Thursday, March 31, 2016

Aphorism of the Day, March 2016

Aphorism of the Day, March 31, 2016

John's Gospel begins by saying the Word is God and created all things.  In John, Jesus says that his words are spirit and life.  And the writer of John states that the reading of the Gospel words can result in belief in Christ.  Word as Ground of human being; word as spoken; word as written.  Word is the biggest elephant in the room of human existence.  In fact in true circularity and reflexivity Word establishes its own identity.  Word is established by Word.  This is probably the most meaningful tautology of all.  Word is Word or to say what something is, one has to continuously keep using words in strings of endless tautologies.

Aphorism of the Day, March 30, 2016

The "Doubting Thomas" story in the Gospel of John shows that the early church was dealing with the competition regarding valid experiences of Christ.  "My experience of the Risen Christ is better than yours, because I was with Jesus.  And yours is inferior because somebody just told you about Jesus and even further some of you have only "read" about Jesus.  In the punchlines of the Doubting Thomas story the oracle of Christ in the early church says, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed."  And the Gospel writer establishes the validity of Gospel writing by writing, "These things are written so that you might believe..."   That the eyewitnesses to Jesus died out did not nullify the validity of experiences of the Risen Christ in those who were not eyewitnesses but who lived on the "fumes" of hearsay through oral accounts and writing.  Somehow the Spirit of Christ still has the intensity of validating to the experiencers authentic transformative power in achieving peace and forgiveness.

Aphorism of the Day, March 29, 2016

We are inclined to "temporal provincialism" since we can realistically and actually only always be in the present, hence by being here now, we have a natural favoritism for the present.  This does not mean that we need to have a superiority complex about the present and place the past in the role of the inferior underdeveloped child state of being.  Some would valorize the past through the pain of nostalgia because the present is so frightening.  Some would make the past manifestations of knowledge and traditions into idols and would ask us to worship and venerate those who obviously had superior experiences of life and God than we could ever had.  The entire purpose of the resurrection was to free the limitation of Christliness to the body of Jesus and promote the discovery of divine omnipresence as the always already presence of Christ.

Aphorism of the Day, March 28, 2016

Easter week is a time to note how immediately the early church began to appraise and compare the kinds of post-resurrection appearances of Christ.  If "physicality" were the only valid criteria for such an appearance then Paul's experience would not qualify. Perhaps many have had experiences of the Sublime but they were not taught by their church that such sublime experiences could qualify as being touched by the Risen Christ.  I hope that the church has not locked your experience of the Sublime out.

Aphorism of the Day, March 27, 2016

The Easter event supports the internal hunch that once we know consciousness of ourselves and life, we will always have it in some way.

Aphorism of the Day, March 26, 2016

What would convince a person that after one dies one is going to have recognizable continuity with the person that one was before one died?  If the body becomes ashes which ultimately break down and are dissolved and dissipated into the physical world beyond a constituted recognition, does the psychic and spiritual energy of the self/soul/spirit/ego also get dissolved and dissipated to the point of being unrecognized in the future state after one's death?  If the energy of the constituted "self" gets dissolved into the rest of the energy of the universe how can such a "self" have future "self consciousness" and consciousness of others or another kind of existence?  What kind of "preserving act" can keep the self together in the state of existence after death?  Is it egotistical to want to have "individual" eternal existence after one's death?  Should one want to dissolve without identity and simply be dissolved energy for the continuing life of the rest of the universe?  One of the reasons we believe in the Personhood of God is because personhood is what we regard to be the highlight of human experience, namely, attaining unique identity within a community of other persons.  If we have received personhood from the past, we assume that we will be indispensable links to passing on personhood to the future.  We are living proof that personhood has been passed on and so we assume that personhood will endure into the future.  That the particular personhood of Jesus after he had died was known again by himself and by others is the particular significant and telling event which we celebrate at Easter.

Aphorism of Day, March 25, 2016

When the Passion Gospel were written, the church had long finished the stages of grief and had come to not just acceptance of the death of Jesus but glorious acceptance of Cross of Jesus.  When the post-resurrection appearances bring about the re-interpretation of the Cross as a providential plan of God, it does change the presentation and increase the irony of promoting empathy for the suffering Jesus even while faith has already concluded that it was supposed to be.  Not all suffering in life seems to end in the discovery of their necessity by a future over-riding event like the post-resurrection appearance which suddenly made the suffering necessary.  The Cross resolved by the post-resurrection appearances is a model of faith based upon future reconciliation of all previous events.  Before the future the pain and loss of the present can hardly be submitted to passively as "God-willed" suffering.  That one can believe that all things one day will be gloriously reconciled does not minimize the actual current suffering.  And we certainly have no right to declare reconciliation of the suffering of other people while they are suffering.  Alleviation of suffering is the work now; leave the reconciliation to the future.

Aphorism of Day, March 24, 2016

Maundy Thursday is an event when Jesus sat with his friends for a meal and he realized that they were all "wannabe chiefs" and there were no "wannabe servants."  His friends wanted to sit at his right and left hand in his glorious kingdom and with such aspirations it was easy to miss the fact that the common courtesy of washing dusty feet had been neglected.  So Jesus the "chief" performed the obvious and Peter took offense at Jesus fulfilling the role of a servant or doing "women's work." (wives in the time washed their husband's feet)  The one who presided at the "first Eucharist" took complete identity with service and with bread and with wine thereby showing us that the Risen Christ is not separated from anything in this world.  We have the ministry of making Christ apparent everywhere and in everyone and service is the best way of making Christ apparent.

Aphorism of the Day, March 23, 2016

Darkness and shadows have macabre metaphorical association with association and Tenebrae is a liturgy which gives us orientation to the dark Event of Holy Week with the highly ambiguous celebration of the Death of Jesus.  Ambiguous because proleptically, we approach the death of Jesus from the side of his post-resurrection appearances.  Darkness is a positive metaphor for the state of sleep and rest and in Christian liturgies we are trying to provide our community with rites of passages to embrace the full range of life experience.  Let us prepare to make our station at the cross and the tomb and enter into the deathly rest of Jesus as preparation for the New Morning of our lives.

