April 9, 2023, Sermon for Easter Sunday – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ April 9, 2023 ♦ Leave a comment

/Click the link above to listen to the sermon. Below is an outline of the sermon.

The Golden Halo – St. Augustine, J.S. Bach, John Donne – playful but also a great way of learning more about the great men and women in our

But the winner – Jonathan Myrick Daniels – an Episcopal seminarian from New Hampshire. He had considered being a minister as a high school student, but while he was studying Eng. Lit. at Harvard, he felt a renewed call to serve God, during an Easter service at Church of the Advent in Boston.

After he heard MLK speak, he decided to go to Alabama to help register black voters after the passage of the Voting Rights Act. While he lived in Alabama he also tutored children, helped local poor people to apply for the aid they needed, and worked to integrate the local Episcopal Church. He was walking to the store to buy a soda with a group of Civil Rights workers, when he was killed by an unpaid special county deputy, Tom Coleman, who aimed his shotgun at a 17 year old girl, Ruby Sales. Jonathan pushed Ruby down and received the full blast of the shot. He was killed instantly. Coleman claimed self-defense and was acquitted by an all-white jury. He lived to be 86.

Jonathan Daniels only lived 26 years. He never finished seminary, was never ordained, never wrote any important theological works. He could have accomplished so much more. But in 1991 he was officially recognized as a saint in the Episcopal Church, a holy man whose life is an example to us all. And he beat St. Augustine and J.S. Bach to the Golden Halo!

What kind of sense does that make? It makes Easter sense

We’ve been remembering over the past three days how the world set its face against Jesus, launching every weapon in its arsenal against him – the political power of Empire, religious authority, the power of physical strength – violence, and finally the power tool in Satan’s toolbox – death. But when Jesus walked out of the tomb, not just alive again, but alive forever – not just spiritually alive, but solidly, physically alive – that was the final step in the inauguration of God’s kingdom.

In that moment came the Easter revelation: that the greatest power in the world isn’t armies or bombs or brains or the power of excommunication –

from that moment the greatest power in the world is love, and humility, and sacrifice.

The world is still out there wielding every weapon it’s got: from big money and disinformation to political machinations and nuclear weapons – this morning we heard a report about some underwater drones that North Korea claims to have developed. But we know that Jesus has a power greater than all of that. And we follow in his footsteps.

I want to close with these wonderful words Paul wrote to the church in Corinth:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.