A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday After Easter
By the Rev’d Dr. Robert Darwin Crouse
This sermon was preached by Father Robert Crouse on the Fourth Sunday after Easter in 1985 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The Epistle and Gospel readings are from the Eucharistic lectionary of the early Church, preserved in the Canadian 1962 Book of Common Prayer.
Of his own will, he brought us to birth, by the word of his truth; that we should be a kind of first-fruits of all his creation. (James 1:18)
Earth today confesses, clothing her for spring,
All good gifts return with her returning king;
Bloom in every meadow, leaves on every bough,
Speak his sorrows ended, hail his triumph now.
So sang Fortunatus, the great sixth-century Latin hymnographer, linking the season of Easter, the feast of Jesus' resurrection, with the glory of nature's resurgent springtime. Fortunatus lived in southern France, where Spring comes a bit earlier than it does in Nova Scotia, and we still have to wait patiently for "Bloom in every meadow, leaves on every bow”. Nevertheless, Spring is certainly here and all around us are the signs of it — the early flowers, the swelling buds, the songs of birds, and so on. All around us is nature's parable of Easter, nature's parable of resurrection.
Springtime is the season of new life, after the dormancy and death of winter. A sleeping world awakens, and rises up with new vitality. And the Church's Eastertide is the Springtime of the spirit, the rising up from the icy grip of death, to the vibrant warmth and light of resurrection. "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light".
In the cycle of nature's seasons, this is the time when we begin to plant our gardens. We bury the seeds, down in the darkness, underground, where the new and tender shoots, nourished by sun and rain, will break through rotting husks and reach upward to spread fresh leaves and blossoms in the light of day. That is nature 's pattern of death and resurrection.
In all of this — "all this juice and all this joy", as the poet Hopkins calls it — in all of this mystery and glory of Springtime, the Scriptures teach us to read nature 's parable of Easter. "Unless a grain of wheat fall to the ground and die”, says Jesus, “it abideth alone” — useless, unfruitful — "but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit". And St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians, expands upon the same parable: “That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die: And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body which shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain. But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed its own body.”
Nature passes from death to life in a travail of rebirth, dying, and rising to life again. It is a mystery and a miracle, no doubt; it is the good gift of God. It is a gift, but it is nevertheless, at the same time, a labour and a struggle. T.S. Eliot, in a splendid line — now almost hackneyed, I'm afraid, — says, "April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs from the dead land". New life is always a struggle, always a labour. No new life, says Jesus, without the pains of travail. No Easter without Good Friday. So it is, so it must be, with our new life in Christ.
It is the gift of God; it is a miracle; yet it is not without the pains of travail. There must be a dying, a painful sloughing off of an old nature — a rotting husk, an old worldliness, "which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts" — there must be a dying to worldly attitudes, worldly perspectives; and a putting on of a new nature, "which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”
Holy Baptism is the sign and means and pledge of that new birth in us. We are baptized into the death of Christ, that we might share his resurrection. The seed of Christ's risen life is sown in us. But that miracle of birth is only a beginning, just a starting point. There must be nutriment and training, a constant seeking of "those things which are above.” There must be a shaping, a molding, and a pruning — often arduous and painful — of our affections and unruly wills, that “our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found".
There must be a conforming of our minds and hearts to the infinite and ever-lasting charity of God, shown to us in the dying of our Saviour. “Be not conformed to this present age", says St. Paul, do not be conformed to its standards and its attitudes, its principles and expectations. "Be not conformed... but be ye transformed, by the renewing of your mind.” Springtime is transformation; and Easter is transformation — a transformation far beyond imagining. "That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him". The manner of God's life-giving transformation is beyond imagining and "we know not what we shall be; but we shall see our Saviour as he is, and we shall be like him”. God has established resurrection in Christ, and what is Christ's finally and everlastingly belongs to those who are his. For we are sons of God, by grace, and heirs of life eternal; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.
Our salvation is the work of God: it is, as St. James insists in today's Epistle lesson, the "good and perfect gift" of God. "Of his own will he brought us to birth by the word of truth". It is God's gift, something done for us, not our doing. It is something done for us, once for all, in Jesus Christ. But it must also be something done in us, day by day, as we struggle to break the bonds of our old nature, our old worldliness, to find new life in the Spirit. Jesus speaks to us about this in today's Gospel lesson. "It is expedient for you that I go away", he tells the disciples: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come to you. For those disciples, Jesus’ earthly presence with them was their greatest earthly joy, and his departure seemed to them the ultimate disaster. “Because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart". They would cling to his earthly presence; but, in reality, it was only when that presence was taken from them, that they could recognize the divine presence as spiritual, and be themselves spiritually reborn.
God grant us to be loosed from every worldly chain that binds us. God grant that the seed of spiritual life graciously sown in our hearts, may break through the rotting husk of our inveterate worldliness, that new life in the Spirit may be fulfilled in us, "that we should be a kind of first- fruits of all his creation".