Sectored to Grace
On Saturday night, I attended The Great Vigil of Easter at an Anglican church in our city. It was a beautiful liturgy, leading worshipers through the broad sweep of Scripture, from creation to new creation. There were candles and holy water, Dante and Herbert, a baptism and the renewal of baptismal vows, the gradual physical transformation of the sanctuary from the bleak deathly tones of Good Friday to the light and the life of resurrection. And there was the celebration of the Eucharist, of course. We remembered Christ’s death, proclaimed his resurrection, and strengthened our resolve to await his coming in glory.
There was a line that stood out to me early in the service. During the Service of Light, among the words the cantor sang were these:
This is the day when all who believe in Christ are delivered from the gloom of sin and are sectored to grace and the holiness of life.
Sectored to grace. I had never heard this expression before and have been pondering it since Saturday night. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is, of course, pure grace. The unmerited life of God overwhelming and exposing and judging and defeating the death that we keep dealing. The resurrection is God, in Christ, enacting the deep truth that St. Paul would later pen in his letter to the church in Corinth. Love keeps no record of wrongs, always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Never fails.
And the church that this resurrection birthed into the world is now sectored into this same grace. Set apart, divided, apportioned, commissioned to the graceless, loveless, dark and deathly places in our world and in our lives. Sectored to grace. I love it.
A few hours before I marched off to the Great Vigil of Easter on Saturday evening, I was putting the finishing touches on my Easter Sunday sermon with U2’s new EP called Easter Lily. Here, too, a few lines stood out.
(Could there be anything more cliché than a middle-aged pastor quoting U2? Probably not. I suppose we all inevitably become the cliches we claim to despise.)
First, from a song called Scars:
I’m the last of your loves
The loser the least
I’m the name on the form that demands your release.
Again, such a beautiful image of grace. The One who exploded out of Good Friday’s tomb is the One who secures our release from the sin and death that hold us captive. The last and best of our loves. The love to which all our loves aspire. The love which we could spend lifetimes trying to fathom. And would inevitably fail.
And then, from Resurrection Song:
Love extravagantly
And without regret
If there’s anything better
I’ve not heard it yet …If love is in the air
Let’s take a breath
If I sound ridiculous
I’m not done yet
Easter is, of course, completely ridiculous. Unbelievable. The loser that hung on Good Friday’s cross becoming Sunday’s winner. The mocked and reviled One becoming the Risen and Exalted One speaking words of peace and restoration to his deserters and betrayers. The Victim becoming the Victor over death itself. It is the extravagant love of God set loose in the world. There is nothing better. It’s in the air and we should take a breath.
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Rumblings 
I am happy for you that you took the opportunity to attend an Easter vigil. I am convinced that believing and partaking in our ancient Chritian rituals will be neccessary to our survival as a world wide community of believers.
I don’t believe the Anglican community will survive the turmoil however. It has always been a branch of faith and never a root. Politically formed and operating primarily in the service of king and country, it thrived while the empire thrived and consequently it has withered as the empire has waned. Like a branch it still drew from the Catholic church, maintaining the most, “catholic like” style of worship among the Protestant churches but inevitably, given its political origins, it was always going to be vulnerable and eventually (re)consumed by political and cultural forces. It will lose itself either way.
Firstly by it’s own hand as Bishops, clergy and entire congregations leave it and return to Catholicism, recognizing the obvious. That even in spite of the Catholic churches many sins and transgressions it has always maintained a historical connection to the early church and more importantly to a faithful interpretation of the Gospels. And then by those it foolishly thinks it might attract as new congregants.
Progressive, secular styled homeletics can create the illusion of success in the beginning. A smaller church, intoxicated by its own political commitments and belief in their cultural relevance, doesn’t understand that it will be blindsided and marginalized by the very cultural forces it appeals to. No iteration of feminist, lgbt or blm forces will ever accept any real power sharing or influence by any Christian church. None, nada, ain’t gonna happen. Instead, it may survive as it always has, at the whim of the new, “king, crown and empire” that it now or will soon, serve.
….”meet the new boss, same as the old boss” from the Who’s ironically titled classic, “Won’t get fooled again”
… yeah, ya will,…and so it goes.
Not gonna dwell to long on Bono, U2, Mumford minus it’s best son or even Bruce Springsteen. Except to say that Marcus Mumford is a gifted vocalist and a pretentious twat when it comes to his obvious love of the limelight and his kinda, sorta Christianity. Bono is a Mumford who can’t sing very well and Springsteen, at least as far as I know, makes no religious claims. Which in his case, makes it much easier to reconcile yourself to the gross amounts of money these fellows charge for concerts played well past their, “best before dates”.
I love the last paragraph of this post and would only add that looking at it through the lens of, “how humans are”, we are all, “Friday losers” but as a consequence of the unfathomable love of God we can be remade as, “Sunday winners”.
Thanks for another thought provoking post.