Preached at the Great Vigil of Easter The Easter sermon of John Chrysostom (circa 400 AD) Read aloud on Easter in Eastern Orthodox & Eastern Rite Catholic Churches Are there any who are devout lovers of God?
Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!

Are there any who are grateful servants?
Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

Are there any weary with fasting?
Let them now receive their wages!

If any have toiled from the first hour,
let them receive their due reward;
If any have come after the third hour,
let him with gratitude join in the Feast!
And he that arrived after the sixth hour,
let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss.
And if any delayed until the ninth hour,
let him not hesitate; but let him come too.
And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour,
let him not be afraid by reason of his delay.
For the Lord is gracious and receives…

I think more than any other day in the Christian liturgical calendar, Good Friday has a particular feel to it.  I think part of this feel comes about because Good Friday used to be marked by the “seven last words” of Jesus Christ.   There was this focus on the finality, the ending of Jesus’s life, and therefore we tend to think of the finality of our own lives, and that leaves us with a slightly morose, and often very reflective, contemplative element to Good Friday. I’ve also noticed that there is occasionally this focus that people act like they did something to participate in causing Jesus to die, and therefore people feel very guilty or full of remorse.  Now, this may be the result of priests or pastors trying so hard to move the focus away from the Jews being responsible for the crucifixion, in order to not perpetuate…

The last supper… in the other three Gospels, the synoptics (remember meaning—“same vision”) , the Last Supper is marked by Jesus giving what becomes the ritual of the Eucharist, the bread and wine, in which we are to remember Jesus as ‘oft’ as we eat and drink. Can you imagine how different it would be if instead the Gospel of John’s foot-washing had caught on as the primary ritual? I’m sure churches would be outfitted with ceremonial shoe racks; in Rome and Spain those racks would be gilded. Every church would have piped water to little sunken foot baths. Although it is clear that the last night Jesus spent with his disciples is portrayed differently in the different Gospels, there is no reason to think that both the words of the Last Supper, which become the warrant for our Eucharist and Jesus washing the feet of his disciples didn’t both…

Wow, there is just a lot to process in the readings from Palm Sunday, there always is. In part this has to do with the fact that the lectionary gives us the Passion narrative on Palm Sunday. So, we have the King of Kings triumphal entry into Jerusalem (the liturgy of the palms) and then also the Passion.  You may wonder why we do that? Why make it so packed, if we are just going to read the Passion Narrative again on Good Friday?  I suspect more so than ever before, not every person who considers themselves a Christian will make it to a Good Friday liturgy.  For those who will not make it, this would be the only time that the story of the Passion is heard on a Sunday.  The other reason has to do with rotating which version of the Passion we hear. On Good Friday, we…

My parents moved into the house in which I grew up when I was 6 months old, 1966. My brother and I sold that same house about a year after my mother’s death in 2010. For a large part of my life, even when I had my own home, and my own children, there was something to the understanding about going home-home. I remember distinctly the first time that I went away for a trip from my townhouse in Charlottesville, VA and returned and it finally felt like home, whereas all the other times, even coming home from class, it felt like a lodging. I’m sure you can relate. I remember once seeing a painting on a planter’s pot, “Home is where you hang your heart.” That rings true. Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann called the words of prophecy from the passage we just heard from Isaiah, “home coming passages.”…

Lent… we are still in it. The word comes from the Old English, leacte, to lengthen (as in the days are lengthening) and so Lent is another word for Spring really. Of course, it is during Spring that we anticipate Easter, a time for earth’s rebirth, at least in the northern hemisphere. This time that we very intentionally turn towards God, as Jesus turns towards Jerusalem in our Gospel stories. As we turn towards God, most of us are not so good at being God-like. I think most of us see other people as not particularly special, another person is someone we may like or dislike, but we definitely do not see as God sees. “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” Wouldn’t it be great to be able to see as God sees? Still, most of…