Easter Lilies in the Morgue

Do you have an Easter story? You know, a story of how you’ve encountered the Risen Christ, or at least seen mercy, hope, and compassion in a surprising way, something that reminds you of or points you to Jesus? I’ll bet you do! Time and again, I have heard people share with me their Gospel stories! Allow me to tell you a favorite Easter story of my own.

A long time ago in a hospital far, far away, I was a chaplain where the Sisters who ran it were very intentional about communicating their Catholic mission and identity. Which meant, among other things, that my colleagues in the pastoral care department did many activities throughout the hospital during Lent.  And it was the job of the On-Call Chaplain over Easter weekend to come in on the evening of Holy Saturday to lead in the transformation of the hospital lobby, other public spaces, and chapel from the austerity of Lent and Holy Week to the festivity of Easter.

The first time I had to do this, I came back to the hospital on Easter Eve, after attending a local parish’s Easter Vigil. The job included gathering up various Lenten displays and putting up the white hangings in the Chapel, changing the veils on various crosses around the building to white (and there were a lot!), and putting out Easter lilies and tulips and spring flowers in the main lobby, the chapel. and some other places around the building. That meant that we ordered lots and lots …and lots!... of flowers!

I commandeered a handcart and, along with other chaplains and some volunteers, we started our rounds.

Only a day or so before, we Chaplains along with many folks from the hospital community had walked through these very same halls in a special way. At that hospital, we did The Stations of the Cross on Good Friday. But instead of staying in a chapel, these Stations were scattered throughout the building—we went to places where people met suffering, pain, hope, fear, loneliness, death and new life. These stations were in the places where people ministered to human frailty, sometimes with awesome technology and just as often with compassion and simple touch. These were the places where divine healing met human need in everyday ways so often that, if you weren’t careful, they would become mundane.

These were the places Jesus walked. The cross stands at the intersection of brokenness and hope. And just two days before, on Good Friday, we walked with Jesus to places where suffering and compassion could not be plainer. At the hospital, we did what a lot of parish church do on Good Friday, placing a plain, rude wooden cross in the sight of all and, in venerating that cross, we confronted all the ways we separate ourselves from God, each other, and creation.

Anyway, back at that hospital all those years ago, when it came time to get those Easter flowers, and they were gone! They were not in loading dock, no one moved them to the chapel, or our offices. They were not tucked away in some corner. Where could they be? I mean how could you lose a half dozen pallets of flowers?  After much searching, I called security.

The guard was expecting my call. He said, “I’ll show you.”

We met and took the elevator to the basement, to a dark hall in the oldest wing of the hospital, a hallway that few people walked. We came to an unmarked door. The guard sorted through his wad of keys and opened the door and we entered the morgue.

Just before he turned the knob, he said to me “Don’t worry, Chaplain, there had been a body in here tonight, but now it’s gone.”

He was right. When he opened the door, there was no dead body. But there was an explosion of flowers! Everywhere there were lilies, daisies, tulips, and spring flowers. They covered the examination table, the counters and overflowed and even the drawers meant to hold bodies, like the ones you see on shows like NCIS, had flowers on them.

A place of sterility was filled with color! The medicinal “laboratory” smell was overcome with the perfume of blooming flowers.  A place of death had become a nursery.

It turns out that the housekeepers had brought the flowers to the morgue because they arrived a day early and they thought they’d keep longer in the coolness of the morgue. “I hope you don’t mind,” the guard said.

So that’s my Easter story, or at least one of them. Easter lilies in the morgue. What’s yours? The thing about these stories is that they don't have to be specifically religious or even mention Jesus by name. But what happens points you in a Godward direction and may even spark a change inside of you. So, where have you encountered the risen Christ or seen signs of resurrected life?

Remember, that as we hear the Easter story, we are not celebrating an empty tomb, much less a morgue. Seeing an empty tomb does not bring life. An empty tomb does not change anything. The Easter story centers on women who came expecting to find a body and instead the found an empty tomb, a vision of angels, and then encountered in person the real, live Risen Jesus. That encounter, theirs and ours, is what we celebrate today.

