Easter (Again)

Easter is here . . .again.

An advantage to being a member of the Orthodox Church is while the rest of Christendom has Easter, we can wish them joy in Christ. Beyond getting heavy discounts on Easter candy, advantages multiply though the reality is these advantages are available every Sunday to every human being.

Every Sunday is a little Easter.

Every Sunday is a reminder that life conquers death. The basic script options for life are two: tragedy or comedy. For those who live for stuff, life ends in death. Good times happen, but all is lost in the grave and in time. Nothing is saved and all is forgotten. This is tragic and the only appropriate response is a grim courage knowing we live only to die.

Science cannot defeat death because even if our physical existence could be prolonged until the end of time, that day would come. Barring accidental death, the last men would still face the heat or cold death of the cosmos where the laws of science could give no hope. On that terrible day, the words of Hamlet “to be or not to be” would have terrible meaning again.

Thankfully, there is another option, the comedic. Life can be a comedy punctuated by tragic events. We will all die, but we shall all end, if we choose, at a wedding feast. We die in order to live. If all the world is a stage and the play for men in this world ends in death, as Jaques says in As You Like It, then death gives way to weddings and feasting in Paradise.

I am tired of fakery, especially in the Church and academy. I am tired of pastors who monetize the message. I am tired of schools viewing students as “cash cows.”

Easter is today and I can enter into absolute rest. It is not my job to cleanse the Church. It is His Church and He will cleanse it. He is Lord of Life. He only asks me to allow His grace to flow through me and to do my duty toward my students and my local congregation. He has given me a good pastor and faithful teachers and friends.

Easter is today.

I am tired of a world where Walter Scott is murdered and racism taints the church.

Easter is today and I can enter into absolute unity with the church around the world and through all ages. This church has never been defeated and knows no ethnic bounds. This church recognizes the differences of every tribe and nation and glories in those differences. Jesus is King of Kings and under His rule there are kings and queens of every tribe, people, color, and nation on the earth.

I am tired of sin, mostly my own. I long for holiness and a world where what I want is what I should want.

Easter is today and I can enter into holiness because Jesus is holy and He will come and live in my heart. I will continue in my dying nature to want what I should not want, but Jesus in me will grow until at the moment of my death, the new me, the true me, bursts forth from the tomb into eternity. Easter is today and will be tomorrow.

Every Sunday is my chance to remember that death is the beginning of the beginning and the start of the real story of my life. Every Sunday is Easter and I rejoice in Jesus. The Lord has had mercy on me a sinner!

*I am thankful this Pascha for Father Richard and the congregation of Saint Paul’s in Houston, Texas. They are a family.

*I am also thankful for St. Michael’s Orthodox Church in Whittier, California, (as seen in the graphic) where I was welcomed into the Orthodox Church. They are family.