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Entrance
Luke 24: 1-12
Easter Sunday
Marsh Chapel
April 20, 2025
Robert Allan Hill
The Lord is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!
Easter comes to entrance. To entrance with wonder. To entrance for practice. Two lanterns to light today!
For those who might have suspected that we forgot to change the sermon title, from Palm Sunday to Easter, fear not. It is the same lettering for sure, but for Palm Sunday it was the noun, entrance, the entrance to Jerusalem, and for Easter it is the verb, entrance, to entrance in wonder, joyful wonder, and to entrance in personal practice.
Now we in Boston this year are remembering, after 250 years, Paul Revere’s ride. Some of us will hear the full poem again on Marathon Monday. Boston University is certainly about academics, research, community, diversity and globality. We are global, a global University. But we are also, and fully, local, BOSTON University. Said Revere,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light
One if by land, and two if by sea, and I on the opposite shore will be.
(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1903)
Two lanterns. And come the festival of Easter, we too, in the church, light two lanterns, as Easter comes to entrance us, in wonder and in practice.
One
First, in wonder.
Joanna, otherwise a stranger to us, has been included, in Luke, in the group of women who religiously approach the tomb. She is a newcomer. You may be too. You may be leaning toward, even longing for, a first encounter in faith. Good. In the main, this service, in the main every Easter sermon, is mainly meant for you.
Joanna, and others. You. You are here on Easter. Something, some lingering memory of a lingering memory, has brought you along. Ordinary, regular religious practice—ask Joanna—can sometimes, suddenly, surprisingly, bring illumination. Our preaching, here, is in part for those who are in between. Not religious enough to come to church every Sunday, but religious enough to listen. Still within earshot. Not preaching to the choir—at least not ONLY to the choir! Easter preaching, if for the ecclesiastical expatriate, the atheist, the one harmed by the church, the musician attuned—seemingly—only to the music, the academic, the lonely at home.
Our festival today affirms your religious practice, affirms your choice to be here, to listen in, and affirms that the detailed discipline of attention to the sacred, can be showered with light. The women, Joanna and others, are keeping the Sabbath by waiting until the first day of the week. They are keeping tradition by anointing the body, with materials earlier prepared. They are keeping faith by facing death. By visiting the tomb, the flesh, the corpse. Habits lead us forward. At early dawn. Death makes us mortal. Facing death makes us human. At the tomb.
On Easter we are entranced by wonder.
The women in Luke might affirm what we find all around us, when we pause to notice.
A lantern lit in wonder.
There is the sweetness of a newborn child, silent in the arm.
There is the orderly happiness of that rarest of arts, a well-written email.
There is a touch of humor.
There is a calm. Drop thy still dews of quietness ‘til all our strivings cease. Take from our souls the strain and stress, and let our ordered lives confess, the beauty of thy peace.
There is the native hue of resolution hiding behind hope.
There is the patterned simplicity of a well lived life.
There is the beauty of dawn or sunset or both.
There is music, beautiful music, invisible beauty, the ringing beauty of music.
There are hints and allegations and forms of presence. You cannot be fully alive, humanly speaking, and miss them. Wonder.
Joanna teaches us: The world does not lack for wonders but only for a sense of wonder. Or was that GK Chesterton?
Joanna teaches us: Philosophy begins in wonder. Or was that the founder of Boston Personalism, Borden Parker Bowne?
Joanna teaches us (trigger warning for academics here): The larger the body of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of mystery that surrounds it. The larger the lake of learning, the longer the lakeshore of mystery that surrounds it. Or was that Ralph Sockman?
Joanna teaches us: I would rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance. Or was that e. e. cummings?
Joanna teaches us: Just what are you going to do with your one beautiful life? Or was that Mary Oliver?
You listen to a child singing alone just before falling to sleep, and tell me you sense no entrancement?
You watch a 9-year old, ball glove on, striding toward Fenway park, other hand in his Dad’s hand, and tell me you sense no amazement?
You see Lake Lucille. You look down from the Matterhorn. You walk in mid- December through a jewelry store. And no wonder?
You come into a barn at dawn, with the milking in gear, and Louis Armstrong on the radio. You watch a daughter caring for her father in the last month of life. You hear the anthems of Easter. And tell me you sense no entrancement? No wonder? No “thaumadzon”?
Joanna schools us about wonder. Easter lights a candle of wonder, and repeats…Entrance, entrance, entrance, entrance…
Two
Second, practice.
There is come Easter a second candle, not of wonder but of practice, of holding fast to what is good. Thurman schools us about practice.