Aphorism of the Day, March 22, 2016

In light of the Brussels attack, we ponder out loud as to how our human relations world might be healed.  We find a significant number of persons either as individuals or as groups or cells whose identities are constituted by revenge.  Many people have been caught within the collateral damages of the warfare between greater empires and lesser empires.  The people who are constituted by such revenge have adopted the irrationality of what can only be called "death cults."  When the greater empires have inevitable control, the weapons of those constituted by revenge are mainly psychological.  If they can caused the members of the Hobbesian Leviathan states perpetual uncertainty, anxiety and fear about when and where violent acts might happen then their revenge is exacted.  Earthquakes, fire and tornadoes could have all of us who live by probability theory to let our life decisions be motivated by what ills may befall us.  When we factor in what revenge acts of terror may befall us due to the deliberate choices of terrorists, we obviously feel differently about the probable occurrences of acts of nature than the acts which derive from the deliberate acts of people to whom we impute a higher degree of culpability than the random acts of nature.  What we can pray for is that the world's "super powers" will have creative wisdom to regard all of the people of the world who do not have "super powers" in such a way that justice might be applied and relative to each situation on the ground.  We pray that a long period of living in perpetual reactive fear for safety might give way to a time when the energy of revenge is sublimated into people being able to live at peace in their neighborhoods with enough food, clothing, shelter and education.  What we find in experience is that super empires cannot transplant and force other cultures and countries to attain our perceived privileged values overnight.  And since our world is so interconnected there is great impatience about perceived differences in human rights, women's rights, children's rights, gay rights and political expression.  Let us pray that those who have super power and therefore more super freedom will express that freedom and power creatively with wisdom from God about how to manifest the winsomeness of truly superior values based upon loving our neighbor as ourselves.



Aphorism of the Day, March 21, 2016

Environmentalist might be troubled by the Gospel account of Jesus cursing a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season.  However, if one understands the Gospels as parables about Jesus who also spoke in parables one can find in this parable of Jesus the early Christian teaching about the fruits of the Spirit always being in season and available.  The parable message is this: Don't use times or seasons as an excuse for not manifesting the fruits of the Spirit.  If we don't appreciate the Gospels as parables using the life of Jesus to illustrate the spirituality of the early church, one can get trapped into some silly meanings of "literalism."

Aphorism of the Day, March 20, 2016

The Passion Gospel can be read only in the face value of the words and evoke many emotions.  Sadly in the past some Christians have allowed the reading of the Passion to be an occasion to act out their anger against the Passion Story accusers of Christ.  The Passion Story was compiled when the church and synagogue had become painfully separated and the Passion Gospels reflect the anger of this separation.  We today should be comfortable with and supportive of the different missions which Judaism and Christianity have in our world and the very ancient hurt between communities should be long healed. Now mutual respect bring us together to work for love and justice in our world.

Aphorism of the Day, March 19, 2016

Can we have it both ways?  Believing that the crucifixion was God's plan and then witnessing in the Gospel the blaming of the religious leaders for their role in causing the crucifixion.  If there was no "alternate" plan then why blame the religious leaders?  There is a danger of removing real freedom from this world by assuming God and some people know the future as present and know the possible as actual.  Rather than conceiving of the entire cosmic order as already predetermined by God, it is better to honor genuine freedom and the art of providence based upon the future making the past seem like it was trumped by a superior subsequent act.  When the brothers of Joseph asked mercy of him for sending him as a slave to Egypt, he said, "You meant evil for me, but God meant it for good."  A superior serendipitous future event can make an previous evil event seem providential and we are not sure that every evil event has a future serendipitous event to make every thing in the past get reconciled.  We do not know if all evil and badness ever does have just and future reconciling counter events.  This is one of the reason for believing in a afterlife where everlastingness keeps giving chances to everyone to experience the winsome lure of a loving God.  On the other hand one could easily trivialize the afterlife by letting us off the hook for tolerating so much evil and injustice in this life.

Aphorism of the Day, March 18, 2016

If the Passion Narratives came to textual form later than the writings of Paul, then they integrate the theology of early church practice into the presentation of the suffering of Christ.  The Passion Narratives then become a parable encoding the kinds of relationship with Christ.  Peter would represent all who had doubts about the Jesus Movement and even waivered in commitment before embracing the new movement.  Judas would represent those who sought to put it to an end.  Other figures like Herod and Pilate represented those who saw the movement in terms of being a possible political inconvenience.  The Passion Narrative invites the reader to project upon the characters and the events and one's position toward the interpretation of Jesus as a suffering messiah is clarified.

Aphorism of the Day March 17, 2016

The Passion Narrative was used by the early church to present the different views of the meaning of the Messiah.  The Jewish accuser told Pilate that Jesus said he was a king, and the Messiah and for them the Messiah would be someone like David who never be in the situation of captivity.  The Passion Narrative contrasts the notion of a conquering kingly messiah with the view of the messiah which prevailed in the Christian communities, Christ as a suffering servant.

Aphorism of the Day, March 16, 2016

By the time St. Paul wrote the Epistle to the Roman churches (see chapter 13), he had "made peace" with the Roman situation.  He advised the church to be subject to the authorities, to pay taxes and he wrote that the authorities were God's servants.  This means that he made peace with the "Caesar situation" so that the churches could be born and "fly under the radar," so to speak.  If being subject to authorities was a stated practice of Paul who wrote before the Passion Narratives were written, it throws a completely different light upon the context for understanding the Passion Narratives.  Because the church had made peace with the "Roman and Caesar situation" when the crucifixion was recounted, the Romans who were the chief perpetrators of crucifixion were presented more as puppets in bringing Jesus to the cross rather than as those who had the regular habit of making the spectacle of crucifixion out of any riot which had tinges of being "anti-Caesar."

Aphorism of the Day, March 15, 2016

In the New Testament there is writing about the many different meanings of the death of Jesus.  The writers were seeking for a higher logic regarding the death of one they regarded to be most innocent.  But this most innocent One was shown to be a threat to various persons of power in Jerusalem.  Jesus was shown to be caught within the competitive disagreements of parties in Jerusalem.  The Roman governor was the final judge and arbiter to make the problem go away through crucifixion.  In the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace, peace occurred through the forceful removal of any troublesome elements in society.  Jesus who was called the Prince of Peace was the victim of the Roman Peace in his crucifixion.  By the time that the Passion narratives were written a growing number of people were quite certain that Jesus had never gone away but was multiplying in the lives of more and more people who believed that the Risen Christ was present in them.


Aphorism of the Day, March 14, 2016

We move toward Passion Sunday and the makeover of death by Christian mystagogy.  In Christian mysticism the Cross of Christ is the metaphorical dark and negative energy being transformed because it was applied to one so perfect that His Death became the agent for the ending of the separate egotistical self in order that the Christ nature might arise to be the new creation in each person realizing daughtership, sonship with God.


Aphorism of the Day, March 13, 2016

Putting lipstick on a pig does not change the fact that a pig still is a pig.  Mary of Bethany, placed prophetically, perfume on Jesus as anticipation for the anointing of his dead body.  Certainly we prefer perfume on live bodies than dead bodies.  The Gospels in part involve the artistic application of perfume on death because of the resurrection of Christ.  Instead of "Death where now is thy sting, it's Death where now is thy smell?"  This kind of artistic pastoral acceptance of death relativizes death as a gateway to another kind of life and so the Death of Jesus is a gateway transformative event experienced in spiritual identity with Christ.  The Gospel presentation of the death of Jesus is the narrative form of the spiritual metaphor of Christ's Death being a Higher Power to end or die to what is unworthy in one's life.

