The Taize service at Highland on Palm Sunday evening was such a meaningful way to launch this week. The services have always been moving when I’ve attended; but somehow they really resonate during Passion Week.
Growing up I always heard that Easter Sunday is no different than every other Sunday because we always celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. I appreciate much of that insight.
And yet . . . the church has also known for 2000 years the power of the calendar — of remembering that there was a Sunday in the spring (tied to the Jewish Passover) when the actual, historical event took place.
He has killed and buried. Then God raised him from the dead. So we believe by faith.
From Eugene Peterson:
“We live the Christian life out of a rich tradition of formation-by-resurrection. Jesus’ resurrection provides the energy and conditions by which we ‘walk before the LORD in the land of the living’ — the great psalm phrase (116:9). The resurrection of Jesus creates and then makes available the reality in which we are formed as new creatures in Christ by the Holy Spirit. The do-it-yourself, self-help culture of North America has so thoroughly permeated our imaginations that we ordinarily don’t give attention to the biggest thing of all — resurrection. And the reason we don’t is because resurrection is not something we can use or control or manipulate or improve on. It’s interesting, isn’t it, that the world has had very little success in commercializing Easter — turning it into a commodity — as it has Christmas? If we can’t, in our phrase, ‘get a handle on it’ or use it, we soon lose interest. But resurrection is not available for our use. It’s exclusively God’s operation.”
This is taken from Peterson’s Living the Resurrection, pp. 13f.
Peterson writes, “It’s interesting, isn’t it, that the world has had very little success in commercializing Easter — turning it into a commodity —as it has Christmas?”
St. Nicholas is a story of grace and redemption. St. Nicholas has been transformed into Santa Clause, which still slighlty resembles the origninal gift giver. What’s up with the Easter Bunny? I haven’t read about any rabbits that came to life on the dinner table in the 19th century.
That is one rich book!
One of our brothers here has a gift of exposing things commonly heard, that are against the way of Christ. Recently he remarked, “What is this ‘God helps those who help themselves’ stuff? Those that can help themselves, that’s what they do. They don’t need God to help them. God helps those who can’t help themselves.”
“Resurrection” reminded me of that. The dead can’t help themselves.
I am looking again at the words in Acts, “But God has raised this Jesus to life…” “Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead…”
Great hope for those dead in other ways too…
Michael
On Easter, I love to share the story of Cicadas, especially using PowerPoint slides with pictures.
Some people call them “dry flies.” (These insects have the longest life cycle of any insect, from 2 to 17 years) These creatures start out as a rice-shaped egg that is laid in tender twigs and plant stems.
The egg hatches into a nymph (the larval stage) and drops to the ground. The nymph burrows into the soil and crawls to a tree root (using its claw-like front legs).
The nymph will suck the tree’s sap through straw-like mouthparts. When the nymph is fully grown, it tunnels to the surface and goes through its final molt (shedding its hard outer skin) and emerges as a winged adult.
Many of you have discovered those brown, dried shells with a slit in its back.
I like Cicadas because they are evidence that a miracle has occurred. They looked dead, but they weren’t. They were just shells. Every one of them had a neat slit down its back, where the living creature inside of it had escaped, pulling new legs, new eyes, new wings out of that dry brown body and taking flight. At night I could hear them singing their high song in the trees. If you had asked them, I’ll bet none of them could have told you where they left their old clothes.
Here are some pictures for you:
http://tinyurl.com/jmtxm
http://tinyurl.com/lsxya
http://tinyurl.com/jbuvy
That Cicada is a picture of Christ’s resurrection and our resurrection from sin. Jesus left his old clothes in the tomb and we leave our old life behind in the tomb of sin. We are just like the Cicadas–we’re a living miracle.
Peace.
Speaking of church marketing, have you seen the web site:
http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com
It’s not what you might think. This site looks at ways the church is trying to connect with the culture, mostly in healthy ways. Check out these two ads for Easter.
http://tinyurl.com/ffjpz
http://tinyurl.com/rog4l
Peace
I grew up with the same thing you heard, but this year taking time to “do Lent” has helped me to grow spiritually and to anticipate this coming Sunday with so much passion and excitement…..I think we have been cheating ourselves for a long time.
I’m sorry I’ve forgotten where I read recently that many historians suggest the 1st century Christians didn’t market the crucifixion and resurrection much at all. As the writer suggested it would be like us going to the Chamber of Commerce today and stating we were starting a new group that worships an obscure man that was executed for a crime he really didn’t commit (yeah right the Chamber person sighs). And, oh, by the way, he rose from the dead and I watched him ascend into heaven. Kinda hard to put a positive marketing spin on that one.
mchristophoros — a great insight: “Those that can help themselves, that’s what they do. They don’t need God to help them. God helps those who can’t help themselves.”