9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.
Practice in faith means to hold fast to what is good.
Hold fast to what is good, as did Howard Thurman, the Dean of our Marsh Chapel, Boston University, 1953-1965, through poetry, through painting, through psalms.
Thurman was a poetic theologian, a theological poet. Presence, his sense of presence, his practice of presence, intimate to the natural world, made him so. He was 100 years ahead of his time 50 years ago, so he is still 50 years ahead of me! Late at night, along his beloved Daytona Beach, he remembered walking alone and with his feet in the sand. He wrote, The ocean and the night surrounded my little life with a reassurance that could not be affronted by any human behavior. The ocean at night gave me a sense of timelessness, of existing beyond the ebb and flow of consciousness. Death would be a small thing I felt in the sweep of that natural embrace. May you discover or be discovered by such poetry.
Thurman was a painter. He did paint with brush and canvass, and loved to depict penguins, among other figures. Presence, his sense of presence, his practice of presence, intimate to the natural world, led him so. But they were the verbal paintings, the metaphors in speech, that were his greatest gifts. One favorite was ‘a crown to grow into’. A crown is placed over our heads the for the rest of our lives we are trying to grow tall enough to wear.Today, April 5, 2022, may you discover or be discovered by such a verbal painting, a rhetorical portrait.
Thurman was a lover of the Psalms. Presence, his sense of presence, his practice of presence, intimate to the natural world, led him so. You cannot find, or know, him without worship, sacrament, prayer, singing, spirituals, preaching—without religion. And particularly the Psalms. He had a favorite, or two. Perhaps you do as well.
1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
O Lord, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
7 Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Today, may you discover or be discovered by such a psalm, a new favorite or an old one. No, more. Today may you be illumined in personal practice, in the practice of faith, in poetry, painting and psalms. The world needs it. In a world in which there is so much wrong, we need Marsh Chapel, one such in every village, every town, every suburb, and every city. But it is the simple practices—prayer, worship, study, conversation, service—the daily rhythms—that see us through.
Our friend’s dad, Russell Clark, a Colgate and BU graduate, loved life as a small-town pastor, in the village of Oriskany Falls NY. One winter a farmer, his lay leader died, and his widow was not in church for a long time. The pastor tried to console and help, but she didn’t want company. (Grief is a slippery dragon. If I had another two lifetimes I would spend half of one really studying, trying to understand grief. It is a dark stranger, an opaque mystery, individual to each.) For Russell’s Oriskany Falls widow it was too. Then one day she called to say that she would like a pastoral visit. She told him something, when he asked how she was doing. She began: Don’t take this the wrong way, Rev. (You know you are already in trouble with that prelude.) It has been so unutterably hard for me. There were days when I could not get out of bed. But I did. And do you know why? It wasn’t the resurrection sermons I have heard, or Easter hyms I can sing by part, much as I love both. No. What got me going, got me out of bed was…the chickens. Every morning at dawn they would fuss, and rustle around and cluck, waiting to be fed. They were hungry and they needed feeding. So, I got up and put on my robe and went out and fed them. By then the sun was up, by then the mist was lifted, by then I was awake, and by then I could stand the thought of breakfast, and after that, well the day opened up. So don’t take this the wrong way, Rev. (you know you are in trouble when…), don’t take this the wrong way, but the clucking of those hens meant more to me in my grief than all the hymns and sermons of Easter. The clucking of those chickens meant more to me than all the hymns of Easter.
You see? The rhythms of life, evening and morning one day, detailed disciplined attention to the routine can by grace light a befry candle. Including religious practice. Joanna, the newcomer, found it so. So can you, especially if you on Easter are a newcomer, looking for a first helping, an initial course in faith, a church family to love and church home to enjoy.
The women are going about their regular rhythms, in the hour of death. They are finding ritual hand holds as they walk the dark path, the pre-dawn path, of grief. In grief, they stick to their regular routines. Joanna and the women, moving at dawn, through the mist, toward the tomb, attending to the routine practices of the day, may teach us. Our festival today affirms religious practice, affirms your choice to be here, to listen in, and affirms that the detailed discipline of attention to the sacred, can fully entrance. Or in Longfellow’s language:
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light
One if by land, and two if by sea, and I on the opposite shore will be.
Two lanterns. Come the festival of Easter, we too, in the church, light two lanterns, as Easter comes to entrance us, in wonder and in practice.
The Lord is Risen! He is Risen indeed.
posted in The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel on 04.20.2025 at 11:00 am