Aphorism of Day, March 12, 2016

Perfume to anoint the feet of Jesus and then wipe them with one's hair?  Such an excessive act of devotion is culturally far from our experience today.  The correspondence for us is that we know that we can be excessive in devotion when we have had life changing events by the love of another person or an experience of uncanny providential intervention of rescue.  Some people have given the excessive expression of lifetime sobriety in the aftermath of knowing the intervention of the help of the Higher Power.

Aphorism of Day, March 11, 2016

In the Gospel of John, Judas Iscariot, the treasurer of the Jesus Movement criticized Mary of Bethany for her olfactory excess when she spent money for anointing the feet of Jesus with perfume, whilst we are told that he was also a thief.  Judas feigned that the money should have been given to poor.  And Jesus defended her saying, "The poor are always with us."  Sometimes devotional acts of excess with our time, talent and treasure co-exist with the perpetual need of those who are poor.  The life of faith involves accepting the ambiguities and contradictions of tolerating different socio-economic conditions of people, while performing faith acts which express our thanksgiving for how Christ has touched our lives and still not being absolved of our continuing responsibility to help those in need.  Expressing one's love of Christ happens in spite of socio-economic conditions even while we work towards all having "enough."

 Aphorism of Day, March 10, 2016

St. Paul wrote that he "might become like Christ in his death."  The death of Christ had a complete "make-over" after the post-resurrection appearances and manifestations of the continuing afterlife of Jesus in the lives of his followers.  The Death of Jesus was converted to a spiritual method of being able to "die to oneself" or significantly check the ego at the door so as to permit one new insights to transform one's life.  Death of Christ as spiritual method was the practice of the church before the Gospels were written down and so when the Gospel's were written the death of Jesus is presented as a progression toward providential destiny.  The Gospels build toward the Passion because they are in story form the dynamic spiritual transformation of the believer.

Aphorism of Day, March 9 2016

The resurrection appearances of Christ to his disciples made them re-write the history of his death.  His death became known to be absolutely providential and in the latest written canonical Gospel of John, the destiny of the death of Jesus was declared by John the Baptist calling Jesus "The Lamb of God."  So the Gospel of John proclaims, "If the death of Jesus had not have occurred, then his resurrection appearance would not have happened and we would not have the resurrection narrative as a witness to the state of being in a continuous afterlife."  So the death of Jesus must have been planned.  Sometimes future outcomes make the past absolutely providential in the way in which the past is told.  That death now implies a certain resurrection bring an understand of death not as an abrupt end but as a transitional doorway or threshold to the next phase of life.

Aphorism of the Day, March 8, 2016

In the teaching progression of the Gospel of John, Lazarus the brother of Mary and Martha was brought back to life and the sisters knew Jesus as the resurrection and life.  This is a set up for the preparation of death to be relativized by resurrection life.  So Mary anoints Jesus with perfume as preparation for the significance of his death.  Seems rather macabre that the body of Jesus was unwittingly being prepared for interment before his death.  The Gospel writers can put the fragrance of perfume upon impending death because they are living from the side of their experience of the Risen Christ.  The writer of the Gospel of John writes about the death of Jesus as something which "will have been glorious" because of the subsequent event of the resurrection.

Aphorism of the Day, March 7, 2016

Mary of Bethany poured expensive perfume on the feet of Jesus and dried his feet with her hair.  It seems like such an excessive act of love and devotion, an act that should at best be done in private.  Why does the Gospel portray the interaction of Jesus with women in such a way in a time when the culture actually segregated men and women?  The portrayal of a woman touching Jesus would be quite culturally shocking.  The men disciples are presented by the Gospel writers as "clueless," "deniers," "doubters," betrayers," and "faithless."  But the women are presented as being devoted and close to Jesus, especially Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene.  This closeness of Jesus to women stands in contrast to the way in which patriarchal "Christian" cultures have diminished the significant roles of women, especially their public roles.

Aphorism of the Day, March 6, 2016

The very permissive father in the Prodigal Son parable evokes the permissive freedom of God in allowing humanity to be impulsive and unwise and to squander all that we have been given.  But such permissive freedom also allows for wisdom to be gained from the punishing outcomes of our own folly and in freedom choose a path of repentance.  What is the difference between the wisdom that comes from learning from one's mistakes as opposed to learning from not having made the mistake of serious rebellion?  The older brother of the parable did not have any mistakes to learn from except when he got angry about his brother's return and his father's joy, he finally had a major mistake of an unforgiving heart to learn from.

Aphorism of the Day, March 5, 2016

St. Paul said that we are called to be ambassadors of Christ and our ministry is that of reconciliation.  Those who worked on reconciliation in post-apartheid South Africa at some point had to embrace a very radical forgiveness which did not absolve the past injustice or attempt to rewrite the history of injustice.  The radical forgiveness of the merciful Father in the parable of the Prodigal Son rightly offends the justice as exemplified in the reaction of the older brother to his father's forgiveness.  Many situations of active revenge in our world still exists because the grace of radical forgiveness has not yet found a place to give the younger generation a new start in practicing new relationships not sabotaged by the "eye for an eye" justice requirements from the past.

Aphorism of the Day, March 4, 2016

In simplistic biblical interpretation one can use the parable of the Prodigal Son to make precise and exact identification between the story figures and actual people.  So the Father is God, the prodigal son represents all of the rejected sinners accepted by Jesus and the older brother represents all of the self-righteous religious prigs who do not want obvious sinners in their club.  A parable can be interpreted in this way and people can become smug in thinking that they have "cracked" the real and final meaning of the parable.  A parable is an art of language which may be more elusive than precise and exact meanings.  A parable is more like a Rorschach Ink Blot projection device onto which readers project their own versions.  A person who is so sure about the precise meaning of the parable of the Prodigal Son may end up unwittingly instantiating the spiritual smugness of the "older brother."  Watch out; stories usually have a way of putting one in the cross hairs of judgments.  And it is better to accept oneself as a fluid moral and spiritual agent than as a stable and fixed robot of some pre-determined moral stance.

Aphorism of the Day, March 3, 2016

The parable of the prodigal son was told because Jesus was accused of eating with sinners.  This is an indication that the early church was made up of people who did not have religious "status" in society but one of the implications of the prodigal son story is that everyone begins in God the Father's house and some rebel and return.  Some never "rebelled" but were upset that those who were rebellious were allowed to return.  The parable of the Prodigal Son is based upon a belief that everyone belongs originally to the home of the Heavenly parent and all are welcome to return even if they have tried to deny their spiritual origins.

Aphorism of the Day, March 2, 2016

We do a disservice to the writers of the Bible in assuming that they only were smart enough to write in one way, the way of plain reporting.  Many have made the parables of the presentations of the life of Jesus into journalistic "eye-witness" reporting rather than seeing these parables as oracles of the risen Christ dealing with "church situations" in the eight decades after Jesus was gone from this earth.  Appreciating the "art" of writing in the Bible only can enhance sublime encounters.