All the Gospels agree that Mary of Magdala was among the first to meet the Risen Jesus, which, if you think about it, is a very strange choice as the first messenger of Good News because they say she was once possessed by demons. Not the best of credentials. But she was in very good company. Mary of Magdala fits right in the parade of people we’ve seen as we’ve read the Gospel of John all through Lent. The people who met the Christ were changed: such as Nicodemus, the inquisitive but fearful rabbi; or the outcast and troubled woman at the well; or the beggar blind from birth. And then there was Lazarus, the dead man who was brought back to life!

All these people encountered Jesus at the point of their deepest need… and they were all changed!

In Matthew’s Gospel, we hear how Mary came to the tomb to grieve and to care for the dead body of her dead friend, teacher, and healer.

What she encounters is an earthquake, and an angel descending from heaven… it reminds me a little bit of Jacob’s ladder, as if a doorway has opened between heaven and earth… who is dressed in lightning and heavenly glory, who comes down, moves aside the rock door and takes a seat. The angel invites them to go inside and look at the empty tomb and then instructs them to go to Galilee where they will meet up with the Risen Jesus.

In John’s Gospel, something similar happens but first they run to tell the disciples of the empty tomb. Mary runs to the disciples, and Peter and the Beloved Disciple both race each other back to the tomb. They find it just as she said—empty, vacant. Bandages on one side, and the face-cloth neatly folded on the other side. But that is all. The two disciples leave, perplexed. Mary stays behind at the empty tomb, weeping even more.

It is Jesus who comes to her and ministers to her, only she doesn’t recognize him at first. She supposes him to be a groundskeeper who might know something. She is looking for her friend. It is only when he utters her name that she understands.

“Mary” he says. She knows that voice. She knows that person who reached out and touched her heart and cast away whatever was eating away at her life. Her fear is at once replaced with relief, healing and courage.

I love these Easter morning journeys. Can you see your journey reflected in hers?

I don’t know about you, but I see so much of my own spiritual journey in Mary’s zig-zag journey to meet the Risen Christ. So often I come to this space, these sacraments, these liturgies and want only to dwell on the empty spaces in my soul; along with my fears, disappointments, and sense of endless busy-ness. I expect, I demand, that they be filled! But too often I try to do that on my terms, in my way.

The way that works for me is that I tell God what I want God to do for me. I tell God how it is. Sure, I may bring my expectations, my pride, and my pain, but I can’t let go of them. Because I really need them to define who I am. So I tell God to either bless them or fix them. And it’s a pretty safe bet that if nothing happens, I will either blame God or maybe chalk it up as “another blankity-blank learning experience.” Either way, my fears are reinforced, my prejudices stiffen, my attitudes harden.

It's like coming to an empty tomb. Or to a morgue filled to the brim with flowers. I may or may not see Christ in all that. It depends on how I look at it.

So let me tell you where I have met the Risen Christ. I have met the Risen Christ in the person of a grown man who spent his whole life in a state institution for the developmentally disabled but was then moved into a group home and then an apartment—who taught me that Jesus comes to us like a child, even when they are not.

I have met the Risen Jesus in the face of young girl who had brain cancer and literally had half her brain removed, who told me in clear, cheerful words “After the rain comes the rainbow.”

I met the Risen Christ in a quiet man, a man who knew how to listen with his whole heart who asked me once what I was running away from and what I really believed. 

I have seen the Risen Christ in a room full of people who’ve regularly meet in parish halls and classrooms to share their stories and support each other in their recovery from addiction one step at a time.

The Risen Christ has met me in people who have not been intimidated by my anxieties and busy-ness and have prayed me through difficult times.

And who knows? You, an ordinary person, an everyday Christian, may not only have seen the Risen Christ when you have least expected it... you might have encountered a moment of healing, or peace, or acceptance even at the moment when it did not seem remotely possible. The Risen Christ, in my experience, has this habit of showing up when we need God's love and power the most, but when we expect the least. And you might also be the face of the Risen Christ to someone who needs it … and you might not even know what a miracle you are to that person!

The Risen Jesus is made is known in baptismal waters, broken bread and poured out wine--and in the faces of the people God gives to us. The Risen Jesus is made known by people just like us, who hear him call us each by name, and allows us weep with the joy being known and who helps leave our empty places in an empty tomb. Because he is not there. He is risen!

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

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This is the Bulletin for Worship for Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026 at St. Chad's, Tampa, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026.

Learn more about the Diocese of Southwest Florida here. The Easter message by Bishop Douglas Scharf of SW Florida is here.

Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe's Easter message is here.

This sermon is based on ones that were previously given on April 9, 2023 at St. John's in Clearwater, FL and on February 22, 2018 at Trinity, Easton, PA.

Answering our cry for help

If you spend any time on social media, and look beyond the cartoons, the cat videos, and the memes, you will find bite-sized human stories.

I once read a status update from the friend of a friend… a 17-year-old young woman who seems to have the whole world right before her— she has friends, she is a good student, she is a musician and an athlete, and is about to begin the college safari.  Yet her status update seems to came out of the fog like an SOS.

It reads: “I feel as if the weight of the whole world is on my shoulders.”

Another time, I ran into another old friend on Facebook who told me that the job he worked in for that last decade or so has just disappeared. Poof! Now, here he is, in his early- to mid-fifties, on the hunt for work. He says on his status that he is trying to see this as an opportunity and not as a setback, but it is not easy.

And nearly every day I read a new prayer request for a person facing surgery, some crisis, or transition, or for a person grieving a loss.

These electronic cries for help are quiet cries for hope in a life filled with uncertainty.  You do not need a computer or broadband to find this theme in human experience. It’s been in art and literature, even Scripture, since the very beginning. In fact, it shows up whenever people of faith look around at the world they inhabit.  Today’s scriptures included.

But there is a response, and, in fact, an antidote in today’s Scripture. In fact, if there is a common theme in today’s lessons, it is this: that we are called to rejoice in the midst of uncertainty.

All of the Scripture and music in today’s Lessons & Carols, tell us that the promised Messiah is coming—and that they should get ready.

Advent is a season of rejoicing and anticipation. We are being reminded to rest in God, because God has done, and is doing, great things for us, that God is with us now, and God’s future is always unfolding.

The challenge is to rise to the occasion without forcing the issue.

To that seventeen-year-old friend of a friend, I would point to John the Baptist, who carries the voice of the anointed one but is comfortable enough in his own skin to know that he is not the messiah. I would say to her, you have so much ahead of you, the one thing you don’t have to worry about is being the Messiah. You are not there to save the world, let alone your parent and loved one’s images of you. You are called to be the best “you” that you can possibly be. That is more than enough voice that prepares God’s way for us.

To the one who feels that life is becalmed if not beached, I would direct them to the scripture, music, and songs of hope, of faith that we heard today. Especially to those looking forward, to the words of Isaiah bringing words of hope and comfort to a people displaced by war and turmoil. But especially, I would point to the relationship between Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, who when they realize that God is doing great things in both of their lives break out in prayer and song as they discover the nearness and greatness of God in their lives.

Advent reminds us that God always meets us where we are, as we are, and exactly at the point of our greatest need. And that God who meets us, is ready to walk with us through all of life, no matter what it brings us, and not only bring us home, as the full person that God made us to be… ready to serve, ready to love, ready to follow and walk with Jesus every step of the way. Today, we have heard the story of God’s saving work, of how God meets us where our need is the greatest, and how God in Christ accompanies us to the fullness and richness of life promised in the coming of Jesus at Christmas. This is what we await, and this is what God does for all of us every day.

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Bulletin for Worship for the Third Sunday of Advent December 17, 2023 at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida.

Here are the Scripture Lessons for the Third Sunday of Advent, December 17, 2023.

Here is a video of the Sermon at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on December 17, 2023.

Here is a video of the Liturgy at St. John's, Clearwater, Florida on December 17, 2023.

On not being defined by fear

Have you ever collected fortunes? You know, those little paper sayings that come inside of cookies at Chinese restaurants? Every now and then one will come along and I will stick in my wallet or pin it to my bulletin board.

Sometimes I will look at the bulletin board, read a fortune and wonder what possessed me to keep it. Surely it was not how to learn how to say “cat” in Chinese. It must have spoken to me somehow!

One I found didn’t sound very Chinese but did sound very much like Jesus, so I kept it. It says: Your faith will overcome your fear. 

Today, in the Gospel, we have also have a collection. Not of fortunes, but sayings of Jesus.

First, Jesus reminds us not to be afraid. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (12:32).  

Next, we he exhorts us to make treasure for ourselves in heaven that no thief or moth can steal or destroy.

Then we hear Jesus spin a scenario where he talks about the blessedness of the servants who are dressed and ready for action with their lamps lit when their master returns. How pleased is the master? He is so pleased that master serves the servants dinner!

