My Easter scrapbook features the Great Vigil, the principal service of the church year, at Saint Thomas the Apostle, Hollywood, where I presided Saturday night, and St. John’s Cathedral in Los Angeles, where I presided and preached Easter Day.
St. Thomas’ Anglo-Catholic liturgy is rich, carefully choreographed, and deeply pious. As always, master of ceremonies Randy Williams was a felicitous guide to the service’s intricacies. A cantor chanted the Easter Proclamation in Latin. Organist David Strouse conducted the choir, which was sublime. Eight Bible lessons set the stage for joyous Alleluias and clanging bells signifying the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Two were confirmed. The learned, gracious rector of over 20 years, the Rev. Canon Ian Elliott Davies, offered me the privilege of reading a 1600-year-old Easter sermon of John Chrysostom, patron saint of the church I served for many years in Orange County:
Christ is Risen, and you, O death, are annihilated!
Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!
Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!
While that would have done just as well Sunday morning at St. John’s, I came with my own text. “Resurrection is impolite, but patient,” I said. “In our epistle, St. Paul teaches that at the end, Christ will destroy every ruler and every authority and power. Rome’s response to that dangerous, rude Resurrection idea was a century or more of cruel persecution. Allegiance to Christ over the emperor was unacceptable. But the emperor, or at least the Roman emperor, is gone, while Christ persists. The politics of cruelty could not kill Christ then. They will not defeat his justice and love now.”
As always, the Very Rev. Anne Sawyer and her colleagues, including the Rev. Mel Soriano, were peerless hosts. Like the night before at St. Thomas’, the church was full of people and fresh flowers. With Zach Neufeld at the mighty cathedral organ, canon for music ministry Christopher Gravis led the choir step by step to the gates of heaven. With her annual children’s sermon, my fellow pilgrim the Rev. Margaret Hudley McCauley was a hard preacher to follow.
The Easter bunny came, as did my elder daughter, Valerie Passarella. After church, the children hunted for eggs, and fellowship blossomed in the courtyard. Feeling the sunshine on our shoulders, the incense in our nostrils obliterating the stench of our politics, it was easy to be hopeful. It was easy to believe that the risen Christ will beat down Satan under his feet. Because He will.