I heard the Bach St. John Passion this past Sunday afternoon. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Passion performed live. What an amazing experience! I had the translation in front of me the entire time. I’m not sure who did the translation from the German, but one particular poetic section caught my attention:
Consider, my soul, with anguished joy,
With bitter pleasure and half-frozen heart,
That Jesus’ pain is your highest good,
That the thorns that pierce him bloom for you,
Each blossom a key to heaven’s door;
You can pluck sweet fruit from his wormwood tree,
So gaze upon him endlessly.
Mark, how his bloodstained back, its every welt,
Is lifted high as heaven!
For which, after the tossing waves
Of our ocean of sin calmed,
The rainbow in its loveliness
Signifies God’s grace.
KentF: In _Waking the Dead_, Eldredge made the point about that crosses weren’t the primary symbol of Christianity until a couple of centuries after Jesus’ DB&R…he said they focused more on the resurrection. I can’t verify that from any primary sources, but might that be what you’re remembering? Dying a martyr’s death is ordinary stuff compared to being raised from that death, which is the point Eldredge was making. qb
My twelve-year-old said to me last week “I think we should focus more on the resurrection than on the cross.” A pretty good insight, I think.
I guess it’s easier to put a cross on a necklace than an empty tomb, but it’s in the Ressurection that our hope is found.
Mike, thanks for sharing your thoughts and Peterson’s. Holy Week and Easter is one of my favorite times of the year. Can a C of C member acknowledge Holy Week? I wish we put more emphasis on it. Jesus’ life, teachings and his death were wonderful things; but the resurrection is what it’s all about.
One of my favorite books is “A Prayer for Owen Meany” in the book, Owen Mean says this, “Anyone can be sentimental about the Nativity; any fool can feel like a Christian at Christmas. But Easter is the main even; if you don’t believe in the Resurrection- if you don’t believe in Easter- don’t kid yourself, don’t call yourself a Christian.”
If your father were executed in the electric chair would you wear it around your neck? That is a question I grew up with. I have learned that the cross represents love. A love that has set me free. I no longer see a means of execution but a means of forgiveness. The empty tomb gives me hope. A love without hope, a hope without love, faith would be empty.
Like Mike, I too was raised to not treat Easter special or different. Now I do celebrate the Easter Season. It is a season of joy and throughtful celebration
Mike said, “So we believe by faith”. We believe that Jesus was killed, and buried. And the stone was rolled back not to let Jesus out, but to let us in — in to see the open tomb, that we may know.
We often don’t know what we believe. What we do know, what we can know, is what we mean to believe.
And I mean to believe in the man they called the King of the Jews. I mean to believe in his courage. I mean to believe in his wisdom. I mean to believe in his love.
And that he suffered terribly.
And I thus celebrate Easter.
These are great comments.
I believe, and suspect most do, that the Cross and the Resurrection can hardly be separated. From Unfair Capital Punishment of the Not-Guilty, through which God, through Jesus, can identify with, relieve, purify, sanctify, any imaginable human suffering or situation. To Resurrection, where he has begun the undoing of all wrongs — especially the great enemy Death — and has begun the restoration of all things. With a down payment of what is to come — it is astounding.
Michael
Mike~ (thank you for all you do and for your blog!)
Has your approach to preaching an Easter/Resurrection sermon changed over time? This year will be my first! Help!
b blessed
russ
Funny. I was raised to just think of Easter as chocolate bunnys and eggs. I was raised in the church. (though I don’t like that in the church term) I had an Easter Dress for Easter Sunday but I don’t remember my church going over the ressurection as the Easter story. Why did we do that? Why was there such a push to make no day any more special than another? Or were we trying to say that every Sunday was just as special? Please forgive my cartoon quotes here but one of the most insightful lines in “The Incredibles” is when Dash is arguing with his Mom about having special powers. She says “Everyone is special Dash” to which he replies “Which is another way of saying no one is.”
From the beginning the children of Isreal understood the power of the calendar and giving meaning to special days. Our movement missed out on that. Like with any thing in life, one can loose focus and get way too into the stuff of the day and forget the meaning of the day…but these days can also remind of why we do what we do and help us to express our faith. I “did lent” last year and it really meant something to me. I hope we return to special days and celebrations in our faith.
I remember growing up WANTING to know what everyone else was talking about when they talked about spiritual things around Easter Time. I couldn’t figure out what Easter Eggs had to do with “church” but every Easter, we had a sermon with an egg as a visual.
My mother allowed me to be Mary in the Christmas play at school but, we didn’t even mention Jesus’ birth in Sunday school at that time of year.