Aphorism of the Day, March 1, 2016

One of the results of the Gospel "prodigal son" tradition is that we make heroes out of really notorious sinners who repent.  America tends to lionize great political sinners who repent and publicly confess.  The people who just seem to be "boringly" faithful day by day do not fit the great Christian trope of "having to be a great" sinner in order to be transformed into someone who sublimates all of the sinning energy into super over-compensating spiritual energy.  The poor older brother of the Prodigal Son parable is seen as the "bad guy" because he stayed at home and was faithful to his Father, and because his sense of fairness was offended when the younger sibling is made a celebrated hero because he returned from his sinful ways.  St. Paul was a notorious sinner, complicit in killing, but he also wrote the rhetorical question, "shall we go on sinning that grace may abound?"  Yes, it is great that St. Paul was converted from his ways of seeking to kill religious opponents, but if he had his choice, he would rather never have sought to kill in the first place.  We need to be careful about the subtle profiles we can promote from the ways in which we read the Gospel stories. 

Quiz of the Day, March 2016

Quiz of the Day, March 31, 2016

In which Gospel is it recorded that Jesus told his disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?

a. Matthew
b. Mark
c. Luke
d. John

Quiz of the Day, March 30, 2016

Which Gospel has the most expansive account of Jesus and Mary Magdalene in a post resurrection appearance?

a. Matthew
b. Mark
c. Luke
d. John

Quiz of the Day, March 29, 2016

What is the significance of the unleavened bread in the Passover Meal?

a. The Israelites could not afford yeast in Egypt
b. a quick escape meant that there was no time for bread to rise
c. it symbolized purity of heart
d. leaven is a symbol of corruption

Quiz of the Day, March 28, 2016

According to St. Paul, how many people did the Risen Christ appear to at one time?

a. 3
b. 12
c. 11
d. 500

Quiz of the Day, March 27, 2016

Which word for the feast of the Resurrection has no relation to the Passover lamb?

a. Pascha
b. Pascua
c. Easter
d. Pasen
e. Paskha

Quiz of the Day, March 26, 2016

Which of the following is not a part of the Great Vigil of Easter?

a. lighting the new fire and the Paschal Candle
b. the Exsultet
c. Reading Salvation History
d. return of Alleluia to the liturgy
e. Baptism
f.  Holy Eucharist
g. blessing of the Easter lilies

Quiz of the Day, March 25, 2016

In the Passion account of John's Gospel, how many Mary's were standing near the cross?

a. 2
b. 1
c. 4
d. 3


Quiz of the Day, March 24, 2016

The Maundy of Maundy Thursday is a words which has morphed from what?

a. mandibula
b. mandatum
c. maudlin
d. maunder

Quiz of the Day, March 23, 2016

Tenebrae means

a. shadows
b. darkness
c. Holy Week liturgy which includes gradual extinguishing of candles
d. all of the above

Quiz of the Day, March 22, 2016

The writer of the book of Lamentation uses poetry to take personal identity with what entity?

a. Zion/Jerusalem
b. the kings of Judah
c. the kings of Israel
d. God almighty

Quiz of the Day, March 21, 2016

Why did Jesus curse a fig tree?

a. it was in stolen orchard
b. it was not a palm tree
c. it was not providing figs out of season
d. it was in the middle of the path

Quiz of the Day, March 20, 2016

What is the special word of praise used on Palm Sunday?

a. Hallelujah
b. Alleleuia
c. Hosanna
d. Baruch atah Adoni

Quiz of the Day, March 19, 2019

If Jesus is in the lineage of David, through which parent is he in David's lineage?

a. through his adoptive father Joseph
b. through Mary
c. through both
d. through spiritual lineage of both

Quiz of the Day, March 18, 2016

Cyril of Jerusalem was known for all of one of the following?

a. pre-Nicaea orthodoxy
b. Holy Week Rites
c. Mystagogic Catachesis
d. Catechetical Lectures
e. presiding the Council of Nicaea

Quiz of the Day, March 17, 2016

Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland was an immigrant from what locale?

a. England
b. Wales
c. Scotland
d. Frisia

uiz of the Day, March 16, 2016

What was the first sign Moses did to try to persuade the Pharaoh to let the people of Israel leave Egypt?

a. turned water of the river to blood
b. sent lice upon the land
c. made his staff to turn into a snake
d. brought perpetual darkness on the land

Quiz of the Day, March 15, 2016

In the Passion Narratives of the four canonical Gospels, which Gospel reports that a young man fled naked at the time of the arrest of Jesus?

a. Matthew
b. Mark
c. Luke
d. John


Quiz of the Day, March 14, 2016

Moses, Aaron and Miriam were siblings in which tribe of Israel?

a. Asher
b. Dan
c. Levi
d. Benjamin

Quiz of the Day, March 13, 2016

What excuses did Moses give to God about going back to Egypt to lead the children of Israel out of slavery?

a. he said the Israelites would not listen to him
b. he said they would not accept his Midian wife
c. he said he was not eloquent
d. all of the above
e. a and c only

Quiz of the Day, March 12, 2016

Which of the following is not true about St. Gregory the Great?

a. he sent Augustine to the British Isles
b. his title was "servant of the servants of God"
c. he helped in the attacks of the Lombards
d. he wrote all of the tonal patterns for Gregorian Chants
e. he made some liturgical reforms


Quiz of the Day, March 11, 2016

What Bible names means "I drew from out of water?"

a. Noah
b. Jeremiah
c. Moses
d. Jonah

Quiz of Day, March 10, 2016

What was the occupation of Shiphrah and Puah?

a. physician
b. mason
c. midwife
d. prophetess

Quiz of the Day, March 9, 2016

Which of the following was not a member of the famous Cappadocian saintly family?

a. Basil
b. Peter of Sebaste
c. Gregory of Nazianzus
d. Gregory of Nyssa
e. Macrina

Quiz of the Day, March 8, 2016

Which of the following was not buried in the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron?

a. Abraham
b. Lot
c. Sarah
d. Isaac
e. Rachel
f.  Rebecca
g. Jacob
h. Leah

Quiz of the Day, March 7, 2016

Why are there different lists of the 12 Tribes of Israel?

a. because there were 12 disciples
b. Joseph and Levi were in the original list
c. Ephraim and Manasseh, sons of Joseph are in other lists
d. b and c

Quiz of the Day, March 6, 2016

Which of the following did both Jacob and Isaac end up doing?

a. having many children
b. marrying four wives
c. blessing younger sons instead of oldest sons
d. selling their birthrights

Quiz of the Day, March 5, 2016

Why are Ephraim and Manasseh unique among the tribes of Israel?

a. they were not sons of Jacob
b. they replaced their father Joseph as tribal heads
c. they were grand sons of Jacob
d. they had Egyptian bloodlines from their mother
e. all of the above

Quiz of the Day, March 4, 2016

How did the actions of Joseph set up the future slavery of the Hebrews in Egypt?

a. he insisted that his father Jacob and family move to Egypt
b. he helped the Pharaoh purchase all of the land in Egypt
c. during the drought he helped to make the majority of people slaves in exchange for food.
d. all of the above

