[{"id":"62","listid":"1","parentid":"0","videosource":"youtube","videoid":"bn0TB4nTD7k","imageurl":"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/bn0TB4nTD7k\/default.jpg,https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/bn0TB4nTD7k\/mqdefault.jpg,https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/bn0TB4nTD7k\/hqdefault.jpg,https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/bn0TB4nTD7k\/sddefault.jpg,https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/bn0TB4nTD7k\/maxresdefault.jpg","title":"Episcopal Diocese of Maine","description":"Alleluia! Christ is Alive\n\nA sermon for the Episcopal Church in Maine, preached by the bishop, the Right Reverend Thomas James Brown, for Easter Day, 12 April 2020, and delivered via video to the sixty year-round faith communities, eighteen summer chapels, four Jubilee centers, and Camp Bishopswood.\nIn the mid-1990s, during seminary, my field education parish was near Stanford University, a church called St. Bede. The former secretary of state, George Schultz, was a parishioner. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s true, but the people at St. Bede\u2019s ate out on a story about him, so over the years, like all good tales, it became true. Evidently one Easter Day Mr. Schultz arrived at St. Bede\u2019s and the usher, a woman named Jinx Royden, said, \u201cAlleluia! The Lord is Risen!\u201d\u2014to which Secretary Schultz said, \u201cHappy Easter.\u201d And with that Jinx said, \u201cWe don\u2019t say \u2018Happy Easter\u2019\u2014we say \u201cThe Lord is Risen indeed. Alleluia! Now, shall we try this again? Alleluia! The Lord is Risen!\u201d Mr. Schultz got the message, and supposedly replied indulgently, \u201cthe Lord is Risen indeed. Alleluia.\u201d\nIn the past 25 years of preaching on Easter Day I confess to taking a page from Jinx Royden\u2019s book by teaching and joshing folk to respond \u201cThe Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia.\u201d It was a typical way to start the sermon...I\u2019d get into the pulpit and say, \u201cyou know it\u2019s coming...\u201d\u2014and then I\u2019d shout,\u201cAlleluia. Christ is Risen\u201d\u2014to which after a few years of this the congregation would reply \u201cThe Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia.\u201d I\u2019m sure my antics drove people crazy, even as Secretary Schultz at St. Bede\u2019s probably didn\u2019t want Jinx Royden to take him to school that Easter Day so many years ago.\nThis year, maybe more than any other Easter in our lifetimes we hunger for a truthful proclamation that Jesus has triumphed over death and given us life.\nDiscovering the promise that Jesus lives, and that he lives right now is a source of daily grace and hope. Certainly this Easter we need to see that God has rolled away the stone because we\u2019re not finding it as we look into each other\u2019s faces singing \u201cJesus Chris is Risen today\u201d or around our dining tables with friends and extended family, or in an Easter egg hunts, or anything else that\u2019s familiar and tells us it\u2019s the Queen of Feasts. Yet like every Easter today we see the risen Christ. He\u2019s there with all patients, doctors, nurses, and staff in our hospitals, the people working in grocery stores...suddenly Christ is alive. Together we see millions of people rummaging through the hall closet to pull out the sewing machine and learning to make face masks, and then drop them off at local hospitals, or to neighbors...doing this to share a burden, to shield those who are on the front lines. Suddenly Christ is alive.\nWe see Jesus Christ Risen from the dead also in what has been. Consider the times you\u2019ve gone out of your way to show love, to listen without judgment when a friend speaks a truth that\u2019s hard for her to share, or for you to hear. Or, when you\u2019ve been on the receiving end of a kindness immediately revealing another\u2019s utter lack of self-concern.\nPeople and moments, now and in the past, whose way helps you discover the print of the nails on their hands. When we begin there, my friends, we see Jesus Christ risen from the dead.\nAnd, let\u2019s proclaim what is also true: Christ is alive in the graces of Easter 2020. Think about it. We are choosing to sacrifice what\u2019s comfortable, predictable, and let\u2019s be honest, profitable, to stop the spread of a virus. That\u2019s stunning! We are staying home to slow the spread, shutting everything down, keeping alive the most vulnerable among us...Jesus risen from the dead, and raising us with him to new life. We cannot cling to him because he leads us onward, so we say good riddance to the old life of doing only what\u2019s good for ourselves, and we sing \u201cwelcome happy morning\u201d to the new and glorious way of caring for the whole world. Alleluia Christ is Risen!","custom_imageurl":"","custom_title":"Episcopal Diocese of Maine","custom_description":"","specialparams":"","lastupdate":"2020-07-05 13:21:32","allowupdates":"1","status":"200","isvideo":"1","link":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/bn0TB4nTD7k","ordering":"90000","publisheddate":"2020-04-12 13:35:18","duration":"289","rating_average":"0","rating_max":"0","rating_min":"0","rating_numRaters":"0","statistics_favoriteCount":"0","statistics_viewCount":"1427","keywords":"Holy Week 2020,Easter,Bishop Thomas Brown,Episcopal Maine,Episcopal","startsecond":"0","endsecond":"0","likes":"34","dislikes":"0","commentcount":"0","channel_username":"","channel_title":"","channel_subscribers":"0","channel_subscribed":"0","channel_location":"","channel_commentcount":"0","channel_viewcount":"0","channel_videocount":"0","channel_description":"","channel_totaluploadviews":"0","alias":"episcopal-diocese-of-maine_bn0TB4nTD7k","rawdata":"","datalink":"https:\/\/www.googleapis.com\/youtube\/v3\/videos?id=bn0TB4nTD7k&part=id,snippet,contentDetails,statistics&key=AIzaSyD5ESGoGcwmfRImphgv0OWjRMYWudpPQHI"}]

Episcopal Diocese of Maine