The Future Sea

Which great Old-Testament image shows us what Easter means for us, for the Christians of the world? This event happened originally, many centuries before Christ, in order to show us what Christ’s Passover has accomplished for us…

Moses leading the Israelites through the Red Sea.

You don’t have to watch Charleton Heston’s “Ten Commandments” to perceive the intense drama of the moment. Wind blowing. Hapless Israelites lined up, a cavalcade of refugees, with Moses leading the column, staff in hand. As every second passes, the angry Egyptian charioteers gain ground.

And the Israelites do not have geography on their side. Trying to get to the Promised Land? Good luck! Ain’t no bridge over this here sea! We can imagine that desperate prayers and lamentations burbled anxiously on the lips of Moses and his followers at this moment.

But the Lord impatiently said to His prophet Moses, “Come on, man! Why are you crying out to me? Tell them to stride forward. Lift up your staff. I got you!”

Moses, to his credit, did not panic at this. He did not say, “You mean, we should march into the middle of all that water?”

If it were you or me, we might have said, “Look, Lord, I know You made the heavens and the earth, and blew the spirit of life into all the vigorous creatures of the cosmos. But that’s an awful lot of water out there, and I don’t know how to swim.”

Moses, however, said no such thing. He did not panic. “Adelante!” he said. “Vamonos! We are stepping into that ocean, people, for the glory of God Almighty!”

I said that all this happened in order to teach us what Easter means for us. What does that wide sea represent? The windswept water?

I think we can say that the Red Sea represents a uniquely opaque reality. An impenetrably dark reality. A reality of incomprehensible mystery, when it comes to what our churning little minds can grasp.

The sea represents: All that is yet to come. Every moment, subsequent to now. The future.

This could be our last Easter like this. An asteroid could land right here. Or: Our constitutional system of government could unravel completely. Or, on the other hand: Tomorrow, you or I could meet someone with something beautiful to say, that we have never heard before, and our lives could completely change. This spring could turn lovelier than any spring we’ve ever lived through, and the world could start to look different.

Who knows what’s coming down the pike? All we know about it is that we don’t know. The future is the wine-dark sea.

And what about the voice of the Lord, speaking to Moses? God Almighty saying, “Stop whining and stride forward! I will be glorified by getting you Israelites to the other side.”

He is saying to us: “Vayanse! Don’t tell me you can’t swim. Don’t tell me you’d rather have the leeks and melons and cucumbers you had when you served Satan as slaves. Don’t tell me that you’re not sure you can handle walking through a tunnel of water, miraculously suspended to the right and to the left, and teeming with whales and fish. Don’t talk, just walk. Don’t whine, just step forward in line. I got this. I am God, and I am telling you that I got this thing, the future. I got it. Don’t you worry about it.”

Now, the Egyptians never made it through the sea. What undid them? What does the Scripture say? The Egyptians ________ed, and their chariot wheels got mired in the mud. The Egyptians ________ed, and they sounded the retreat. And, next thing they knew, the dark sea washed over them and drowned them instantly. (panicked)

The Easter candle means this: Be not afraid. The only enemy that we really need to fear, Christ has conquered. Christ has conquered our only real foe.

Adelante, entonces! Forward. The future–unknown as it is, nebulous as it is, as choppy as a stormy sea as it may be: the light of Christ’s Passover candle will shine in it.

Song of Moses in Eternal Context

They were holding God’s harps, and they sang the song of Moses. (Revelation 15:2-3)

The chapters of the book of Revelation which precede the passage read at today’s Mass narrate the struggle between the evil forces marked with the sign of the beast and the chaste legions marked with the name of the Lamb. In these chapters, the last book of the Bible’s mystical account of the great drama of salvation nears its climax.

The Man comes around.

Now, when we keep the Vigil of Easter in the springtime, we generally sing a good number of psalms and canticles. But let’s just say we couldn’t sing all those psalms, for some reason. Let’s say we had to celebrate the Easter Vigil quickly, because we were on a battlefield, or in jail.

There is one of the Vigil canticles that we absolutely, positively have to sing, no matter what. Without this one particular Old Testament canticle, it is impossible to grasp the full meaning of the holy night of Easter.

Here’s a hint: Sing to the Lord! He has covered Himself in glory!

Who sang this? Moses and the people with him. They sang it because God had covered Himself in glory by doing what?