Quiz of the Day, March 3, 2016

Why is "Aldersgate" an important name in Methodist tradition?

a. it was town where John Wesley had his conversion experience
b. it was the street name where John Wesley had his conversion experience
c. it was the name of the Wesley family home
d. it was place where Charles Wesley wrote most of his hymns

Quiz of the Day, March 2, 2016

Chad was bishop of what locale?

a. Lichfield
b. York
c. Canterbury
d. a and b

Quiz of the Day, March 1, 2016

Who is the patron saint of Wales?

a. Elfan
b. David or Dewi
c. Gwen
d. Elvis

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Easter: Hope of Knowing Oneself and Others after Death


Easter Sunday      March 27, 2016
Isaiah 65:17-25  Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24
1 Corinthians 15:19-26  Luke 24:1-12


  One of the most important issue of personal identity is the issue of personal continuity.  I have included in the bulletin pictures of seven people who appear to be different people. 
But I also give you the information that the seven people who appear to be different are the same person.  There is a continuity of personal identity even though the appearance of difference could make an outsider say that these people are not related.

  But if in fact, these pictures are pictures of me, I cannot personally verify the continuity between all of the persons represented in these pictures.  Why?  I have very few memories in of my life before I was five years old.  My first five years of life are foggy in my memory so when I look at the baby pictures I have had to take my parents’ word that I am the person in the picture.  So as a person my continuity with my early years is pretty foggy; I have to rely on my significant community to convince me and let me know that the later pictures of me are in fact in continuity with my baby and early childhood pictures.  My foggy memory could create a sense of discontinuity between how I appeared as a baby and young child and who I am now if I did not have the community to let me know of my connection with the past.   What if I were to develop amnesia or other conditions of adult onset dementia which affected my memory?  These conditions would also create a discontinuity in me from personally knowing that I have always been the same person.  Again in the failure of my memory, I would be dependent upon my community to uphold my continuity as being the same person.  When I can’t remember who I was in the past to connect it with my present time, I then become the passive actor in the scripts of other people who can retain the fact that I am still the same person.

  There is a further more profound and pronounced event of human discontinuity which all members of the human race who attain a certain age have to ponder.  Perhaps the most profound event of human discontinuity is the event of death.

  Will I know myself after I die?  Will I have memory of my entire life when I am dead?  Will there be a community who will know me beyond my death?  Will that community be those who remain alive and those who have already died?  Is my death a physical discontinuity and also  mental and spiritual discontinuity?  Is death a wall for my human consciousness or does my personal consciousness of myself continue in some way after I die?

  This issue of personal continuity after we die is a very important issue for us because I believe that all of us live with a great internal hunch.  We are born with this internal hunch that in some way our consciousness of being will always be.  Yes, we can conceive of our bodies wearing out and dying, but we are born with this internal hunch that once I am conscious, then I will always be conscious in some way.  Various religious psychological systems have arisen to deal with the hunch of everlasting consciousness.  Perhaps each person has an essential self called a soul or a spirit and this essential self is eternal because it is the mark of the eternal image of an eternal God upon the human life.

  The aging process and the great losses in life can bring us to disbelieve the evidence of God’s image within our lives.  We may even doubt this internal hunch about us always having a continuing consciousness.  We get so drawn into our bodies and into our external world that we begin to disbelieve our internal evidence of the image of God upon us.  When disbelief of our true nature sets in we need signs which will inspire us to recover the awareness of our essential selves.

  And this is what brings us to the significance of this day.  In the time of Jesus one of the most absolute way of experiencing death was by Roman crucifixion.  Roman crucifixion was a very public death; death was made into a public spectacle to discourage all insurrection movements.  The Roman authorities in putting Jesus on the cross wanted to bring about a discontinuity in the life of Jesus.  They wanted to end his physical life.  They wanted to end his social influence among his followers.  They wanted to discourage anyone who would become popular like Jesus and make them think twice about going public.  The purpose of Roman crucifixion was to cause a social amnesia, the immediate forgetting of Jesus as a significant person of influence in the lives of people.

  As we know, this Roman crucifixion while successful in being executed, ended up failing miserably.  Why?  Because many people discovered Jesus to have continuity with himself after he died.  Many people discovered Jesus still had personal consciousness of himself and others after he had died.  And this caused quite a bit of excitement.  It energized an entire movement which eventually took over the Empire which was once responsible for his crucifixion.

  The death of Jesus came to be known as a bridge into a new kind of conscious awareness which Jesus had of himself.  In the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, we have evidence that Jesus knew himself again after his death but Jesus also knew again his friends who had witnessed his death.  The evidence of the continuity of the life of Jesus after his death was so profound that it was confessed by his followers to be both physical sightings and tactile interaction.  The life of Jesus after his death had the appearance of a newly re-constituted psycho-social-spiritual-physical being.  It was so new that people began to confess this unique sort of resurrection.  This resurrection was not like the assumptions of Elijah and Enoch; this resurrection was not a belief in a general resurrection of all people at some future time, it was a personal dynamic and real manifestation of a new life of Jesus to his followers which continued until his disappearance in the event which came to be called his ascension.

  We need not be embarrassed that empirical verification seems to fail when we talk about this.  What we know is that unique events cause the birth of new language to account for the realness and profound impact of the experience.

  Now what does this mean for you and me today?  It means that you and I can believe with confidence this great hunch that we have about the image of God being buried somewhere inside of us as an essential self.  It means that instead of forgetting about our essential selves because of all of the harshness of the temporal world, we can begin to feed the eternal fire within our souls. Because we have the witness of Jesus knowing himself and others beyond his death, we can believe that we will have future continuous selves beyond our deaths.

  This is a comfort to me because I know that I will leave this world unfinished.  I will leave this world with desires and hopes to have done more things and become more than I will actually achieve. I will leave this world with everything that I have forgot to remember.  I will leave this world with many uncompleted relationships.  Many people have already left my world and left me feeling that my relationship with them was not yet complete.   I want to know that I will have continuity after my death with my pre-death life, not because I deserve to live eternally, but because it is really honest to the eternal hope for there always being a future.  And this deep hope seems to be planted within me.

  Let us be grateful that the death of Jesus and his continued state of being after his death has been played out before the eyes of human history because it draws out of us the full permission to keep hoping.

  The resurrection of Jesus Christ is  a narrative of hope and we need not be embarrassed with that great sense of hope deep within us which tells us that we will always have a future.  We have a future of knowing ourselves as ourselves in the future after our deaths.  We also know we are connected with others who will remember us as well.  We live in communities which know and define us and give us our personhood.  Our communities which outlive us will remember us for a short time after we have died.  But we will enter into our next welcoming community of people who have gone ahead to keep personhood alive and well in the next life, and we can know this because of Jesus the resurrected Christ.  And we can also know that the greatest personal computer memory alive is found in the eternal memory of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The memory capacity of the Holy Trinity is able to preserve us and keep us as persons with continuity and reconstituted being in our afterlives.

