Easter Day - March 31

Good Friday Alleluias

We’ve waited a long time to say Alleluia.

Jesus Christ is risen today. Finally. The Lenten journey is ended. Alleluia.

The forty days of Lent are long. In the Bible forty doesn’t literally mean forty; it means “a very long time.” I don’t know why that came to be. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years. Actually it would have undoubtedly been much longer.

At the time of the flood, it rained for forty days and forty nights.

 Jesus was tempted in the wilderness for forty days.

Forty means “I can’t imagine a human being could endure that long…”

The real forty days of Lent can seem very long, almost beyond endurance.

But the waiting is done. The time of endurance is over. The church is bursting with the beauty of spring’s new life. Alleluias resound from the rafters. The season of penitence, fasting, self-examination and self-deprivation is done! Thanks be to God! The Lord is risen indeed.

The days and weeks of Lent and Holy Week do make us yearn for Easter. They strengthen our appreciation for the gift that is given on Easter. Endurance produces character, Paul says in Romans. He meant Christian character, of course. So I am grateful for Lent. And I am even more grateful that it is over.

Or is it? Is Lent truly over?

There will be dark days ahead; times that seem beyond human endurance. Temptation and sin still abound. Death still confronts us. Despite the joy and glory of this day, Lent is never far from us.

But because Jesus died and rose again then, on that first Easter, we never have to wait for resurrection again. It is always with us. That is very good news. Easter is every day.

Even when our mornings aren’t “happy,” and we are not eager to welcome them, the risen Christ is still alive and with us. That’s the gift of Easter.

Even when the church is not filled with the aroma and brightness of Easter lilies, Easter lilies still bloom in the graveyard. Metaphorically, at least, every day on every grave an Easter lily blooms. Easter is about the lilies in the graveyards, not the ones at the altar. The gift of Easter is the gift of eternal life beyond death, offered to us all. Even at the grave we make our song alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

Last night at the Vigil, I quoted St. John Chrysostom’s Easter sermon. One of my favorite lines in Chrysostom’s sermon is this: “Let no one mourn that he (or she) has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen from the grave.” When we sin, when we fall, again and again and again, God is eager with forgiveness. And we are reconciled to God. That is the gift of Easter.

Whenever we feel captive or powerless in a dark place in our lives, even if we are very far from this Easter day or that Paschal candle, the light of Christ burns for us and within us. The light of Christ, the Easter light, brings light into our darkness, no matter when or where we are.

Easter isn’t about just this one day. It is about every day. It is about being given the power to say (and experience!!!) alleluia throughout this life we’re in.

For those of us steeped in church tradition, at least Episcopal church tradition, it would have been really, really, really hard to say “Alleluia” on Good Friday. But that is Easter’s gift. We live our live our lives now, every day, even our Good Fridays, in the presence of the risen Christ. As partakers in Christ’s resurrection.

I’m glad we don’t say Alleluia during Lent (and please don’t say it next Good Friday), because abstaining helps us remember the potency and significance of all of the resurrection reality that Alleluia symbolizes. But the gift of that first Easter is Alleluia every day… even in Lent… maybe especially in Lent.

Today is a glorious Easter. Today is also at least a little bit of Lent. So today, in the midst of Easter (and Lent) we proclaim: Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed!