Welcome to Bright Sunday! It’s a tradition in Christian churches to take the Sunday after Easter as a day to catch our breath after the solemnity of Lent and the triumph of Easter. Interestingly, it’s also known in Latin as Risus Paschalis – literally laughing Easter. Now, why is it called laughing Easter? Because God pulled the biggest joke of all time with Easter. You see, the authorities thought that Jesus, who had strangely accepted his fate without resistance, was…
Matthew 28:1-10 After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the…
Good Friday is always hard. It’s hard to spend time at the foot of the cross, as witnesses, as lovers of Jesus, and to hold just a fraction of the pain, and the horror, in our own bodies, just the smallest fraction of it. We know Easter’s coming, for those folks who actually stood with Jesus, for Mary, and Jesus’ mother, and the beloved disciple, their agony came with no promise of swift resolution, with the assurance that everything really…
Recently, I was talking with someone who’d visited St. Ben’s for Sunday worship. They seemed pleased with their visit, they seemed satisfied with their experience of worship here, and of the liturgy. Yet something they said stayed with me: it was quite the show, they said, it was good theater. While I don’t think for a moment that these comments were intended to be disparaging in any way, they did have me thinking about what the experience of worship in…
