“Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness;  but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”  1 Corinthians  vi. 8.

Since Advent, we have been recounting our Lord’s life.  For the last two weeks, we have been remembering the Passion of our Lord and Savior that culminated in his crucifixion.  Today, we celebrate His Resurrection and take joy in the promise of the life to come.  When Mary Magdalene did not find Jesus in the tomb, she sought Peter and John to explain.  Peter could not explain and John could only see and believe.

Two thousand years later we still cannot explain the mysteries surrounding Jesus’ life and death.  Of course, as we know, and the disciples soon learned, Jesus was resurrected from the dead and returned in a glorified body.  After defeating death, Jesus had forty days to personally prepare the disciples for the task ahead.  His teachings during those forty days become our marching orders as well.

The liturgical calendar summarizes those marching orders in the Collects we will hear over the next five weeks.

“Grant us to put away the leaven of malice and wickedness, that we may serve thee in pureness of living and truth.”

“Give us grace that we may receive His inestimable benefit, and help us to follow the blessed steps of His life.”

“Grant us the strength to avoid those things that are contrary to Christ’s religion, and follow things that are agreeable to the same.”

“Grant that we may love God’s commandments, and desire His promises;  that our hearts be fixed on God’s true joys.”

“Grant us the inspiration to think those things that are good, and with thy help perform the same.”

Each asks for a passion to be charged in us.  Each request requires passion, not just compliance.  In the collects, we ask to serve God in pureness of living and truth.  We ask to follow the blessed steps of Jesus’ holy life.  We ask to avoid things contrary to our profession as Christians.  We ask that our hearts may be fixed where true joys are found.  We ask to think those things that are good and to perform the same.

In all these things we are asking for God’s grace and assistance.  Each one also requires a great deal of dedication and commitment on our part.  Each requires a Passion for the Will of God.  That is the example of Jesus’ life.  Only by following Jesus’ Passion can we increase our understanding of God’s Will.

After celebrating the Ascension, Pentecost and Trinity, our lessons will be emphasizing Jesus’ teaching as opposed to His life and example.  But, at this point, we are still concentrating on Jesus’ life and how he replaced his own will with God’s.  Jesus did not use His divine nature to float through his earthly life like a butterfly.  With the Incarnation, Jesus became human and consequently subject to temptation.  Remember the three temptations in the desert?  How many of us would pass a quick bite of bread after forty days of fasting?  How many of us could resist temptation if we knew Angels would keep us from harm?  How many of us would accept, appreciate and even enjoy some works of the devil - particularly if it made our sins look justified?

Still, in spite of the perfect example, Jesus’ Incarnation had a higher purpose than avoiding temptation.  And, He certainly did not become human to achieve fame and fortune through martyrdom.  He came to earth to save sinners.  He came to earth to save us.  Jesus’ efforts were aligned with God’s Will and God’s Will is that we be saved.  Jesus paid the price and guaranteed the opportunity for us to be saved.

If the Joy of Easter is not prominent enough in this message, it is because we must remember the sacrifice that made it possible.  We cannot bury ourselves in the warm comfort of the Easter message and ignore those in desperate need of its healing power.  For each person who believes what God has done for us, there are many who will not listen.  They hear only the voice of their own ego telling them that they alone are in control of their destiny.  They have eaten of the “tree of knowledge” and believe they can be their own God.  They replace virtue with personal values and disdain God’s grace.  They need to hear this message.

The conflict in today’s world is not between Christians and other faiths that look to an Eternal Spirit.  It’s between a world where reality is whatever we make it at the moment, and a world where the highest reality is supernatural, eternal and pre-eminent.

Under any set of labels, our life either boils down to God in Christ – or to nothing at all.  We are the highest of nature’s creatures, but only if we believes ourselves to be fashioned in God’s image and for God’s work.  Deprived of the gifts of grace and virtue, we too will inevitably fall into evil and self-destruction.  The choice is clear.  We can desire to satisfy only the temporal wishes of our physical existence or we can desire a reality that includes the supernatural.  We can choose emptiness or we can find joy and wonder in a God who reveals himself in more ways than we can imagine.

This ‘either/or’, ‘yes/no’, choice sounds difficult but it is necessary.  I assure you God is a proponent of tough love.  Look at Jesus’ life.  Where was he allowed multiple paths and choices?  Where was he allowed to modify the rules to make the journey easier?  Where was he allowed to ignore God’s Will and find his way back on his own?  Jesus survived God’s tough love and, in the process, showed us the way to be brought back into God’s fold.

When we are through celebrating this greatest revelation of God, we must apply the lessons of Jesus’ life leading up to the resurrection.  When this celebration winds down, we cannot return to a routine, secular, multiple-choice, man-made reality.  Instead, we must rekindle our Passion for following in Jesus’ footsteps and working toward our own salvation.  There are two important things to remember about our own salvation.  First, we will never earn it.  Second, it will not be forced upon us.

We cannot wait for God to force us to repent.  We must do that on our own.  We cannot expect God to change the rules to make our journey easier.  This world is full of easier paths but where do they lead?  Watch as others attempt to avoid following God’s Will.  Some redefine sin or deny its existence.  If a rule is offensive, find a way around it.  If you cannot find a way around it, simply change it.

On the other side, look at the example Jesus provided.  He did not look for a way to avoid the cross;  he simply followed God’s Will.  Each of His decisions paved our path to everlasting life.

Today, we celebrate God’s greatest revelation and his promise of the life to come.  This revelation shows us, “who we are and whose we are.”  It reminds us to look for the Joy of our Risen Lord every day.  We will find him in the Eucharist – in the breaking of the bread.  We will find him in the Holy Scriptures with His Life and Teaching.  With a little extra effort, we will even find him in one another as He dwells in the midst of His Church.  This is the mystery we celebrate today.  Easter is a celebration of an event still happening in our midst.  Take a close look and you will agree.  The Lord is truly risen.  He is risen indeed.

“Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty;  for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine;  thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou are exalted as head above all.”