  The resurrection of Christ is a message to us that we will always have continuity with ourselves.  Nothing can ever end us or separate us from ourselves, or with each other, not even death.  And I think this is worth a great shout.

  Alleluia.  Christ is risen.  The Lord is risen, indeed.  Alleluia.  Amen.

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Candle, Story, Citizenship and a Meal


Easter Vigil         March 26, 2016
Ex.14:10 Canticle 8, Ez  36:24-28 Psalm 42:1-7
Rom.6:3-11         Luke 24:1-12


  A Candle, A Story,  A Citizenship Ceremony, and a celebratory Meal.  These are the events of this evening, the most important evening in the life of the Church.

  Why a Candle?  A candle is the symbol of light piercing the darkness.  Jesus Christ was called by the early church, the Light of World.  Why did we need this light?  Because the world lived in the darkness of half a life.  The world lived in only the natural world; it was not enlightened about another world, the interior world of the kingdom of God.  Jesus Christ came to awaken the world to the spiritual world.  Jesus came to show us that we are spiritual beings and in knowing this we suddenly have lights turned on in our darkness.  When we are awakened to our spirits we are awakened to our everlasting essence and this enables us to live in the world of time where everything is changing and passing away.

  Tonight is a night of our story.  The Light of Christ happened within a Story.  And we read a portion of that Great Story tonight.  We read about Moses and the Red Sea about Ezekiel and the Dry bones.  If we did all of the readings, we would read 12 long readings.  Jesus is not just drop out of heaven in a vacuum, he arrived in a family with a genealogy and a story.  Jesus was continuous with a spiritual tradition but the people needed a boost of light to highlight what had been missing in the lives of people.  We read the story of the past as a way of tracing the genealogy of our human experience and remembering how our identity has been formed.

  Next, tonight is a citizenship ceremony.  When one becomes an American citizen, one has studied and then one takes an oath and one is received as a citizen of our country.  Tonight is the chief occasion of baptism in the Church.  It is a heavenly citizenship ceremony.  So you think that you have only been born into a human family; no, you are also a son or daughter of God.  You were born into the kingdom of God since God is the creator of the world.  So baptism is a celebration that each of us can know ourselves to be a son or daughter of God and our family invites us to God’s family in baptism as a citizenship ceremony.  Tonight we welcome persons into this wonderful experience of being known as children of God.  Everyone is always a child of God but in Baptism the church has a celebration ceremony of this primary fact of human identity, namely, we are all made in the image of God.  We have God’s DNA as a part of us; God’s Spirit is in us.  Tonight in our citizenship ceremony we are welcoming Jaiden, Adam and Melina.

  Now what do we do when the family gets together?  We eat the family meal together?  And so tonight we move from Baptism to Eucharist.  The Eucharist is the family meal.  It is the meal of our gathering.  When we gather for the Christian meal we are being renewed in our family identity as members of the body of Christ.

  Finally, why is this evening important?  Why is lighting the Paschal Candle important tonight?  Why is reading our family Story important tonight?  Why is Baptism important tonight?  Why is Eucharist important tonight?

  All of these are important tonight because tonight is when we celebrate the perpetuity of what we do?  Why do all of these things have perpetuity?  Because the Resurrection of Christ has given us evidence of our afterlife?  We will continue our identity as sons and daughters of God forever, even beyond our mortal lives. And so with great joy we offer again the Easter Shout.

  Alleluia.  Christ is Risen.  The Lord is Risen indeed.  Alleluia!  Amen.

Sunday School, March 27, 2016 Easter, C

Easter Sermons for Children

In this sermon, have the entire congregation, one by one share the Easter Message "Christ is Risen."  Make a baton and write on it the traditions that the church has passed on.  This is to illustrate to the children the transmission of the Easter message for all of these years.
Sermon One: Passing the Baton in the Great Relay Race
   What Christian Feast Day is more important? Christmas or Easter?  They are both very important but Easter is the most important Christian day of the Christian year.  Why?  If Jesus had not come back alive, we would not celebrate Christmas and we would not even exist as a church
  When the resurrection of Christ happened, the friends of Jesus who saw him alive again after his death began to share the story.  And now that story has been share for about 2000 years.  If the church is about 2000 years old, that means that there has been about 100 generations using 20 years as the average length of a generation.  So how has the message of the life, the death and resurrection Jesus been remembered for 2000 years?  By one parent sharing the message with their children and their children share the message with their own children. 
  If we have about 100 people here let us see how long it takes to share the message. One by one, let’s share the message, one time for each generation.  Let’s see how long it takes to say Christ is Risen around this entire gathering.  Okay start.
   But the church has not just passed on spoken message.  We have passed it on in things that we can see and touch and feel.  And so I have made a baton for a relay race and I’ve written some things on the Baton.  The Bible.  The Old Testament Stories.  The New Testament Stories.  Creeds. Holy Spirit. Water of Baptism. Oil of Baptism and Confirmation.  Fire of Baptism.  Bread and Wine of Eucharist.  Prayers for the Sick.  Bishops, Priests, Deacons and Lay Persons.  Marriage Rings.
  These are things of the church that have been shared for 100 generations.  These things have been passed on from family to family for 2000 years.  And that is why we are here today, because someone told us the message about Jesus Christ and because the church has passed on the various things that have helped us to remember that Jesus rose again.  And because the Holy Spirit is inside us giving us the hope that we are going to live beyond our deaths.  And why do we believe that we will live beyond our deaths?  Because Jesus Christ lived beyond his death; he did it to show us what will happen to us after we die.  We will live beyond our death and we will live with God.  That is why this day is such a happy day and it is why we shout: Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!  Amen. 


