Christ is Risen!

Sermon given by Father James (Bohlman)
On Pascha 2007

Acts 1: 1-8
John 1: 1-17

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Christ is Risen!

In the Greek Orthodox tradition, many families tell jokes on the day after Pascha. They do
so by way of imitating the cosmic joke that God pulled on Satan in the Resurrection. Satan
thought that he had won, and was smug in his victory, smiling to himself, having had the last
word. Or so he thought. Then God raised Jesus from the dead, and eternal life became the last
word.
Of the 800,000 words in the English language, 300,000 are technical terms. The average
person knows 10,000 words and uses 5,000 in everyday speech. A journalist knows
approximately 15,000 and uses around 10,000. But God spoke only one word… the Logos.
When St. John says in his Gospel that “the Word became flesh”, he used the Greek
word "logos," which means "word, thought, concept, and the expression thereof." In Greek
philosophy logos was the rational principle that gave order to the universe. This abstract principle
became equated with God. But an abstract word becoming a word would do the world little good.
The world was already filled with words.
St. John used the word logos to say that this divine power became real flesh and blood.
This Eternal Word, by becoming flesh, spoke the secret about himself that only he could possibly
know… that love reigns at the heart of Himself. God himself came out of the words of Scripture
so that we would have more than just a prophecy or a moral code; we would have God himself
among us… Emmanuel… the moment when The Infinite became an infant.
It is impossible to overemphasize how important God’s coming among us was. His
coming among us revealed God’s own heart, speaking volumes about his love for us: “For God
so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall
not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn
the world, but to save the world through him”

Back in the days before electricity, a tightfisted old farmer was berating his hired hand for
carrying a lighted lantern when the man went to call on his girlfriend. The old farmer pontificated,
"Why, when I went a-courtin' I never carried one of them things. I always went in the dark." The
hired hand looked at the farmer and replied, "Yes, and look what you got!"
Making decisions in the dark can lead to some regrettable consequences, which is the
very description of our life before God himself entered our reality. The image of light is a powerful
way to think about God. Light cannot be contained. Light has no shape or form. You can’t hold it
in your hand, or close it up in a box. And yet, wherever light is, darkness isn’t. Light pierces the
darkness and destroys its hold on life.
Jesus Christ came to dispel the darkness of human life. He clothed himself with our
humanity when he didn’t have to. Although… he really did have to, so great is the love that
reigns at the heart of God who could not bear to leave us lost in the darkness that we had
chosen.
In all other world religions a concept becomes words… verbal revelation. Only in
Christianity does the Eternal Word become flesh. In Jesus Christ, God did not just reveal his will
or his laws - he revealed himself. Our words explain our mind to others… and so it is with the one
word that God has uttered: Jesus Christ. He is the Word that expresses the transcendent
mystery of God the Father to us. In the Psalms we pray: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a
light unto my path.” Because of the illumination provided by Jesus Christ we can now know the
Father. By the Words of Jesus we can come to understand the heart of the Father.
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen
with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the
Word of life; for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and
proclaim unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us”

(1 John 1:1-2).
Christ is Risen!