“The Princess Bride” Came to Church

The Kentucky Derby of Christianity

Three weeks later, it would be easy to assume that Easter was the Church’s version of the Kentucky Derby: a spectacular one-day event with beautiful dresses, glorious hats, strong drinks, and “the most exciting two minutes in sports.” There was a lump in our throats when they sang, “My Old Kentucky Home.” We watched in breathless anticipation to see which horse would cross the finish line and wear the blanket of roses. And then it was over for another year.

When Easter Sunday passes, the lilies wilt, and worship attendance declines, it would be easy to assume that the resurrection was, like the Derby, a one-day event that won’t be back for another year.

But the Church knows better!

In the liturgical calendar, Easter is not just a day; it’s a season. “The Great Fifty Days” lead us from the empty tomb on Easter to the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. We shout “Christ is risen!” as a continuing present reality, right here, right now, in the middle of our broken, bruised and infinitely loved world. Sometimes love wins the race. Often we lose. But we keep on running.

Easter With “The Princess Bride”

My friend and colleague Ginger Gaines-Cirelli welcomed The Princess Bride to worship in her Easter sermon at Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington. You don’t have to be fan of the 1987 movie classic to understand what she meant when she described the way their congregation “journeyed together through the metaphorical Fire Swamp of all kinds of national and denominational trials over the past decade” only to find themselves in “the chaos, cruelty, pain, and confusion of all that is happening right now, a context in which just trying to figure out which absurdity or assault to focus on is a mighty challenge.”

Even on Easter Sunday it sometimes seems “inconceivable” that Christ is alive to fulfill the promise that God’s will and way of life will be victorious. But as the movie hero said — and as our Risen Hero confirms — “Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.”

Ginger reminded her congregation, “The world Jesus steps into as he steps out of the tomb is the same world that crucified him.” 

“But—at the same time and right in the middle of this raging world—everything has changed! Because Jesus got up after the evil powers of this world thought they’d knocked him down. Because the hungry hounds of hell—fear, deception, and hatred—got put on a short leash and, therefore, no longer have dominion over us. Because we have been set free to live in the world knowing that the power of love is stronger than death and that in the presence of falsehood the truth will always rise again; that vulnerability and empathy are not weakness, but strength; that God “snatches victory out of defeat, life out of death, and hope out of despair.”

She pointed out the often difficult truth, “Resurrection takes time.” It doesn’t happen all at once. Resurrection is not a one-time event. It is the present tense way God is at work to fulfill God’s good purpose for this world. Even death can’t stop the work God began in the darkness of a tomb, even if it delays it for awhile.

I’m remembering the way New England poet Steve Garners-Holmes declares that Christ is rising in the presence tense.

Christ is Rising

Easter sunrise service
we gather on snow frozen hard.
We shiver and shuffle for warmth.
The sun is late coming up
over the bare trees.

Resurrection seldom comes in a flash,
Jesus in the flowery garden.
The woman in labor knows.
This path can only lead to life,
but it is a long one.
It takes time for God
to make sorrow into joy,
fear into wisdom,
love into victory,
death into life.
Justice gestates.
Only gradually, with great trust,
does this life become the next,
with much practice and failure,
many jugs of spices left again
beside the empty tomb.
Day by day the bread is kneaded,
the light folded into our hearts.

Don’t stop watering the bare soil
where seeds lie working. 

Christ is rising.
He is rising indeed.
(From Unfolding Light, April 6, 2014)

Easter is not over! The struggle for truth, justice, compassion and goodness in a world that does its worst to deny them, is not done. The race goes on. But because of the empty tomb, we know who the ultimate winner will be!

Christ is still rising, indeed!

Jim