of you are here because of your tradition, practice and devotion.  

Some of you, because of your experiences, are wary of such things.

Some of you are here to support your family. 

Some of you are searching, some of you feel found, some of you are unsure.


You are many, and you are welcome here.


We need each other, especially now, since none of us can or should stand alone.  We are different, with different views and understandings.  


But in Christ we are one, and in Easter we bring new hope to one another.


Madeleine L’Engle once said of Easter, in her book of spiritual quest The Irrational Season, “that the strange turning of what seemed to be a horrendous No to a glorious Yes is always the message of Easter.


The Romans emphatically said no to the Way of Jesus.  Easter says yes.


And I agree with her…with this clarification.


The “turning” as she calls it, is not a reversal of what was done, but a revealing that God’ vision of a world of justice and love for neighbor lives on.  Resurrection continues the story…the struggle continues. In the light of the resurrection, the disciples took on the mantle of Jesus.  They proclaimed that Jesus is Lord, and Caesar is not.  The power of the state did not, in reality, silence Jesus, and it would not silence them either.


The following comes from the FaceBook page of St. George’s College, Jerusalem:  The theologian Simone Weil once said that Christ's crucifixion is itself the redemption of evil because God chose to enter that place of pain and deprivation in order to be with humanity in radical solidarity. 


So at the vigil and at dawn we will sing of resurrection victory but the shadow of cross will still cast its shade upon us. The light will not banish the darkness because it will still very much be with us. 


Perhaps we can receive the gifts of life, light and truth into our hearts as a tonic against the death, darkness and lies which currently abound. If the resurrection is not so much a comfort as a calling, then we receive these gifts in order that we can embody them, not in our own strength (because we do not have enough of that) but in the grace and power of God. Resurrection is power. Not the power to abuse and dominate but the power to endure and transform. As Christians we have the power of the Holy Spirit to do in us all that we cannot do ourselves and we do not struggle alone but with all our (siblings) who struggle together with us - those close by and those further afield. We are communities of resurrection and we are communities of resistance. May the resurrected Christ lead us to the place for which we so deeply yearn but which remains for now, out of sight. 


The crucified Christ is risen indeed!


(Easter Sunday sermon at St. Paul's Episcopal SLC at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.)

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