Author: CCW

Sermons

Sermon for Easter Monday

“He was known of them in the breaking of the bread”

After the intensity of the Passion comes the rich wonder of the Resurrection. What is set before us are the scenes of the Resurrection. None is more dramatic than the story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Jesus runs out after us.

It is his running after us, as it were, that teaches us so much about the truth of the Resurrection. In the story of the Road to Emmaus, Jesus runs out after us to be with us in Word and Sacrament. In a way, Luke provides us with a picture of the life and witness of the Church. What is altogether of moment in that picture is the presence of Christ – the living, running, risen Christ.

The Resurrection is not a static event. It sets everything in motion. The Church is the running miracle of God. After all, what else could possibly account for the Church, except the existence of God and the truth of the Resurrection? Certainly not ourselves.

What are we ourselves, you and me, and by extension every congregation of souls really, except by times rather dull and dreary, weary and pathetic, boring and not nearly so fascinating as we would like to think we are? Or to put it scripturally, are we not often enough, “foolish and slow of heart”? I mean to be provocative, not insulting, but I do hasten to add, “in ourselves”. I once overheard a conversation in which the subject was the church – not this church in particular, but church in general. The claim was that church is always boring. In a way, I’m afraid, it often is. Why? Well, to be honest we really only need to look at ourselves. Do you really think that you are all that exciting? It is really we who are rather boring, I am afraid.

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Prayers and liturgy

Monday in Easter Week

The collect for today, Monday in Easter Week, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, who through thine only begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life: We humbly beseech thee, that as by thy special grace thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 10:34-43
The Gospel: St Luke 24:13-35

Carpaccio, Supper at Emmaus

Artwork: Vittore Carpaccio, Supper at Emmaus, c. 1513. Oil on canvas, Chiesa di San Salvador (Church of the Holy Saviour), Venice.

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Sermons

Sermon for Easter, 2:00pm service for the Atlantic Ministry of the Deaf

Christ is Risen. Alleluia, Alleluia!

The Church’s ancient proclamation captures something of the joy and the excitement of this day. But make no mistake, the Resurrection is not some sort of clap-happy event, a happy ending to an otherwise sad and bitter tale. No. The joy and the excitement of Easter are born out of the Passion and Death of Christ. The intensity of the Passion gives rise to the joyfulness of the Resurrection.

The Resurrection is a bodily event. But it gives rise to a new understanding of everything. There is, we might say, a resurrection of the understanding. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is radical new life. Radical is the right word, actually. It refers to the root of things, the radix. The Resurrection goes to the root of all life itself. That root is the reciprocal love of the Son for the Father in the bond of the Holy Spirit.

The God who creates ex nihilo – out of nothing – recreates out of the greater nothingness of sin and death. The Cross has made visible that greater nothingness. The full force of sin and evil are revealed in the crucified Christ. The greater nothingness is the vanity of our wills as against everything that is good – against one another in the human community, against the good order of creation, and against God himself. But the Cross has also made visible the far greater love of God both for us and in itself.

If the message of Good Friday is that God is dead, then the message of Easter is that death is conquered, death is dead. “Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more;/death hath no more dominion over him.” Christ is risen from the dead never to die again. The meaning of death itself is changed. The tomb is not only empty; it has become the womb of new life. The unending life of the Resurrection is accomplished in and through the darkness of death. Christ is Risen!

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Sermons

Sermon for Easter, 10:30am service

Christ is Risen! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Who is risen? Jesus Christ is risen. Risen from what? Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Risen to what? Jesus Christ is risen to everlasting life never to die again: “in that he liveth, he liveth unto God.” Risen for what? Jesus Christ is risen for us, for our justification, for the purpose of making us right with God, that we may be “alive unto God through Jesus Christ.” We have no life apart from him.

What, then, is the resurrection? The what, first and foremost, is who. Christ is risen. He can only be in us if we are in him. Christ is “the resurrection and the life.” It is what he told us beforehand though we failed to understand. It is what he told us because he who is “the resurrection and the life” is also “the resurrection and the life” for us.

And that is all the joy of this day and, indeed, our abiding joy. We behold the figure of his resurrection and see in it the shape of our own. No faith where there is no resurrection. No Christians where there is no resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. No church where the resurrection is not proclaimed and celebrated. For if he is not risen, then he is not alive and neither are we. If he is not risen, then we, too, shall simply cease to be as if we had never been at all. But “in Christ shall all be made alive.” There can be no holy abiding in him if he is not risen from the dead. And if we do not abide in him, then where shall we dwell? In the tomb? But the tomb is empty. To dwell there is to dwell where there is no meaning and life is not life but death.

