Resurrection Is a Current Event

The feast of our Lord’s resurrection is upon us (on April 4).  In our Eucharistic Prayer A, which we tend to use through the bulk of the church year, we proclaim the mystery of faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.  Did you catch that?  Christ has died and he will come again - past and future events.  However, he is risen.  Not has been raised (only a past event), not will be raised (only an event of the future), but is raised, on that fateful third day after his crucifixion, in those days to which we look forward, and - present tense - right now, today, and every day we renew our faith in Jesus.  As such, maybe we can begin to see that resurrection is not just a single moment out of history.  Resurrection is a current event.

Having done more than give up chocolate through Lent (I hope), having gone through self-examination and repentance, engaged prayer, fasting, and self-denial, and reading and meditating on God’s holy word, now we get to experience resurrection.  Because Jesus has defeated death, death doesn't get the last word.  Jesus defeats death.  Because of what Jesus accomplished for us, we get to benefit, dying to those parts of ourselves revealed through Lenten disciplines that keep us distant from God, being raised to new life in intimate relationship with God.  That’s resurrection - not just something we have to look forward to, but a current event; something we get to experience today and every day that we find our faith in Jesus renewed.

Marc+

Update on Covid numbers and ramifications for regathering

The Covid numbers in our area have been slowly climbing over the past few weeks.  As of March 23, the positivity rate that we have been tracking (a weighted average of the Hampton and Peninsula Health Districts) stood at 8.57%.  Per our regathering guidelines, if at any point that weighed average rises to 10%, we will not be able to regather until it has dropped under 10% for two consecutive weeks.  So our hoped-for regathering date of April 11 continues to be tentative.  We will definitely keep you posted.

Reserving your seat for in-person Sunday worship on April 11

On April 11, percentages permitting, we are planning in-person worship at 10:30 AM.  Because our regathering protocols limit the number of people who can be present in the church, attendees will need to make a reservation.  Registration is on a first come, first served basis and opens on Sunday, April 4 at noon and closes on Wednesday, April 7 at noon.  To make a reservation, please call Bill Wilds (880-5460). If you make a reservation and need to cancel, let Bill know.  If you are not able to get a reservation because all spaces are taken, Bill will place you on the waiting list.  If something opens up, he will contact you.    Because space is limited, we are asking that if you attend one Sunday, please wait at least a week before registering again.  All of our services will continue to be streamed live online each week and also available to watch later on Facebook.

How will you practice resurrection this Easter?

Dear friends,

How will you practice resurrection this Easter?  Even in the midst of a pandemic, we as Christians are Easter people, resurrection people—in every season of our lives.  One of my favorite lines from our beautiful funeral liturgy is:  To your faithful people, O Lord, life is changed, not ended.  When we hear those words in the burial service, I’m guessing we are thinking about the life to come. But what about this life?  In what ways does Jesus’ resurrection change and shape our lives here and now?

Our Wednesday night Lenten study has focused on resurrection shaped life—life lived in a way that witnesses to our central Christian belief:  that Jesus Christ is risen.  God’s own beloved Son, who gave his very life out of love for us, is alive.  Jesus conquered death and came back to us, rising on that first Easter morning—and bringing us the gift of eternal life.  As we were reminded in the Lenten study, eternal life is not only about what happens when our earthly life is over.  Through Jesus’ presence in our lives and in our world, eternal life has already begun here and now.

This Easter season, how will we show that we are resurrection people, that we are embracing the eternal life we have so graciously been given?

Resurrection life, Easter life, is shaped by grace and love, hope and mercy.  We can practice those virtues in even the most mundane moments of our lives:  speaking kindly to a surly cashier; offering encouragement rather than an annoyed glance at a harried parent dealing with a toddler’s tantrum; following tiresome Covid precautions in order to protect other, more fragile members of our society; deciding to let go of resentment even when the offender has not apologized.  These—and so many others—are resurrection practices, marks of being Easter people.  And they are practices that our suffering world desperately needs, right now.

On Easter morning, Alleluias will flow from our lips, and our altar will be surrounded by a sea of beautiful lilies.  We will sing joyous Easter hymns, share our holy meal, flower the cross.  We will affirm our belief in the resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  And then, fortified by our worship, with music still filling our souls and Jesus alive in our hearts, we will re-engage with the task before us:  living resurrection shaped lives, leaving behind trails of grace, love, hope and mercy.

As we continue to learn and practice how to live resurrection shaped lives, I am so grateful to be walking this path with each of you.  Happy Easter!

Blessings and love.

Faithfully,
Anne

Winter and Ah! Springtime

From Hymn 149:

Verse 2
So daily dying to the way of self,
so daily living to the way of love,
We walk the road, Lord Jesus, that you trod,
Knowing ourselves baptized into your death:
So we are dead and live with you in God

Verse 3
If dead in you, so in you we arise,
you the firstborn of all the faithful dead;
And as through stony ground the green shoots break,
Glorious in springtime dress of leaf and flower,
So in the Father’s glory shall we wake.

Living in the glories of spring in Virginia, we get the visuals of this Lenten hymn and the Gospel lesson on which the hymn is based – “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies…”

We are coming up on Holy Week, where we ponder the mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection and, hopefully, think of the mystery of our own death and what God has in store for his beloved children.

We needed winter to get to springtime. We need the winter of betrayal, abandonment, and Suffering to get to Easter. 

-      Brad Norris, Minister of Music

Retreat

I will be on annual retreat this month (Tuesday the 16th through Saturday the 20th), a discipline I have kept for twenty-three years now on or around the anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood (March 20).  While not in my preferred monastic setting and its daily cycle of prayer, this year I will be at the Claggett Center in the Diocese of Maryland.

Scripture is replete with stories of Jesus going off by himself to pray, even such that the disciples couldn’t find him for a while.  As John Moses notes in The Desert, An Anthology for Lent (Morehouse Publishing, 1997), we, like Jesus and the third and fourth century desert Fathers and Mothers, find themes of "the desert ideal" on any retreat we undertake: solitude, testing, self-emptying, encounter....  Or said another way, “Abandoning everything in favor of nothing, or more accurately the abandonment of everything in favor of God - and God Alone.”

I find it truly a blessing that I have always had a family and church that supports the practice of annual retreat.  It does entail rest, but it is not a glorified vacation.  It is rather the real, sometimes arduous, work of going deeper into the realm of the Holy Mysteries to be attentive to the stirrings of the Spirit.  Sometimes it is only affirming of direction, other times there are surprises, but it is essential for the work of anyone doing what I do for a living - and not a bad idea for anyone else!

As much as solitude and self-emptying and encounter with God are all aspects typical of retreat, one additional thing to note is that retreat is never for the sake of retreat alone.  Jesus always came back, renewed in spirit, ready to get back to work and that is why I would term retreat as something essential for anyone, not just clergy, interested in exploring the Holy Mysteries.  It is never solely for the person on retreat, but so the person is better prepared to return and serve the community from whence s/he cometh.  So this month, pray for me while I’m on retreat (actually, pray for me all the time!) and pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit to see if retreat is in your future - a time of abandonment of self in favor of God, and God Alone.

Marc+