Sermon for Easter Sunday, 2021

Homily for Easter, 2021

Colossians 3:1-4

Fr. Tony H. Melton

Christ is risen! [He is risen indeed!] Some of you sound like you’ve been up all night! Let’s try that again. Christ is risen! [He is risen indeed!] You are risen with Him! Say, “Indeed!” [Indeed!] This is the foundation of the new world, and the pillar of the Christian Faith. Easter is the center of the year, and everything in the Scriptures, and in Creation, point to it, and flow from this: that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, laid down His life willingly, and took it up again. In this act He procured the forgiveness of sins, He unleashed the Spirit upon the earth, He became mankind’s cure for the contagion of death, He burst open the gates of larger life, He reversed the curse set on man, and woman, and the dust, and left the Serpent dead, with a crushed head. All this happened on Easter.

So, for most of my life, I knew that Easter was a big deal, but I didn’t know how it was a big deal for me right now. Good Friday, I get it. Right? Just died for my sins, which I committed today. Pentecost. I get it. The Spirit lives inside of me right now. Amazing! Easter means that someday, a long time from now, after I die, I will be raised from the dead. Which is fantastic, but its significance for my life in the here and now didn’t come as easily. Yet, the theologians I was reading frequently point back to the Resurrection as the center, not only for Christian hope, but for Christian life.

St. Paul, in our Epistle for this morning, carefully applies these great sweeping truths to us, and He answers the question, “What does the Resurrection of Jesus Christ do to us and for us right now?” So please open your booklets to page 10 and follow along as we walk through Colossians 3, verses 1-4.

(3:1) “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

First off, what does it mean to be “risen with Christ”? Though we know that we will, in the future, obtain a bodily resurrection, I don’t know of anyone who has an immortal body. So what does it mean to be “risen with Christ?” Paul is obviously referencing what has been described as a “spiritual resurrection” which precedes our physical resurrection. Others have described this as an “internal resurrection” because its result is a new man, or new nature, that changes our heart in anticipation of the change in our bodies. You are risen with Christ because in baptism your soul is united with His so that what is true of Him is true of you, and where He is, so you will be, too. And where is Jesus now? He is sitting on the right hand of God. Follow the logic here: because you are united with Him, you are in Him there, and He is in you, so that your internal resurrection means that within the inner recesses of your soul, perhaps undiscovered or covered over by the clutter of the world, is a portal which leads to the highest realms of heaven. It is through this inner pathway that the Christian saints found their joy and peace and life and boundless love. The Resurrection vaults all those who are united with Jesus by Baptism into Heaven, though we are still on Earth.

It is with this fact in mind that Paul applies it to our lives. Because we are risen with Christ, St. Paul instructs that we are to “seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God.” He continues, (3:2) “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” The Greek word for “affection” is phroneite meaning "the thoughts that come from the heart.” It is not simply our feelings of love, though it is certainly that. This refers to your inner self that either clings to  the clutter of the world or to seek, find, and cling to the presence of Jesus in your resurrected soul, like Jacob wrestling the angel, until you receive a blessing, too. The Resurrection vaults us in our hearts into Heaven, with Jesus. And, it points our affections towards Heaven, toward Jesus.

Moving on to verse 3. (3:3-4) “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” I started with the question, “What does it mean to be ‘Risen with Christ?’” Now we ask what it means to be “dead”? Just like “risen with Christ” referred to an “internal resurrection”, “ye are dead” refers to an “internal execution.” What kind of death? We get our clue from the preceding verse: dead to the things of the earth, which include sin and distraction, anything that would steal our affection from things above. This is what we are dead to. In other words, We are dead to the World and the Flesh, and they are dead to us. The Resurrection of Jesus deals a mortal blow to our flesh, that malignant inner power that constantly attaches to the things of the earth and His resurrection causes a new life to live in us. This glory in us is hidden, Paul says—hidden with Christ in God. And it will not be revealed until Jesus returns. Therefore, ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

Three summers ago, I have been able to spend some time with a Franciscan community on the Big Island of Hawaii. The three monastics, one priest and two nuns, are the type of people that you love immediately, and I still love and miss them deeply. I spent some time with Sister Annie, who is in her late-70’s, I believe. And in preparing for this sermon, it struck me that she is the greatest living example that I know of what this passage is referring to, and I thought that you would want to hear about her. She joined the Fransiscans as a teenager, and has worked in hospitals and ministries of mercy for over 50 years, most of those years being in Haiti. Her hair is cut very short, like so many Fransiscan nuns. Her clothes are simple. She is content to be silent, though she has a deep understanding of Scripture and life. She spends her latter days growing and picking fruit on the farm for the poor, and praying with Fr. Columba and Sr. Marty. She wears a close-lipped half-smile, which suggest that she has a wonderful secret that she will not tell a soul, but that is on her mind that very moment, like a divine romance.