But if we cling to our hurts and sorrows, our hatreds and animosities, our pretension and arrogance, our anger and despair; in short, to what Paul calls “the leaven of malice and wickedness,” then we are but the walking dead. We choose death and reject the hope of new life. Let go of it all. Choose life. Choose Christ.

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Statements and other writings

Christ Church Chronicles, Eastertide 2011

The Eastertide 2011 issue of the parish newsletter, Christ Church Chronicles, can be downloaded via this link as a pdf document. Previous issues can be downloaded via this page.

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Sermons, Statements and other writings

Lenten and Holy Week Meditations

Fr. David Curry has collected his 2011 meditations for Lent and Holy Week into two documents, which are now available for downloading.

Click here to download “Original Sin: A Lenten Series (based on the Propers for the first four Sundays in Lent)”.

Click here to download “’What mean ye by this service?’ Meditations for Holy Week”.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 25 April-1 May

Monday, April 25th, Easter Monday
10:00am Holy Communion

Tuesday, April 26th, Easter Tuesday
10:00am Holy Communion
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30pm Brownies Mtg. in Parish Hall

Thursday, April 28th, Easter Thursday
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In

Fri., April 29th, Easter Friday
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
3:00pm Choral Evensong with KES Cadet Corps

Saturday, April 30th, Easter Saturday
7-9:00pm Parish Hall Nfld. & Country Evening of Entertainment

Sunday, May 1st, Octave Day of Easter
8:00am Holy Communion (followed by Men’s Club Breakfast)
9:30am Holy Communion at KES
10:30am Holy Communion
4:30pm Evening Prayer at Christ Church

Upcoming events:

Saturday, May 7th
4:30-6:00pm Annual Lobster Supper
Saturday, June 4th
7:30pm King’s Chorale Concert (under the direction of Bill Perrott)

Christ is Risen! Alleluia! Alleluia!

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Prayers and liturgy

Easter Day

The collect for today, Easter-Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962) :

ALMIGHTY God, who through thine only begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life: We humbly beseech thee, that as by thy special grace thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: Colossians 3:1-11
The Gospel: St John 20:1-10

Bergognone, Risen Christ with Angels

Artwork: Il Bergognone (Ambrogio da Fossano), Risen Christ with Angels, c. 1495. Fresco, Basilica of Saint Ambrose, Milan. Photograph taken by admin, 3 May 2010.

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Sermons

Sermon for Holy Saturday

“What mean ye by this service?”

Holy Saturday is the quietest and most peaceful of all the days of the Christian year. Why? Because all the noise and nonsense of our fallen and broken humanity has had its way, right to the bitter end. God has put himself into our hands and we have done our worst. Christ is dead. Christ now lies buried in a borrowed grave. In one way, we are a spent force.

But it is the quietest and most peaceful day for another reason. “It is finished,” Christ said on the Cross in what is the penultimate word of the Crucified. His last word, too, signifies the fuller meaning of that sense of completion. “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” But what is finished? What is in his spirit that is placed into the hands of his Father? Simply all that belongs to human redemption. It is all accomplished. There is peace between God and man.

Holy Saturday is paradise restored. It recalls the original harmony between God and man and between nature and God. That, too, is part of the peace and quiet of this day. But that sense of paradise restored is only part of the meaning of this day. Paradise in the biblical and theological understanding is not our homeland, not our end. Our end is with God in the glory of heaven. That is something more and greater than Paradise. It is, perhaps, Paradise plus! For we cannot return to Eden.

We cannot undo the effects of the fall, the effects of sin and folly. The purpose of Holy Week, after all, was to make us more fully aware of sin so as to understand better Christ’s overcoming of sin. Sin and love have been fully on display throughout the pageant of Holy Week. I hope that we have learned something about our selves and about God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. The purpose has not been for us to forget our sins and their disastrous and deadly consequences. No. The purpose has been to see the divine work of human redemption transforming our sins into his righteousness and truth.

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Prayers and liturgy

Easter Even

The collect for today, Easter Even, or Holy Saturday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

GRANT, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of thy blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continual mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with him; and that, through the grave, and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection; for his merits, who died, and was buried, and rose again for us, thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St Peter 3:17-22
The Gospel: St Matthew 27:57-66

Pogliaghi, Pieta

Artwork: Ludovico Pogliaghi, Pieta, 1894-1908. Central Bronze door, Milan Cathedral. Photograph taken by admin, 2 May 2010.

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