Finally Jesus tells us to be watchful and ready. As ready as a homeowner keeping an eye out for burglars.

It sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? We make indestructible treasures for ourselves and making them is what the master should find us doing when he returns. It is how we stay ready for his imminent arrival.

Except that we are distractible, afraid and anxious. Like the urge to touch a wall when the sign says, “wet paint”, when we are told not to be anxious, that’s all we can think about. You parents know this: there is always someone out there, on television, social media, the internet, even friends and family who are always telling us to “look out!”, “be careful!”, or sharing some story of a disaster that has befallen another family with another baby or child.

It’s true, we always want to be ready, just in case! I carry an umbrella in my car. Just in case it rains. And guess what happens: when I am in the office and it starts to rain, I will get wet running to my car to get that umbrella!

We human are funny critters! Try as we might, sometimes even those of us with the deepest faith will choose to look at life through the lens of our fears. And I don’t mean the fear of the Lord (the deep awe and reverence for God) that the Bible tells us repeatedly is the beginning of wisdom. I mean the mis-placed faith that, so long as we are anxious, chaos will be kept at bay from our personal cosmos. I mean the faith that our anxiety forms a protective shield around our life. It results in the fear that, if I feel a moment of peace, must be because there is something I’ve overlooked. This is what turns faith into superstition!

In today’s passage from Luke, Jesus tells us not to be afraid, but that doesn’t mean we are to be passive or asleep at the switch. We are instructed to be dressed for action, to have our lamps lit, to be prepared for the return of the master, to make purses for ourselves that do not wear out, to place our trust in an unfailing heavenly treasure that no thief can steal, and no moth can consume (12:33).

We are all wrong about fear. We think it is our protective shield. But it turns out that fear is the thief. When we dwell on our fears and our anxieties, they become our treasures. Jesus says, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (12:35). Faith is the genuine treasure we are to be accumulating, but we get it backwards when our fears fill our hearts and faith can’t get in.

The bad news is that we are householders whose homes are threatened by the fear that has come to steal our faith. 

The good news is that we do know when the thief is coming. The thief is fear and anxiety. We know it's there by our racing heart, our fitful sleep. When the "what ifs" and the "if onlys" begin to dominate our thinking, then we know the thief of anxiety is trying to break in! So how can we keep our house of faith from being broken into by fear and anxiety?

Jesus tells us that if the householder had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. Well, we do know! And Jesus promising us the resources to keep fear from stealing our faith. He is promising to turn the tables and to empower our faith to counter-act our surplus of anxiety and fear.

When I was a Chaplain, I knew a doctor who was Hindu. He talked once about how to cope with the stress of modern life, “Live in the past and you will be depressed. Live in the future and you will be anxious. Live in the present with gratitude and you will be at peace.” For the Christian the message is that that we need to be preoccupied, but not with fear and anxiety. We are invited to be preoccupied in the present looking forward with Christ into God’s hope-filled future.

As we learn to pray and discover that even the most mundane, everyday chore is also a prayer—both a gift from God and a gift to God—then we find our orientation changing from fear and towards faith. From scarcity into abundance.

In baptizing AJ today, you are introducing him to the rhythm of sacramental living—of Eucharistic community, daily prayer, and studying and meditating on God’s word together in church and as family and even by yourselves—and are also  inviting him to join you—the parents, sponsors, friends, family, and this Christian community—into a lifelong process of immersing yourselves in God’s time, into God’s always unfolding present!

The last time I cleaned out my wallet, I found two old fortunes:

“An unexpected event will bring you wealth,” and “If you put up with small annoyances you will gain great results.”

Who knows why I kept them? Who knows if they will come true?  But move over fear and anxiety, here are some promises of Jesus that are far more reliable than any fortune cookie fortune! Jesus’ promises, which are about to renew and take on with AJ, answers the fears beats in our hearts and breathes in our communities:

Strive for God’s kingdom and these things (food, drink, clothing) will be given to you as well.” (Luke 12:31)

“Do not be afraid…, for it is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.“ (Luke 12:32)

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Here is a link to the bulletin for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost  at St. John's Episcopal Church, Clearwater

Here is a link to the Scripture readings.

Here is a link to a video of the sermon.

Here is a link to a video of the liturgy.