In this Issue:

Sauls Nominated for Presiding Bishop

St. Martha's and Martha's Place: A commitment to service

Internationally known author and teacher Newell to be in Lexington

A conversation with the Bishop on his nomination for Presiding Bishop

Commentaries:

Reflection: Miss Della and the Palm Crosses

X-ercizing: Undone

From the Bishop: Anticipation of Easter

Diocesan Calendar

Past Issues

From the Bishop: The Anticipation of Easter

Like just about everyone else, I have vivid and fond memories of Christmas. And part of that is really not so much about Christmas as the anticipation of Christmas. I have no similar memory of Easter.

There is an excitement that builds toward Christmas. It is particularly evident in children. They literally count the days, and we buy them Advent calendars to help them. It just winds them up more. They cannot wait for Christmas to come. One of the traditions that developed in our house is to allow the opening of one present before Christmas arrives as an antidote to the overpowering excitement that threatened to become more than anyone could cope with.

Perhaps part of the reason is that we take Lent more seriously than we take Advent. Advent, to tell you the truth, we pretty much ignore. Rather than being a time of slowing down and quiet, it becomes a time of frenetic activity and total distraction from the spiritual theme. Lent, though, we try harder to keep in a spiritually sound way. It is a bit peculiar to me, but Episcopalians are good at Lent. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last much beyond Lent, but Lent, I suppose, is better than nothing.

Whatever the reason, though, our approach to Easter lacks the same level of anticipation that we bring to Christmas. The Easter Bunny just can’t compete with Santa Claus. No one could probably stand it if it did.

Could the real reason that we bring so much less anticipation to Easter is that Easter is so much more threatening to us at a very deep level? Christmas goes back in a box in the attic. Easter, at least if we really take in what it means, threatens to change everything forever. Change is really the essence of Easter. It begins with a huge change, the raising of Jesus from the dead. And from there the changes just continue to break into the world. It is the whole world, the universe, that God has set about changing, re-creating, in Easter.

It wasn’t long before the apostles themselves started to change dramatically. By Easter night they had turned their attention to reconciliation. On the road to Emmaus they were starting to see things differently. In just fifty days they had changed from a frightened little group cowering behind locked doors to proclaimers of the good news of the resurrection. It was just a little while longer that they were announcing some big changes, including that God shows no partiality in God’s love.

And in just a few years, the spread of the in-breaking change had overtaken a devout man named Saul. He was so profoundly changed that he changed his name to Paul. It was Paul that caught on to the fact that the in- breaking change included the destruction of the barriers that had helped keep everything ordered, that Jews were really no different than Greeks, that slaves were really no different than free people, and that women were really no different than men. Those are changes that have yet to break fully into the world we live in, but we can see that they will. We have caught glimpses of it in our own day in the American South and in South Africa. It remains an unfinished work to this day, but we can catch a glimpse of it, and we know the change is coming. And ultimately, of course, the change God is bringing about will be completed in what will also surely one day be, our own resurrection from the dead. That may be the greatest, and it will certainly be the final, change of all.

Once the power of death had been overcome in Christ, the fundamental change had already occurred. And, I am convinced, God’s action in the resurrection will just continue to expand until the whole creation is changed, until all that has been cast down is raised up and all that has grown old has been made new and we ourselves are brought to the fullness of life with Christ. Everything will change. Everything must.

Change, of course, is not something we have an easy time with. It should not be too much of a surprise that we do not meet Easter with quite the same enthusiasm that we meet Christmas. Easter, because it changes everything, is just much harder to deal with.

What I wish for us as the people of God, though, is that we will come to greet Easter with the same enthusiasm with which we meet Christmas, a greater enthusiasm in fact. What I hope for us as the people of God is the same anticipation of Easter, and all that the change it might bring, as that we have for Christmas, a greater anticipation in fact.

Ginger, Andrew, and Matthew join me in wishing you not only an Easter that brings you great joy but one that fills you with anticipation for change.

Agape,

Advocate Online Staff:

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