She has put to death not only the members which are upon the earth, which Paul lists in verse 5, “fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry”, but she has denied herself those things that are not sinful in themselves, but do tend to cover over the the sacred passageway within the soul, things like possessions, outward adornment, status, influence. “For ye are dead.”

Yet when you see her, “death” is not the word that would ever come to mind, though she is advanced in years and possesses nothing. “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” Sr. Annie’s life is hid in God, and God’s life is hid in her, and it shoots out of her piercing eyes and the corners of her modest smile. What does it mean to be dead to the world, and to have one’s life hid in God? What glory does she possess in the world’s eyes? She is an enigma to the dying world, just like Jesus was, and just like it is for all who live a resurrected life. The Resurrection vaults us into heaven. But this is hidden from the world. The Resurrection points our affections towards Heaven. But these things are hidden, too. The glory of Christ inside us is hidden under the veil of your flesh. All things will be revealed when Jesus returns again. Then that blinding light which was hidden on the inside will be manifest for all to see, and so will it be for any and all who are risen with Christ and dead to the World.

So that’s Colossians 3:1-4. Baptism creates a union with Christ, so that His Death brings about an “interior execution” of your flesh, and an “interior resurrection” of a heavenly and hidden life within you. This is what the theologians call ontology. This is how the Resurrection of Jesus changes your being. We live in the middle of two points in time: Jesus’ resurrection and our future resurrection. Nevertheless, it is clear from the Scriptures that your Easter, today still involves a dying and a rising. For you, and for all the Church Militant, Easter is for the putting to death again that which was killed in baptism, and the rejuvenating to live that which was resurrected in baptism. Or, more simply, Easter for us is a dying to the world and a rising to heaven. So now let’s move from ontology to application. In other words, having answered the question, “What does the Resurrection of Jesus do to us?” let us ask, “What does the Resurrection of Jesus mean for us to do?” And the answer is simple, “Die and be risen.” And there are two ways each that the Scriptures direct us toward.

First, die again to sin. What does it mean to die to sin? In verse 5, the word in Greek, nekrosate, which is translated “mortify”, means to cut off anything that energizes a thing to life, to make no allowances for it to continue. Imagine your inner attachment to the sins of the World as an invasive weed; the world has many ways to nourish that hearty plant. Yet it is amazing how often Christians allow and even invest in the things that fertilize sin. For example, many loathe themselves for gossiping, yet go faithfully to the same gatherings for years without a single moment of honesty, “I would really like to protect that person’s honor. Can we talk about something else?” Starve out the things that bind you to the world. You are risen with Christ, which means you are dead to sin, and sin is dead to you, so, this Easter, die again to sin.

Second, die again to the world. Here, by world,  I mean things that are not sinful, (like fame, possessions, or relaxation) but often lead us away from seeking heavenly things and attach to earthly things. This is a huge problem in the Church, and not just in the heretical parts of the Health and Wealth movement. It affects us all. Worldly ambitions and the unchecked pursuit of all forms of earthly goods have become far too acceptable in the Church, and have no doubt caused many to revert back to the life that they had been raised from. Instead of seeking earthly goals, Christ died. This sets up a simple hierarchy for all earthly goals whether that is our careers, fitness, education, travel, status. Remember, in the resurrected life, your glory is hidden. It is okay if the world doesn’t get it, or when they look at you, they think, “Well, that’s one way to live your life.” We wear a tool of execution around our necks. The resurrected life is not supposed to make sense to the world! Life is a zero-sum game. Are you going to invest in earth, or in heaven? This Easter, die again to the world.

Third, be risen to heaven in your heart. The Fathers said that this internal resurrection was given “that we might have the pleasure of our redemption before the benefit.” It is not enough to simply kill something, if you forget to live. God does not call us to a starvation diet! You are united with Christ, and with Him comes Heaven, the very source of all joy and satisfaction. The saints testify to a sweetness in prayer that can satisfy all of our desires, and drive away all their earthly counterparts and counterfeits. But so few eat at that heavenly banquet; we are too addicted to the cheap, syrup-filled snacks of worldly distraction to engage in real prayer. Be risen to heaven in your hearts through prayer.

And finally, be risen to Faith, which is to say confidence. Jesus rolled away every stone from every grave in His resurrection, so what have you to fear of death. He has conquered the grave, and if you need not fear the worst thing, why worry about the smaller things. Rise to Faith, and Hope, and Holiness, and Joy, and Fellowship, and Communion. Leave no provision for the flesh, be pure before God, let no leaven in the new loaf of your resurrected life, that you might have a false worldly rising, but let your new loaf be flat, unleavened, dead to the world, glory hidden from world, so that when Christ, who is your life, shall appear, then shall you be risen by His power and appear with him in glory. Amen.