Christ is risen! Happy Easter!

When Easter Day is a cold day, may it be warm and bright with the love of the risen Christ!

The love of Christ: let’s look at the Second Lesson today, from the Letter of Paul to the Church at Colossae (Colossians 3:1-4):

So if you have been raised with Christ,

Note Paul’s words if you have been raised with Christ. The great promise of Easter is that we will be raised with Christ. That is our hope. That is the Easter faith. But also (not instead of) but also, we are raised into the new life with Christ in the here and now, if we accept and trust the love of God given to us – freely, all grace – in him.

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Where is that? Where is Christ seated at the right hand of God? Where is God the Trinity, with the risen Jesus at God’s heart? In heaven. Where is that? Beyond us. Therefore we have the traditional imagery of up and above, but also it is where God is, with us. One of the great Gospel names of Jesus is Emanu El – God with us. (Matthew 1:23).

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Set your mind and my mind on the things of the new life with Christ, the new resurrection life, life with Christ, life lived as his disciples. For God calls us to follow Jesus as his disciples, just as surely as Jesus called the fishermen Simon Peter and Andrew, James and John.

The last words of the risen Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel are known as the Great Commission: “Go … and make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 27:19)  “And remember, I am with you always …” (Matthew 27:20)

What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? This list is hardly original with me, but it is important to be clear about it – to be clear you are very much invited. This is not some vague general invitation – “Come see us sometime” but rather, “Please come to dinner next Tuesday.” You know the difference. I believe God in the Scriptures (and I begin with the Scriptures) and in The Book of Common Prayer is calling you to be a disciple of Jesus, to follow him day by day on his way of self-giving love.

God calls you to …

·        Read Jesus’ story in the Gospels regularly – encounter Christ in his story, open it for yourself – read in the context of the whole Scriptures. They are the Word of God because God speaks to us through them, by means of them. Listen for what God is saying to you, especially about God’s love for you. Not everything speaks, but spend time, prayerful time, with passages and images that do. Listen in the liturgy and read on your own.

·        Come regularly to Holy Communion, to this Feast Jesus gives us at the center of our worship, where we enter into his own prayer at the heart of God the Trinity – the great offering of love addressed to the one he called Father, in his Name, with him and in him – in the Holy Spirit who is God with us and within us. This Eucharist forms Jesus’ community he gathers at his altar. Our beautiful handmade table is both the Table for the Meal, and an Altar. An altar is a place of sacrifice, and we remember the one sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for us, but also always Jesus’ eternal sacrifice of love to the Father, and we join ourselves with that.

·        Say your daily prayers. You and I are left quite free how to do that, as we are left free to decide how to spend time with the people we love. The Daily Offices in the Prayer Book are an ancient treasure – the prayer of the church – a resource in daily prayer – in no way required, but available in front of you. Find some times of solitude and quiet. Where your life is hidden with Christ in God.   

·        In the liturgy confess your sins and ask God’s forgiveness and rejoice in God’s welcome home to you. Jesus gave us this Lent the unforgettable image of God’s welcome home to us: his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. (Luke 15:20)

·        Forgive others. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us Jesus teaches us to pray. Jesus calls us to be peacemakers, in a divided world, a divided church, in living rooms: Blessed are the peacemakers. (Matthew 5: 9) We are called to bring people together, to understand, to be tolerant.

·        Give of your money. Pray about what you are to give. Offer it with the bread and wine at the Eucharist.

·        Serve people in need. In great things and small – with Christ all loving servant ministries are equally needed. We have parishioners giving major leadership in world-class hospitals in this city, in schools and colleges. And we just cooked a dinner of corned beef and cabbage for some neighbors who could use a meal. Jesus said that in all of it, when we serve a brother or sister in need we serve him.

·        We are called to be a voice for God-given human rights of every human being. This past month we remembered the 200^th anniversary of the ending of the slave trade in the British Empire, based on profound Christian conviction about the value of every person created by God, and belonging to God alone. In a parish with many children, I believe we have a special calling to speak for the God-given immeasurable value of every child – that they should not be abused or starved.

·        Build up the community of Christ that is this parish church. In the First Letter of John we read: We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another.” (First John 3:14) A hundred years ago the great Bishop Westcott of Durham called this – our love for one another -- the sign of the resurrection. The sign we have entered the new life.

·        Find – look for, discern – what gifts God the Holy Spirit has given you for prayer and ministry. Just as I believe God calls you – that you have a vocation given by God to be Jesus’ disciple – I believe the Holy Spirit has given gifts for discipleship, indeed they are surely rich and can be quite varied and surprising.

·        Take care of your home, make it a place of hospitality and welcome, and a place of prayer and refreshment. Take care of those you love.

·        Take care of yourself.

So we are invited to follow Christ as his disciples in Chicago.

So we are invited to live with Christ who loves us, and we are invited to love Christ, and Christ brings us into his own prayer and ministry. Christ gives us his boundless love for us, the love of God – mercy, compassion, understanding, friendship – and calls us to accept that love, say yes to that love, trust that love, and love one another, and offer our love, with him and in him, here, in this hour, in this Eucharist, to God.