The Society of Saint John the Evangelist: The Daily Office
The Road to Resurrection
Holy Week at the Monastery
Easter Liturgy
John 20:1-18
“Egregious Violation”
The poet has spoken again today, the poet of poets. He spoke once and still speaks. And shall evermore speak. “Let there be something and not nothing: let there be something and not this formless void. No more of this formless void. Let there be something,” the poet said.
We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth. That word “maker” has a double meaning. In Greek the word for “maker” or “creator” isποιητής[poiētēs]. ποιητής also means “poet”(perhaps you can hear it). We believe in one God, creator or poet of heaven and earth. In Genesis and in John’s Gospel, God, the creator, the Word, the poet speaks the cosmos into existence. All things come into being through the Word [John 1:3] and are sustained by the Word [Heb. 1:3]. God is the poet; the creation is the poem. We, and the world we live in, are God’s poetry. Living, breathing poetry.
Let there be something and not nothing. Let there be light. The poet spoke and it was so. Let there life. The poet spoke and it was so. Let there be human beings in our own image. And it was so. Let all things come to be in a luminous web, a seamless web of life. And, so, we are here, caught up in this marvelous and luminous web of life, this great poetic utterance we call life. Each of us words in the larger poem of the cosmos. Each of us living words of the poetry spoken by the Poet God.
For whatever reason…for whatever reason, into this poetry has been spoken darkness, fear, violence, even death. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. We may ask the Poet God “why?”, but not get much of an answer. But it’s good to keep on asking “why?” Why so much darkness, so much fear, so much violence, so much death. Why so much suffering? Is this necessary? If so, please help us understand! “Well,” he seems to say, “you can speak light into this dark world; you can speak courage, peace, life into this fearsome, violent and death-dealing world. You can even speak Love, you can even speak my very essence into this world. You can change the poem from within the poem…a little…if you so choose…”
So, we speak light when we can, as we can. We speak love, when we can, as we can. And, when we cannot, the Poet, in infinite mercy, says, “This, too, is forgiven. Be not afraid. Follow me. Follow me to Easter morning.”
Easter morning: the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. How wonderful that there should be a moon to be full, and then not; how wonderful that there are days and nights to be equal, and then not.
Easter morning: Christ risen from the dead. Resurrection. A most egregious violation! A violation of the Poet’s own protocols of nature. An event so dramatic, so compelling that we are still telling about it, still singing about it. A second Big Bang! An egregious violation—but no more so than creation itself. “Let there be something” was an egregious violation of the nothingness, the formless void which “preceded” it.
Creation and new creation: acts of sheer poetry. The dawn of time and Christ risen: utterances of sheer poetry. Only a master could have said such a thing. There is something and not nothing, and there shall always be something and not nothing. Even after the worst that can happen there shall be something and not nothing. Christ is risen! The Word has spoken. The Poet has spoken and speaks still. Christ is risen and so shall we rise. So shall we rise in him. There shall be something and not nothing, and what shall be, we can only begin to imagine.
I’ll close with a little poem by e.e. cummings, one of my favorites. It’s from a collection called ΧΑΙΡΕ [chairē] published in 1950. ΧΑΙΡΕ is what the angel said to Mary: “ΧΑΙΡΕ, hail, greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” [Luke 1:28]
i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
[end]
ΧΑΙΡΕ, hail, greetings, O favored ones, Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia! Hail, O favored ones, there is and ever shall be something and not nothing. As the poet put it, “a blue true dream of sky” and “everything which is infinite”. Everything “which is yes”.
© 2007 THE SOCIETY OF SAINT JOHN THE EVANGELIST, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED