Posts Tagged ‘Easter’
Prisoners of Hope – Br. James Koester
The Great Vigil of Easter
Romans 6: 1 – 13
Psalm 114
Mark 16: 1 – 8
Every once in a while I’ll be minding my own business, and suddenly, in the middle of Morning or Evening Prayer, something is read and my attention is instantly arrested. A word, or a phrase, or an image from Scripture leaps out of the appointed reading at me, and for the next hour, or day, or week, it returns to me over and again. That happened a week ago, on Palm Sunday, at Morning Prayer, and suddenly what we say in our Rule of Life became immediately true. We read there that in our worship the Spirit sometimes touches us immediately through a word, an image or a story; there and then we experience the Lord speaking to us.[1]
Keith had been reading from Zechariah, where the Prophet proclaims that the coming ruler of God’s people will arrive humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.[2] It’s an all-too-familiar passage that I have read, or heard, dozens of times, and because of its association with Palm Sunday, we heard it again last Sunday at Morning Prayer. In spite of having heard that passage countless time before, I have actually never heard it. Or, at least I have been so caught up with the image of the king coming, humble, and riding on a donkey, that I have never heard the rest of the lesson. As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double.[3]
It was the phrase prisoners of hope that arrested me. Suddenly, I was no longer thinking about kings and donkeys, palms and processions, but prisoners, freedom, and hope. I was thinking what it might mean to be a prisoner of hope. In a sense, while everyone else was celebrating Palm Sunday, and beginning to enter with joy upon the contemplation of those mighty acts, whereby [God] has given us life and immortality,[4] I was already at Easter, thinking about the gift of freedom and hope that comes to us through the Resurrection of Jesus. And that is where I have spent this week, living the events of Holy Week through the lens of being a prisoner of hope. Read More
The Legacy of St. Thomas – Br. Curtis Almquist
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John 20:19-31
The apostle Thomas has been branded “Doubting Thomas,” but that’s unfair, and it’s inaccurate. The opposite is true. There are two scenes in the Gospel prior to what we’ve just heard that shed light on the apostle Thomas. One scene is when Jesus was trying to say “good-bye” to his disciples, just prior to his being seized in the garden at Gethsemane. Jesus said, “Let not your hearts be troubled…. I go to prepare a place for you… and you know where I am going….” No. Not so. Not at least for Thomas. It seems only Thomas has the courage to admit that he is clueless. “My Lord,” Thomas says, “We don’t have the slightest idea where you are going! How can we know the way?” (1) (It’s a good question; an honest question for us, too. How can we know the way, especially when the path is dark and the risks are many, and the fear is great, and the route is unsure?) “How can we know the way?” Quite. Read More
Images from Resurrection Sunday 2014
Images from the Great Vigil of Easter 2014
Martyrdom of Stephen – Br. Geoffrey Tristram
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Preached the Day after the Boston Marathon Bombings.
Every year it strikes me, as if for the first time. On December 25 we celebrate the wondrous story of the birth of Jesus. We meditate on the coming of the Prince of Peace. We gaze adoringly at the crèche, at the Holy Family – the love between Mary and Joseph and their beloved child. Read More
Listen and Look While You Weep – Br. Luke Ditewig
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Br. Luke Ditewig assures us that Jesus Christ comes; the question is not “if” but “how.” In what “surprising yet ordinary” ways have you noticed God calling your name? How might looking for God in the ordinary make you more aware of God’s presence already taking place in your life?
This sermon is currently only available in audio format.
Joy Comes in the Morning – Br. David Vryhof
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Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
CHRIST IS RISEN INDEED! ALLELUIA!!
The psalmist says that “weeping may spend the night, but joy comes in the morning!” (Ps. 30:5) And there is no more joyous morning for Christian people than this morning, the morning of Resurrection!
Through Lent and Holy Week, we have symbolically passed through a “night of weeping” in which we followed Jesus on the Way of suffering and death so that we might share with him the joy that comes on this morning! We are disciples of this Way that he both lived and taught – the way of dying and rising. We have identified ourselves with him, and with this Way – and we have found it to be the Way that leads to Life! Read More
Music and Photographs from Easter
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Click on the links below to listen to musical selections from the Easter Vigil at the Monastery:
The Exsultet
Psalm 33:1-11
Psalm 46
Psalm 33:12-22
The Song of Moses
Psalm 122
The First Song of Isaiah
Psalm 42:1-7
Psalm 30
Psalm 98
The Litany
Jesus Christ is Risen Today
Click here to view a gallery of images from the Great Vigil of Easter 2012. Read More
The Power of God – Br. Geoffrey Tristram
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Luke 24:1-12
It’s Easter!
Today is the glorious culmination of these days of Holy Week. Today, our Lord Jesus Christ has been raised gloriously from the dead. Alleluia!
It was still very early in the morning, Luke tells us, with just the first streaks of dawn, when Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the other women, came to the tomb in order to carry out the last offices of love for their beloved Jesus, and to embalm his body with their spices.
But, to their amazement, when they got to the tomb, they found that the stone had been rolled away. They looked inside and the body was gone. Read More
Alleluia – Br. Geoffrey Tristram
Matthew 28:1-10
The year was 1922. The place Kiev, in the Soviet Union. There was to be a great anti-religious rally to be addressed by the revered Soviet politician and orator Nikolai Bukharin. Thousands had arrived to listen to his words. He stood up and spoke for over an hour – preaching atheism, pouring scorn on those who believed in God. Finally he sat down, and the chairman asked if there were any questions. There was silence.
But then, a man stood up near the back. He was elderly, with a beard, and dressed in the robes of an Orthodox monk. Slowly he made his way to the front, passing row upon row of people, until he reached the front, and climbed up slowly onto the stage, and turned to the silent, expectant crowd.
He raised his arms, and in a loud, confident voice cried out, “Alleluia! Christ is Risen!” and at once, the huge crowd rose to its feet and thundered out, “The Lord is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!” Read More