I’m was so glad when I was able to learn more about God. I want to have a Passover meal Thursday but… I’d like to sit down and enjoy it and not be ready to run!
Some things I miss from my heritage: Receiving palm branches & folding them into a cross shape on Palm Sunday, getting ashes on Ash Wednesday (THAT is really looking like a fool for Christ!), doing the ‘Stations of the Cross’ in church before Easter, Christmas with a manger scene outside. Every tribe can bring something special to the table……I just wish we had a table where we could all share the best of what we have to offer on THIS side of Eternity.
I realized with a start on Sunday evening that it was Palm Sunday. We sure didn’t mention it at church. After celebrating Palm Sunday in an Anglican church for the past three years, I am sad that I don’t have the opportunity to do that with my church family here. I tried to talk to someone about Lent a couple of weeks ago and got only blank stares.
Clint - I heard that one about wearing an electric chair around my neck, too!
Very interested in hearing more about this Palm Sunday Taize Service. Can you give details or a source?
Easter was always celebrated at my home congregation as a child. It was the one time in the year that we were normal christians. No Christmas and no “music” may have set us apart, but at Easter we were normal. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I discovered that wasn’t the normal Church of Christ tradition. I wonder how that happened. Autonomous congregations, I suppose.
Well, we started our Palm Sunday service like we have for the last several years: with a reading from the gospels and all the children walking down the aisle waving their palm branches.
The Taize service is in our atrium with everyone gathered around a cross and Palm branches. The worship “style” is typical for Taize (resources are online), with an invitation from the leader at the end, to write something on a card that we’d like to “leave in the shadow of the cross” as we left in silence (with the Taize choir singing). It was, for me, both refreshing and convicting.
Excuse me..I just want to tell Greg, Neal, Joyce and Amy thank you for your prayers..We find out results in a couple of days…Sam was covered with many prayers….
Okay,,,now you can go back to what you were talking about…
Beverly - I’m a bit behind on reading comments. My prayers are with you and my friend Sam. Please drop me an e-mail to catch me up on more specifics. Mike
Mike, just sent you an email.
The cross cannot and should not be separated from the resurrection of our Lord. He was delivered to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification (Romans 4:25). The gospel message is the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. This is our message too. It should also be our manner of life. “Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!” (Charles Wesley, “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today”).
“No Christmas and no ‘music’ may have set us apart, but at Easter we were normal.”
Is that what we’re aspiring to nowadays — what the world considers “normal”?
I read these posts and these comments with words like “pastor,” “lent,” “passion week,” “tithe” — and I think maybe our focus has become to be more like others — so they’ll think we are “normal” — than more like God.
On Palm Sunday last week I did something I have never done in my life. I went to a Presbyterian church for the second time in my life. The first time was the week before. The traditions were so moving, and I was frankly suprised that I could get beyond by own heritage. What really amazed me was the powerful sermon. I think that one thing that leads to our exclusivness is the simple fact that we never visit anywhere else. This guy just preach the Bible and with power. I have no plans of becoming a Presbyterian, but my life was richer for having gone. This Sunday I will be filling in for a church inbetween preachers. The Easter story will be told, and hopefully I will be asked back to speak again. Great post as usual.
Rc
How does excluding words like tithe, lent, passion week, etc. make us more like God? Certainly Christians are not required to celebrate lent or Easter (a Christianization of an old celebration to a Norse goddess), but I think that what people are saying here is that these traditions that most Christians have held over the centuries can be benefitial for those of us in churches of Christ to experience.
I am a person who loves celebrations, so celebrating Easter seems only natural to me. I love the way it reminds me of the power of the cross and the resurrection! For many years, I have enjoyed going to see Pioneer Drive’s Easter pagaent. The last two years, I have been honored and moved to participate in this annual tradition by playing in the orchestra. When I invited some of my ACU friends, they kind of turned their noses at me, like, Why go to a play to tell a story we already know? But I’m here to tell you that seeing the story reenacted before your very eyes moves you in a way that reading the words off the page cannot. Nearly every line in the play is straight from Scripture, and I find every one of the six performances moves me differently. If anyone would like the chance to come see this show, I would highly recommend it! We have two more performances: this evening (Good Friday) at 7:30 and tomorrow afternoon (Saturday) at 3:00 at the Civic Center in Abilene.
One more thought: Jesus left us with the act of communion, knowing we would need a ceremony to remind us of his love for us. Why not view Easter in the same way? A yearly reminder of Jesus’ triumph over the grave, though we can certainly celebrate that triumph at other times as well!
Mike,
Thanks for your comment on observing Easter. It is refreshing. I’ve enjoyed perusing your blog. Many blessings on this Ressurection Day morning!
Lawrence
Google is the best search engine