FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE Volume 65 Number 4
APRIL 2015
The Episcopal Church of Saint Michael & All Angels Pacific View Drive at Marguerite
Corona del Mar
California 92625
...From the Desk of the Rector
BELOVEDS IN CHRIST April 15 is a date to which we all pay attention. This year it comes ten days after Easter and is the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s death. James Garfield, an Ohio congressman who would later become the second assassinated president in American history, put it at the time, “It may almost be impious to say it, but it does seem that Lincoln’s death parallels that of the Son of God.” The Rev’d C.B. Crane, a Baptist minister in Boston said, “Jesus Christ died for the world. Abraham Lincoln died for his country.” In a current article, Timothy Merrill says that Abraham Lincoln’s focus on justice for all, forgiveness and mercy for his enemies and the liberation of the oppressed were, and are, seen as very Christ-like qualities. When our sixteenth President breathed his last on Holy Saturday morning, his secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, famously said, “Now he belongs to the ages.” His elaborately embalmed body was buried under ten feet of cement and steel at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois; visitors come to pay their respects confident that his body is still securely present. Our Lord Jesus died on the first Good Friday afternoon and a centurion, seeing how Jesus breathed his last, said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!” (Mark 15:39c) Jesus was buried in a tomb hewn out of a rocky hillside with a huge, heavy stone sealing it as securely as possible for that time and place. Visitors come to the Church or the Holy Sepulcher, also called the Church of the Resurrection, in Jerusalem, the site of Jesus crucifixion and tomb, but there is no body there . . . because he is alive! This is the message of Easter: Lincoln may have saved his country and his people from slavery, but the risen Jesus has actually saved the world. The slavery Jesus abolished is the slavery that holds human beings in bondage to sin and death. Jesus’ emancipation from the tomb means that we, too, will be emancipated and set free from death and the sin that both causes death and results from our fear of it. President Lincoln sits on a throne modeled after the ancient Temple of Zeus in his massive Memorial in our nation’s capital; the Lord Jesus sits on a heavenly throne from whence he shall come to reign over both heaven and earth together establishing his righteous kingdom forever. (And as Revelation 21:22 tells us, Jesus has no temple, for he is the temple.) Jesus “belongs to the ages” because he is the one who will be with us always “to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Historians speculate on how the country might have been different had Lincoln lived out the rest of his life. Who knows? We tend to lionize those who die too soon, yet all our s/heroes eventually turn out to be very human, more like us than not. Easter tells us that the only one who can save us to the uttermost is the one who is still very much alive and will make us alive as well. We do well to celebrate great people like President Abraham Lincoln, and we do better to worship the one who is the Risen Lord, Jesus Christ!
Yours, In Christ -
949.644.0463
www.stmikescdm.org
HOLY WEEK 2015 WORSHIP SCHEDULE Palm Sunday, March 29 Holy Eucharist at 8am and 10am with Blessing of Palms and Procession • Evening Prayer (said) at 5:30pm Monday in Holy Week, March 30 Evening Prayer at 5:30pm Tuesday in Holy Week, March 31 Evening Prayer at 5:30pm • Tenebrae at 7:30pm Wednesday in Holy Week, April 1 Holy Eucharist with Healing 12 noon • Evening Prayer at 5:30pm Maundy Thursday, April 2 Evening Prayer at 5:30pm • The Washing of Feet & Holy Eucharist at 7:30pm in the Sanctuary • The Stripping of the Altar* • The All Night Watch at the Altar of Repose, 9pm to 9am Good Friday, April 3 Morning Prayer at 9am •Stations of the Cross on the patio at noon • Stations of the Cross for children & families on the patio at 4pm • Evening Prayer at 5:30pm • Stations of the Cross on the patio at 7pm • Good Friday Liturgy with Music at 7:30pm* (See note on page 2 for availability of Rite of Reconciliation of a Penitent) Holy Saturday, April 4 Morning Prayer 9am • Evening Prayer 5:30 pm • The Great Vigil of Easter at 7:30pm with the Lighting of the Paschal Candle, Holy Eucharist and Holy Baptism* Easter Day, April 5 Festival Choral Eucharist with Choir, and Organ and Instruments at 8am and 10am (Childcare provided from 8am through Easter worship)
* Childcare provided for this service
BUILDING OUR F AITH: L OVING CHRIST AND SER VING OUR COMMUNITY FAITH: LO SERVING