Sermon Two:  The empty Easter Egg

  Let me tell you today about an Easter Egg hunt that took place on Easter Sunday in a church.  And the Sunday School teacher wanted to teach a lesson to the children on Easter Sunday.  So Mr. Jones during Sunday School on Easter Sunday, said to his class, “Today is Easter Sunday and so we want to do something special.  We are going to have an Easter Egg hunt.  I’ve have already hidden the eggs.  So let’s go outside and look.  And I want each of you to find only one egg.  And when everyone has found one egg, then we will come back to the classroom and each of us will open our egg in front of the entire class.  So the entire class of twelve children ran outside to look for the eggs in a place on the lawn where Mr. Jones had hidden the eggs.  One by one each child found an egg.  One child said, “I’ve found my egg.”  Another child said, “Please help me find my egg.”  And finally after about 10 minutes each child found an egg.  Mr. Jones rang a bell and said, “Come into the classroom.”  And so the children came back into the classroom each holding an egg.  Now these eggs were not real eggs, they were plastic hollow eggs so that there could be a hidden treat inside of the egg.
   When they were seated in the classroom, Mr. Jones said, “Now one by one we are going to open each egg to see what’s in the egg.  And let me tell you, there is a surprise in one of the eggs and whoever has the surprise will get something special.”
  One by one the eggs were opened.  Johnny said, “I have a dollar bill in mine…I bet I won the prize.”  Mary opened hers and she found some very nice chocolates so she said, “No, these are really the best chocolates, so I bet I won the prize.”  Jimmy opened his egg and he had a little Lego man so he said, “I think I got the best prize.”  Grace opened her egg and she had a cute little furry bunny rabbit and she said, “I won!”  Gloria opened her egg and found a silver dollar and she said, “Wow!  I hit the jackpot!”  Jeremy opened his egg and he found a lovely ring that fit his finger and it had a red jewel on it, so he said, “Surely this must be the best prize.”  Betsy then opened her egg and she found a cute little baby chick, and she was thrilled because she knew she had won.  Todd opened his egg and found a shiny whistle and he blew the whistle because he thought he had won.  Everyone who heard the loud noise, said, “Stop blowing the whistle, it hurts our ears.”  Joey opened his egg and he found a little race car…just what he wanted, and so he believed he was the winner.  Margaret opened her egg and she found a cute little teddy bear and she was happy.  Harry opened his Easter Egg and he found a porcelain little Dalmatian.  And he just loved those spotted dogs.  And then there was only one person and one egg left to open and it was Lucy’s egg.  Everyone said, “Hurry and open it let us see.”  But Lucy got very shy and so she hid her egg under desk so that no one could see her open it.  She looked down as she opened it and when she got it opened, her face turned red and said.  Everyone shouted, “What did you get Lucy?  Did you win?  What did you get?”  And Lucy looked up and said, “I lost…I did not get anything…my egg is empty.”  And the children laughed at her and said, “Mr. Jones really played a joke on you.”
  Then the children asked Mr. Jones, “Tell who won the best prize?”
 And Mr. Jones said, “Children, Lucy won the best prize and so she get this special prize, a new Bible.”  The children said, “Why did Lucy win?  Her egg was empty?”
  Mr. Jones said, “Today is Easter.  And when the women went to the tomb of Jesus what did they find?”  They found that the tomb was empty and because it was empty they were winners, because that meant that Jesus was still alive.
  And so Lucy’s egg was empty.  And she wins the prize on Easter to remind us that the empty tomb of Jesus means that Christ is alive and that he is still with us today. 
   So as winners today let us be happy about the empty tomb of Jesus.  Let us say, Alleluia, Christ is Risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia! 

Sermon Three

Children do you know what imagination is?  Do you ever use your imagination?  Do you

think that imagination was used to make Disney movies?  And to write books?  And to

invent things?
  So today, I am going to ask you to join me in using our imaginations.  With our imaginations we can do magical things.  Did our first president George Washington drive a Cadillac?  No, he didn’t, but with our imagination we can pretend that he did.  And wouldn’t it be kind of funny to thing about George Washington driving a car among all of the other horseback riders and people in carriages pulled by horses?  We can do this with our imagination.
   I would like for us to imagine Jesus living in a home in Jerusalem.  But his home has also become his office.  It is his office and the sign on the door says, “Welcome to Jesus Ministries.”
  And when go into the office of Jesus, we see him sitting at a desk and there are lots of desks and with phones on each desk.  Jesus is talking on the phone.  He finishes one phone call and he has to take another phone call.  And his disciples are also taking phone calls.  And there are so many calls, they have to bring in people to answer the phone in the evening and throughout the night because phone calls are coming in from people who live around the world.
  And the disciples are getting worried.  They go to Jesus when he has a break and they say, “Jesus, there are too many people calling.  People are asking for all kinds of things.  A little girl needs some medicine.  And  a family does not have enough food, but they live too far away.  We cannot get the food to them.  And there is a sick man who wants to be healed, but he lives so far away.”
  Jesus said, “Yes, we have thousands and thousands of requests for help, but I am located here in Jerusalem.  I can only be here in one place at one time.”  One of the disciples said to Jesus, “How can we clone you Jesus?  Can we make a million copies of you?  And then one of your clones could be in places all over the world.  If we could clone millions of copies of you, you could be everywhere and then lots more people could get the help which they need.  Jesus what are you going to do about all of the problems of people in this world when you only live in Jerusalem?”
  Jesus said, “Well, I’ve got a plan.”
 So you know what happened?  Jesus went out on the street and he began to heal and preach good news.  He told the Romans citizens and the Jews they had to love for one another.  He told them that God was near to them and God was coming to them.  And you know what happened?  Jesus made the Romans and the religious people angry.  “What do you mean Jesus, that God’s kingdom is coming?  This is the Caesar’s kingdom or this is the kingdom of King David where someone great like David will come back and be a powerful king.”  So the people got so angry at Jesus for preaching about God’s kingdom.  They were worried that God’s kingdom would be a threat to the kingdom of the Emperor Caesar.  They were worried that this kingdom of God would not be another great military king like King David.
  So do you know what they did to Jesus?  They did not like his message about the kingdom of God’s love, so they put him to death on the cross.  And they thought that this was the end of Jesus.  They thought that Jesus would be gone forever.
  But you know what?  When the friends of Jesus went to the grave and tomb of Jesus, they found it empty.  And you know suddenly people saw Jesus popping up all over.  People suddenly saw him in Jerusalem.  And some saw him on the Emmaus road and on the same day some saw him way up north in Galilee, quite a distance from Jerusalem.
  And the disciples got together and they said, “This Jesus is really clever and he has found the perfect solution to the problem of so many people needing the help of Jesus.  When Jesus died, he has come back and he has had the life that was inside of his body cloned to go into the lives of us and many people.
  And since the insides of Jesus have been cloned and put inside the lives of millions and millions of people, the work of Jesus can get done all around the world.  Jesus is no longer limited to being in just one body in Jerusalem; now Jesus can be the risen Christ in the lives of people everywhere.
  And you know what?  The insides of Jesus have been cloned and is inside us too.  I see it in you.  I look at Wes, and Jackson and Cole and I see Christ is risen and in them.  I look in your eyes and I can see the risen Christ in you and I know that your hands perform the works of kindness and love that allows Christ to do so much in this world now that he is not just limited to the one body of Jesus in his Jerusalem office.
  I look at you and I know that Christ is alive; I know that Christ has risen from the death and I know that the life that was inside of Jesus, his Spirit, has become cloned and is in you and me.
  Isn’t that wonderful?  To know that Jesus is not limited to just one time or place but that the risen Christ can now be everywhere.
  Let me hear you say, “Alleluia.”  Can’t hear you.  Christ is Risen!  Can you say that?  Now say, “Christ is risen, in me!”  Can you say, “Christ is risen in you!”  Now can you say?  I am a Christ-clone.  Because the Spirit of Christ is alive and well in me.  Amen.


Puppet Show for Easter Sunday


 

Delivering Alleluia back in time for Easter
Gospel Puppet Show
Easter Sunday

Characters:
Hairy the Profit
Fr. Phil


Father Phil:  Boys and girls, I received a phone call from Hairy the Profit and he was very worried and anxious.  He said that he wanted to see me right away.  He said it was important.  Hairy are you around?  Where are you?