Casting Pharaoh’s horses and chariots into the sea. Delivering the Israelites from slavery. Leading them forward to the Promised Land.

The Sacred Scriptures make clear the full meaning of the ancient Passover of the Israelites. We read from the book of Revelation: The harpists standing on the sea of glass, who had won victory over the beast: They sang the song of Moses. Great and wonderful are your works, Lord God Almighty!

Faith turns the strife and drama of life on earth into a hopeful pilgrimage. Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us. He has risen and has ascended on high, to the pinnacle of the heavenly Mt. Zion. When Moses sang, he really sang about us; he sang about the chosen ones who believe in the victory of the Son of God. The Lord will deliver us from all evil, and the eternal Promised Land awaits. Therefore we keep the feast.

Prayerbooks, prayerbooks (Roman Missal II)

The Last Supper involved the ritual commemoration of…

…the passing of the Angel of Death over the homes marked with the blood of the lamb;

…the passing of the Israelites over the Red Sea as on dry land;

…the exodus of the People of God from slavery to freedom, with unleavened bread for their food.

So, at the first Mass, a prayerbook prescribed the ceremony, the words and ritual actions.

The then-ancient events which the Passover Seder brought to mind, and to life: the Lord’s Supper, sacrifice, and victory fulfilled them all. The first Triduum revealed the true meaning of the exodus: it all occurred under Moses’ leadership as an image of the ultimate salvation of the human race in Christ.

“The Lord has come to His people and set them free…to worship Him without fear.” (Luke 1:68, 74))

The Lord Jesus and the Apostles sang Psalms from King David’s prayerbook at the Last Supper, and into the evening.

–Why were there psalms of David? Because pilgrims went up to the Temple in Jerusalem, and they sang en route. They sang the Psalms as they went up to the altar of God.

Indeed, the Israelites sang the Psalms all the time. The Psalms were (and are) the interior music of the soul of the true Israelite. Where does the recitation of a Psalm end and personal prayer begin? The child of Abraham has no truck with such a question. Utterly inseparable.

We go to the altar to offer our worship to the Almighty. We recall ancient events, the works of God, which have not faded away into the past like 19th-century Presidential elections or Japanese shogunates, but which last forever. That’s the thing about Christ: He lives. He feeds us with Himself from heaven, like He fed the Israelites with manna after they gave up the leeks and melons of Egypt.

But we are human. We are prone to forget things. We are prone to make up silly stuff.

If Christ Himself used a prayerbook when He established the turning-point of history, then, when we go to the altar to worship, we need a prayerbook. We need one given to us by the immemorial tradition of the People of God (like our Lord had to guide Him on Holy Thursday), full of David’s Psalms and other Scriptures. (And ours, of course, must also be filled with the words of Christ).

…More to come on this, dear reader.

…Hard to believe that it has been three years since I started this goofy weblog thingy. Thanks for sticking with me. I think that I had a contest for the stupidest post of the year on the one-year anniversary. I would be happy to take nominations again, although I know the competition is fierce.

Instructions for Lent

Pretty cool cover of a lovely song:

One Mary J. Blige and U2

Here is a homily for the First Sunday of Lent:

In the original Lent, the Lord Jesus spent forty days praying and fasting in solitude. The devil came to tempt Him. Christ rebuffed the devil by quoting Scripture three times.

1. “Man does not live by bread alone.”

2. “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him alone will you serve.”

3. “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Let’s see who is really on-the-ball. When the Lord quoted these words of Scripture, which book of the Bible was He quoting? All three verses come from the same book.

Holy Week

Who made this week holy?

We human beings do not have the authority to consecrate a week.

Human authorities can designate federal holidays, Cherry Blossom festivals, tax-due dates, and such things. But no government can make a week—or even a day—holy.

It is not easy for us human beings even to know when Holy Week is. Sometimes it starts in March, sometimes in April. The ancient Romans invented the months. But Holy Week is more primordial than the months.

God made Holy Week. He sanctified this particular week not once, not twice, but three times.

The Lord first sanctified this week when He made the world. Holy Week is when God originally created everything.

Then He sanctified this week again when He led His people out of slavery. This is the week when the angel of death passed over the homes of the Israelites. It is the week when Moses led them out of Egypt, and the Red Sea parted before them.

Finally, the Lord came in the flesh and sanctified this week a third time.

He went to Jerusalem to offer His life as a sacrifice. He consecrated this week forever by sprinkling it with His own Blood.