Worship

Easter 2008

Easter, always in the Spring, is a creation and nature festival. We celebrate new life, characterized not simply nor primarily as a cycle of nature, but as new life made possible only by the Resurrection of Christ. This new life is echoed in the signs of Spring, and in ourselves, as we participate in a new creation, in the lives we share now with the Risen Christ.

I was disappointed hearing on NPR last Saturday an interview with Richard Dawkins, a professor of evolutionary biology and author of The God Delusion. His argument against a God was that some being with that much intelligence would need to have evolved – he could not have started off that smart. To follow that line of reasoning is, in my opinion, to fiddle with dull detail and to turn a blind eye to the huge elephant squarely in the center of the universe. The elephant is the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

To conclude as Dawkins does, diverts us from the harder question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Immediately following Prof. Dawkins, Prof. Francis Collins, a geneticist, explained from a 2006 interview on Fresh Air, how in his leadership of the team that finished mapping the human genome -- at the ceremony celebrating that, as the world of science looked on, President Clinton said "Without a doubt, this is the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by humankind” -- he moved from atheism to faith:

“ But the part of his speech that most attracted public attention jumped from the scientific perspective to the spiritual. ‘Today,’ he said, ‘we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, and the wonder of God's most divine and sacred gift.’”(Collins doesn’t believe in “Intelligent Design,” and instead bases his reconciliation of science and religion on the mutually complimentary purpose of each. See his book, The Language of God. GKS)

God is the only answer to the question of “Why is there something rather than nothing?” To say that God isn’t required to explain the universe, because it simply has always existed, avoids the hard question. But if we are explorers, then the Crucifixion and Resurrection become pieces of a joyfully profound and satisfying puzzle, the completed picture being one of love and life at the core of being human. We are created in God’s Image, re-created in Baptism, and reincorporated in Eucharist and prayer, into humanity as it is intended to be. In the Risen Christ we find the full celebration of Spring and see the full beauty of creation.

This Holy Week, on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, I challenge you to plumb the depth of Christ’s redemptive suffering. The mystery of the Cross places our feet firmly on the solid ground of life actually lived: Christ’s suffering gives meaning to ours.
On Easter Day grasp again the mystery that Jesus did, and which he has revealed to you and to me. That is, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from past ages and generations, … the riches of the glory of this mystery …, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory (Col 1: 26,27) ---a wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor 2:8).

This is our first Easter in the new church. It will be glorious. Bring a friend and join in!

Peace and Joy,