Easter Message from the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church
Diocesan Press Service. February 12, 1969 [74-6]
Easter - 1969
Standing virtually alone -- for so long a time -- amid the pot-pourri of offerings that passed for drama in both New York and London, has been "Man of La Mancha" -- a revival of the Don Quixote story set in musical framework. And from this most improbable source -- a source which both ridiculed and idolized the philosophy of pure idealism -- came a spin-off -- a song -- entitled "The Quest," which captured campus youth as well as the aging cynic, and which says, in part:
"To dream the impossible dream;
To fight the unbeatable foe;
To bear the unbearable sorrow;
To run where the brave dare not go.
To right the unrightable wrong;
To love pure and chaste from afar;
To try when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star. "
In the drama, "The Quest, " -- and the spirit of which it was the verbalized indication -- were in direct contradiction to the raw assertions concerning human life that were all about them. And in our contemporary world, where such contradictions oft-times appear more startling than ever, the song has been seized upon by many as an articulation of their own inarticulate faith and hope.
The contribution the Christian faith can make to a chaotic and highly confused world scene is HOPE. This hope springs not from some esoteric accumulation of data, other than that available to anyone in the world, but rather from "the perspective of a different basic orientation." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. expressed it thusly: "We have cosmic allies." St. Paul put it another way: "If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men the most miserable."
The resurrection of Jesus Christ, for Christians, is the hinge point about which faith and hope revolve. So that it was not only Jesus Christ Who emerged from the tomb on that first Easter morn -- it was Christianity and its meanings.
It was the hope of all the world. The resurrection faith articulates a source for the hope that drives man onward and it is willing to bet its life that this source will not in the end be defeated. Sam Keen, in "New Theology No. 5," puts it clearly:
"The question of God is not the question of the existence of some remote infinite being. It is the question of the possibility of hope. The affirmation of faith in God is the acknowledgement that there is a deathless source of power and meaning that can be trusted to nurture and preserve all created good."
The Resurrection Faith is that "deathless source" of power and meaning. Therefore Christians can proclaim with confidence, "Rejoice, the Lord is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed. "