From the Rector

My dear family in Christ,
 
Alleluia!  Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!
 
Happy Easter, everybody!  Despite unexpected illnesses (HUGE thanks, once more, to everyone who stepped up in my absence on Palm Sunday!) and other unforeseen challenges, our Holy Week liturgies and our Easter celebrations were beautiful, meaningful, and deeply spiritual.  It has always been such a joy to me to have the privilege of celebrating these, our holiest Mysteries, with all of you.  People of All Saints, y’all do worship well!  
 
So here we are, then, people of the Resurrection, living in the time of Resurrection.  In this first week of the great Fifty Days of Easter, we are called once again to reflect upon what all that means.  The world around us seems, to all appearances, little changed indeed from what we saw and experienced prior to Easter Sunday:  violence and conflict around the world; financial and social chaos abroad and at home; our society fractured deeply; the evil of fascism rising again both locally and globally; and the institutions we trust to protect us challenged, even outright attacked.  What does Easter mean, in the face of such real-world crises?
 
It means proclaiming hope, even - especially - when the hard circumstances around us virtually command us to despair.  Hope, real hope, is neither wishful thinking nor a denial of reality.  Real hope, Christian hope, is the understanding that there is a greater reality than that which the world around us has to offer.  Not an imaginary dream, but the actual reality of Resurrection.  It is no mere metaphor that we proclaim at Easter.  No, we bear witness to the fact, the fact, that Jesus actually was crucified, actually died, actually was buried, and on the third day, actually rose again!  It’s not just a story.  It’s not just an abstract idea.  It’s a fact.  A fact that puts the lie to the despair that these dark times around us tempt us to embrace.
 
When we say that, in rising to new life, Jesus destroyed death, what we mean is that death can never again have the final word for us.  Easter proves that even death cannot stop love - the love of God for us, our love for our God, and the love for one another that Jesus even still calls us to live out in our lives together.  Yes, our current moment in history is truly frightening.  So was the world of Jesus’s followers in the 1st Century, under the brutal boot of the Roman Empire.  It was in the midst of such darkness that the first Easter burst forth. 
 
Easter’s glory still shines today for us.  In us.  Alleluia!
 
Grace, peace, and blessings to you all,
Christopher+

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