Easter Day - March 27

Aorist People
John 20:1-18

On Easter morning we joyfully acclaim:  The Lord is risen!  He is risen indeed!  He is risen!

Bear with me for just a bit, but this year I got sidetracked by grammar.  If you think about it, it is an odd phrase.  Not a construction we would use in everyday speech.  And what’s with the present “is” and then some sort of past “risen?”  He is risen.

And actually, if you Google “Easter grammar,” you get quite a few hits.  People wondering if “He is risen” is correct grammar, or wondering why so many Christians use poor grammar.  Shouldn’t it be “He has risen?”

But for centuries in our worship we have greeted Easter morning with the acclamation:  He is risen.  And, like so much of the material in the Prayer Book, it comes from the Bible.   The King James translation in particular.

As another aside, I think I have one of my former professors to thank for getting me off on this track.  Back when I was doing scientific writing, Professor Eric Cheney would not let any of his students use the passive voice.  Ever.  And scientists are prone to use the passive voice, especially when describing passive things like rocks.

This phrase isn’t actually passive voice, but I do think it caught my attention because of Eric’s persistent editing.

Apparently, this construction, “He is risen” is an archaic way of forming the present perfect for intransitive verbs.  OK, so that’s cleared it up for me!

More interestingly, and I am going somewhere with this, it is a way of translating a Greek verb tense called the aorist.  It’s not a tense we have in English, but it occurs, for example in Matthew 28:6 for the verb “raise”.

The King James translation:  He is not here, for he is risen, as he said.  Where we get our liturgical acclamation.

The New RSV, the version we use in worship, translates this same verse:  He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said.

Some other newer translations say:  He has risen.

He is risen.  He has been raised.  He has risen.  It’s one word in the Greek.  The verb “raise” in the aorist tense.

One online commentator writes:  The Greek aorist passive has no precise equivalent in English, and this present perfect construction was particularly useful for [translating] verbs that presented an ongoing state resulting from a past action.  That’s what the aorist conveys--something I do remember from my New Testament Greek in seminary.  A past action that continues to present an active, ongoing state in the present.  We don’t have that tense in English.  There is no direct equivalent.  Something to remember, in general, when we recognize that we are always reading the New Testament in translation from the Greek.  There is no direct equivalent.

So the aorist tense describes an ongoing state resulting from a past action.  That’s Easter, isn’t it?

I’m not sure what to make of the idea that the whole of our Easter faith is based on a verb form that doesn’t exist in English.  But it really is.  For us, Easter is an “ongoing state resulting from a past action.”  Yes.  Definitely, yes!

We’re not Easter people.  We’re aorist people.  Or maybe Easter aorist people.

I love the joyous cry, “He is risen.”  It’s been a part of my entire life.  And I think it works for us theologically, whether or not we understand the grammar.  It conveys that aorist sense that we live in an ongoing Easter state resulting from a past action.

But all of this led me to want to come up with some less grammatically complex sentences that describe the ongoing state that results for us from the past action when God raised Jesus.  I wanted some simple, active, present-tense sentences that describe Easter today.  God is the subject of all of those sentences.

So Jesus was raised, back that first Easter.  Today, present-tense:  Jesus lives.  Jesus lives.  Mary saw him after his death and resurrection.  Mary saw him.  People still do.  I can’t say that I’ve ever physically seen Jesus in the way Mary apparently did, but without a doubt I have known his living presence with me.  Jesus lives.  And at one point in my life he said... to me:  Come home.  This is where you belong.  Be with me.

Another present-tense Easter sentence.  Love heals. God’s love heals.  There’s an Episcopal ministry called Magdalene House or Thistle Farms, that’s getting quite a bit of attention these days.  It’s a community of women who have survived prostitution, trafficking and addiction.  Their slogan is “Love Heals.”  And their results are a miraculous witness to the power of God’s love to heal.  Not universal, but nonetheless miraculous.  The women of Magdalene House will tell you emphatically, that God’s love heals.  Present tense.  When I was first thinking of this I was misremembering the slogan.  I thought it was:  Love wins.  Maybe winning doesn’t sound very Christian, but in this case, that fits, too.  God’s resurrection love wins over evil.

Last night at the Vigil I quoted the fourth century Easter sermon of St. John Chrysostom (You can read the whole sermon HERE).  Written originally in Greek, it appears to have a lot of aorist tense:

Christ is Risen (aorist), and you, o death, are annihilated! (present tense.)

Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!

It’s that last present tense Easter statement I want to focus on.  Life is liberated.  That is passive voice (I think!).  The active form would be:  God’s power liberates life.  God liberates our lives.  Theologically, we would say God frees our lives from the bondage of sin.  One writer describes the dead places within us that God liberates (HERE).  The dead places within us that fuel corruption or deception.  Or the dead places within our lives where we buy into any of the “isms” like racism or sexism, which see someone else as “other” and therefore less.  The dead places where suspicion, rejection, marginalization, judgment, and fear dwell.  God opens the tomb.  God’s power frees our lives from these dead spaces.  God liberates our lives.

Finally, one more present tense, on-going active Easter state:  Hearts praise.  Our hearts praise.  Voices sing.  God inspires our hearts to praise, our voices to sing.  Just try to not say alleluia today.  Just try.  To not say alleluia today.  God fills our hearts with praise and inspires our voices to sing.  He is risen.  Alleluia.