Hairy: Hello boys and girl.  Have you seen the Padre?  Is he sleeping again?  Where is the Padre?

Father Phil:  Hairy, I’m right here.  And of course, I’m not sleeping; it’s Easter Sunday.  Though I will be preaching later and that might help some get some sleep.  You look terrible Hairy, what’s wrong?  And by the way is your name Harry, short for Harold?

Hairy:  No, my name is Hairy, H-A-I-R-Y.

Father Phil: Could of guessed that from the amount of hair on your body.  But what’s the matter why are you worried?

Hairy:  I have special delivery that needs to arrive for Easter Day and if it doesn’t come, we won’t be able to start Easter.

Fr. Phil:  That’s terrible; what is so important that would delay Easter.

Hairy: You will soon know; but if it doesn’t show up.  I’ll be leaving town in embarrassment.

Fr. Phil:  Well, Hairy, it must be very serious.

Hairy: It is and I do not want to delay Easter.

Delivery Person:  Excuse me, is there a Hairy Profit here?  I have a package for him from the Postal Service.

Hairy:  I’m Hairy Profit.  Whew! You saved the day.  Please give the package to Father Phil.

Delivery Person:  Let me verify your identity, Do you really spell your name, H-A-I-R-Y  P-R-O-F-I-T?

Hairy: Yes, do you have a problem with that?

Delivery Person:  No, your mom and dad sure got the name right.

Hairy: Father Phil, hurry and open the Package.  What’s in there?

Father Phil: Okay, there is a letter in here and the letter says, “Dear Hairy, please get a haircut.  Love, Mom.  Is that what you were expecting?  How was that letter holding up Easter?  If you get a haircut can we start Easter?

Hairy: No that was not what I was expecting.  I am so disappointed.  That was not what I needed to start Easter.  I am so embarrassed.

Delivery Person:  Hello, there is a special delivery for Hairy Profit from UPS.  Is there a Hairy Profit here.

Hairy:  I’m here.  Hurry up.  Maybe this is what I was expecting.  Please come and give that package to Father Phil.  Father Phil open it up and tell me what it is.

Fr. Phil:  Okay be patient.  And here it is.  It is a special delivery from before the season of Lent.  Do you know what it is?  It is the Word Alleluia.  And it has arrived just in time for the Easter.

Hairy:  Yes, now we can begin Easter because Alleluia has returned just in time for Easter.  Alleluia.  Alleluia.  Alleluia.  Aren’t you happy that we can say Alleluia again?

Fr. Phil:  Yes, we are and thank you Hairy for getting Alleluia to us on time, and as a friend could I say something to you?

Hairy:  I guess so.

Fr. Phil:  Get a haircut.  And Good bye


Easter Puppet Show
Gospel Puppet Show
Easter Sunday

Scene: The Tomb
Characters:
Soldier guarding the tomb: 
Jesus:
Young man (angel): 
Mary Magdalene: 
Salome: 
Peter: 
Miss Debbie (in front of the puppet theatre)

There is a tomb with a round stone on it hanging from the curtain at the back of the theatre

Miss Debbie:  Boys and girls let us visit the tomb of Jesus.  His friend Nicodemus gave this tomb so that Jesus could be buried there.  It was so sad for the friends of Jesus when he died.  They loved him.  He was a special friend and teacher.  Look there’s someone at the tomb now.

Soldier: (pacing back and forth) Stop young lady.  You cannot go near the tomb.  The chief priests told me to guard the tomb.

Miss Debbie: Well, why are you guarding the tomb?

Soldier: Well, I’m just doing my job.  Those chief priests were jealous of this man Jesus and they think that someone might come and steal his body.  That’s strange thinking, but I’m just doing my job.  Just run along.  You can’t be hanging around here.
(Miss Debbie moves to the side)

(Multiple Flashing camera lights in the puppet theatre)

Soldier: Oh my!  I’m blinded!  I can’t see what has happened.  I think that I’m going to faint. Oooooooooooooh!
(Soldier falls off scene)
The stone has been taken off the tomb a grave cloth hangs on the opening of the tomb


Miss Debbie: Children did you see some flashing lights?  I wonder what is happening at the tomb.  Maybe I should go back and check it out.  Do you think the soldier is still there?  Maybe I can sneak back and take a peek.  Will you take a peek with me?

(Mary Magdalene and Salome are now coming to the tomb before they look at the tomb Mary Magdalene says)

Mary Magdalene:  Salome, we’ve got to get to the tomb of Jesus.  We collected so many more spices from our friends to help prepare his body.  He had to be buried so quickly, but now we have more spices.  But I’m worried Salome.


Salome: Mary, why are you worried?

Mary Magdalene:  There is a big stone that is on the entrance of the tomb.  It is too heavy for you and I to roll open.  Maybe there will be some one there to help us open the tomb.

Salome:  Mary, you don’t have to worry.  The stone is already rolled away.

Mary Magdalene:  Oh, no!  Something has happened?  Where’s the body of Jesus?  All I can see is his empty grave cloth.  Who stole his body?   This is terrible.  Why would someone steal the body of Jesus?

(Young Man sticks his head out of the tomb)

Mary Magdalene(seeing the young): Oh, you frightened me!  Did you do this?  Did you take the body of my friend Jesus?  Where did you take him?  Why did you do this?

Young Man: Calm down and don’t be afraid!  Your friend Jesus is not here.  He has been raised from the dead.  You can see his empty grave clothes.  Now I want you to go and tell the disciples and tell Peter that Jesus has risen from the dead.

Mary Magdalene:  Wow!  What does this mean?  When will I see Jesus again?  Let us go quickly and tell Peter.

(Peter shows himself in the left panel)

Peter: Mary Magdalene and Salome…slow down, why are you running?  What has happened?

Mary Magdalene:  We went to the tomb to put more spices on the grave clothes…but the tomb was already open and the grave clothes were empty.  And a young man or angel told us that Jesus had risen from the dead.  He told us to come and tell you.

Peter: Wow!  You know what this means don’t you?

Salome:  What does it mean?

Peter: It means that everything that Jesus told us is true.  He said that he would come back to life after three days.  This is so wonderful.  God did the most special thing ever on this day.  I can’t wait until we see Jesus.

(They disappeared in the left panel and reappear in the middle panel and Jesus pokes out from behind the curtain)

Jesus: Greetings my friends!  Peace be with you!

Peter:  Thank you Jesus for coming back to us.

Mary Magdalene:  We were so worried.

Jesus: Remember this day.  All you will be witnesses to tell everyone what happened.

Salome:  Now I know why Alleluia returns on Easter Day.

Miss Debbie: Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!  Can you say that?

Everyone: Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!

Miss Debbie: The Lord is Risen indeed.  Alleluia!  And now all of us are witnesses too of the resurrection of Christ.  Because Christ lives in us too.


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