Happy Easter!

“Now the green blade riseth, from the buried grain,/ Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;/
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:/ Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.”
(Love is Come Again, John Macleod Campbell Crum, 1872-1958)

During the next six Sundays of this Easter season, the readings will offer glimpses of early Christians coming to terms with manifold implications of resurrection. We will find a risen Christ appearing to disciples, dreamers, and skeptics alike. New believers will spread Easter tidings in word and action, far and wide. All will be undeniably affected by these encounters.

To all appearances, their wider world hasn’t much changed since the days before Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. (We can say the same in our own times!) But in heart and hope, everything is different now.

Everything is different, because they have seen the Christ—and he is risen. And if Christ is risen, then all of the powers of this world, including decay, destruction, and death, are not the most powerful powers. Their verdicts do not stand. Their judgments are null and void. Life and love win.

If this is true—and you know that I believe it is—then our faith is not unfounded, our hope is not in vain, and our lives have deep purpose in sharing in resurrection life and working for the renewal of all creation.

“Love lives again, that with the dead has been.”

The above stanza begins one of my favorite Easter hymns (one that rarely makes it into Easter Sunday lineups but always gets a turn during the Great Fifty Days). The singers look for the first shoots of green from a desolate earth, and they see in those meager signs a promise coming true.

I am with you in this Easter season, as we turn in joy and hope to the work of making all things new.

The Rev. R. Scott Painter, Rector

Holy Week, 2025 – A Letter from the Rector

“Nazarene” by Pauli Murray (1910-1985)

Say that he was legend,
The dream of slaves and beggars,
Or hippy poet so charged
With music of the spheres
That stones sang beneath his naked feet.
I care not if he lived
Or uttered any word,
Or healed a single leper.
I know only that his name
Reveals that gift of pain
That only love can bear
And having borne still cry
“I love.”

Dear Friends,

Today we enter into the three most solemn and sacred days of the Christian year, called the Triduum (“Three Days”). Jesus walks with us, showing us the way. Now, let’s stay especially close to him—watching attentively, learning deeply, being transformed together by true love.

On Maundy Thursday, watch for the tenderness, intimacy and care of his presence and ministry to those huddled with him on the verge betrayal and arrest.

On Good Friday, from the edges of a frenzied crowd and the shadow of a cross, see his resolve to endure persecution and bear all the weight of suffering and death that is wrought.

On Holy Saturday, gaze intently into the dark and see what might be possible: dare to hope for a light and life that truly overcomes.

All of this, always, is about love. Jesus is showing us how to live by love’s rule; and enduring evil’s wrath in divine solidarity with us and for love of us; and overcoming all the natural and unnatural powers of a dangerous world with the light and life of Love’s reign.

I pray for us all this week: to find the faith and muster the hope to know true Love.

With you,

The Rev. R. Scott Painter, Rector