Christ Church

“The same day at evening, being the first day of the week,
when the doors were shut …”

It is, I think, an arresting image. In a few simple words, John sets the scene. “The same day at evening, being the first day of the week.” What day is that? The day of the Resurrection, Easter day. And yet we read this passage on the Octave Day of Easter, today, this morning actually, but how appropriate! Why? Because it is as if we are there, in that moment, still in the meaning of that day, the day of Resurrection. The idea of the octave, a concept belonging to the musical scale, applies to our lives theologically and spiritually, from the first note to the eighth note, the same note. Just so Easter Day and the Octave Day are, in a way, the same day. It is as if time is somehow suspended or better, as if we are in the eternal moment of Christ’s Resurrection. In a way, that is the meaning of every Sunday in the Christian understanding. Every Sunday is a celebration of the Resurrection.

But the real wonder of this image, at least for me, is in the idea of closed doors. The disciples were behind closed doors on that same day at evening and they were there in the same Upper Room “in the same night that he was betrayed” where Christ had identified himself with the bread and wine of the ancient Passover feast, the festival of Israel’s deliverance by God from Egyptian slavery. And they are there in fear, “for fear of the Jews,” John tells us in a phrase which might trouble us and certainly has had an ugly history in terms of how it has been used, namely, in blaming the Jews simply for Christ’s crucifixion and death. The whole story and, certainly the theological story for Christians, is that we are all implicated in the sequence of betrayals that contribute to the events of Good Friday. They are afraid for themselves because of what happened to Jesus. An inescapable feature of those events is Israel’s betrayal of God and the law but it is part of the larger story of humanity’s betrayal of the truth of God and our betrayal of ourselves.

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The ten sermons delivered by Fr. David Curry from Passion Sunday through Easter have been compiled into a single booklet entitled Judas’ Kiss: Passion and Resurrection at Christ Church 2013. Click here to download the pdf document.

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Christ is Risen. Alleluia, Alleluia!

The Church’s ancient proclamation captures 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. No Passion, no Resurrection. No Good Friday, no Easter day. 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, as I am fond of saying, 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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