I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain… Revelation 5:6-14; also Acts 9:1-19a and St. John 21:1-14
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
All this past week we have received news of the tragic massacre at Virginia Tech, where 32 students were shot dead by a fellow student who then shot and killed himself. He used the two hours’ time between his first two and later thirty murders to send us all a message, in which he identified himself with the young killers of the Columbine massacre eight years ago and likened himself to a martyr like Jesus Christ. Beneath this blasphemy, there was a pathetic banality to the killer’s rage and madness, self-pity and excuses, accusations and denunciations of his peers’ sinfulness, which, he said, “made him do” what he did. He did indeed establish his likeness to the Columbine killers, but not with Jesus Christ or any other true, self-giving witness and martyr to the truth. He stands in the succession of Cain, who envied and killed his brother Abel. The massacre is another instance of the culture and worship of death, which is aboriginal and perennial. It got our attention because it is here in our United States, on a good college campus. But it goes on in our wars and breaks out in smaller examples in all times and places.
All three Scriptures today are about Easter, which is the triumph of Christ’s life over death, of Christ’s love over hatred. In Saint John’s Gospel, Jesus, risen from the dead and appearing in familiar circumstances to his disciples by the Sea of Galilee, brings new life and purpose to his disciples in a scene which evokes a similar one during Jesus’ early ministry. Then, he caused a great catch of fish, called Peter, James and John, and told them he would make them fishers of men. Now, it happens again, and we can sense the inner healing they receive as they see and hear and eat with the risen Lord.
In the Book of Acts, Saint Luke tells us of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus into Saint Paul the Apostle by an encounter with the ascended Jesus while Saul is on mission to arrest, try, and kill some Christians in Damascus. Saul is a zealous Pharisee, determined to stamp out what he sees as a pestilence and perversion of the Jewish faith. After his encounter with Jesus, Saul, now the great Saint Paul, becomes the apostle of the heart set free by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the messenger of a life of walking by the Spirit, who declares to the Church in Rome: “If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Then he went on to say to the Corinthian Church that the test of true faith in Jesus is love, agape, self-giving, self-sacrificing love, after the pattern of that risen Lord Jesus. “Faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Finally, Saint John in his Revelation reports his vision of the triumphant Lord as the mystical Lamb of God. He sees the Lamb standing, yet as though it were slain. This is our crucified, risen Lord Jesus Christ, who even in his triumph shows the marks of his love for us, the wounds of his crucifixion that we, the children of Cain and Abel, have caused as the price of his almighty love for us. Worthy is that Lamb who was slain, sing the saints in heaven, and we with them in our hymns, to receive glory and honor and power and wisdom and wealth and blessing; for he has purchased all of us, each of us, as a ransom of love for his Father.
So the message of Easter is the triumph of Jesus, the incarnate Son of God and the One True Human Being, who lived and embodied the love of God for us; love which overcame the hatred of its enemies; love which the grave could not hold because love is stronger than death; love which still animates the followers of Jesus Christ and all those who rejoice at his appearing. God raised Jesus from that tomb. God caused the stone to be rolled away so that the women could look in and see that he was gone and then could see him risen, alive, on the other side of death. Though we have not seen the risen, wounded body of Jesus as Saint Thomas and the other eyewitnesses did, we believe through their testimony and that of the Church; and the sign and test of Jesus’ presence among us now is not only the preaching of the word and the celebration of the sacraments, but supremely our love for him and for one another in him.
This past week in the midst of all the news of the Virginia Tech tragedy, I received word of another death, an old friend and fellow Christian, the most extraordinary Sunday School teacher I have ever known. She was nearly 90. She was a mainstay of the presence of Christianity on Monhegan Island, Maine, for over half a century. She was known and cherished by hundreds of children, including my own, who, when they heard of her death, both said immediately, “she went straight to heaven.” Her name was Anna Catherine Cooper, known as Ann or, more commonly, “A.C.” Even the non-Christians and non-believers, of whom there are many on Monhegan, blessed and venerated her. Her gift of communicating with and listening to children was inspiring. She spent half of each year on the island and the other half on the mainland, where she exercised a similar ministry. She kept in touch with the children all their lives via cards and notes. My children, who are in their thirties with children of their own, recently received notes from her.
A.C. was a social worker, and also an exemplary wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She was sweetly bohemian. Her face was bright and full of light, while wonderfully wrinkled by care, love and age; many commented on its striking beauty. Her faith was simple, intelligent, true and loving – on top of which she made the transition from Presbyterianism to her husband’s Anglo-Catholicism (which she wore lightly and pleasantly). I dwell on this because she personified that love which is stronger than death. One felt improved simply by knowing her; the mention of her name makes those who know her smile and feel warmth. Somehow her death helps draw off for me some of the poison of Virginia Tech’s tragedy, as do the deeds, lives, and deaths of many other loving souls – some of whom performed heroic acts of love and sacrifice in the midst of the massacre itself.
I share this with you as we continue to promote the culture of life and the worship of the living, loving God, the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, over against the culture and worship of death. In this Eucharist let us take comfort in the truth that salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb, who takes away the sin of the world.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
