Easter 10,000 x 10,000

Easter 18  10,000 x 10,000

Stephen Hawking was born January 8, 1942 and departed this life March 14. His funeral was Saturday and in June his ashes will be placed in westminster Abbey. Hawking was an English theoretical physicist, an expert on black holes and quantum mechanics. For over 50 years he lived with a rare early-onset slow-progressing form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis "ALS" or Lou Gehrig disease that gradually paralyzed him. He once through a computerized speech-generating device, “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”

From a Christian perspective we can say, “Surprise, Dr. Hawking!” You now have a new spiritual body and now you know all the answers to those questions about the universe you spent your life raising.

Stephen Hawking was blessed with a wife, Jane, two sons and a daughter. Robert works for Microsoft, Timothy works for Lego, and Lucy writes children’s books   Jane Hawking is a Christian. She once wrote that faith in God had sustained her in the hard times of her marriage.

Stephen Hawking was baptized in the Church of England. At his baptism the celebrant said, “We receive this child into the congregation of Christ’s flock, and do sign him with the sign of the cross, in token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner against sin, the world, and the devil, and to continue Christ’s faithful soldier and servant unto his life’s end.” 

In his later life Hawking called himself an atheist. He also said his life quest was "trying to understand the mind of God." 

I don’t know when Hawking gave up on God, but I do know that God never gave up on Stephen Hawking. God is not finished with him, and God is not finished with any of us. God loves us; God wants for us what is best for us;

God offers us by the resurrection of his son Jesus Christ eternal life in his love and service.  “Surprise, Dr. Hawking!”

 One of my favorite Easter hymns is 10,000 x 10,000. It is in the 1940 Episcopal Hymnal and the 1955 Lutheran Service Book and Hymnal, but is not in either the 1982 Episcopal Hymnal or Evangelical Lutheran Worship. The text is this:

Ten thousand times ten thousand In sparkling raiment bright, The armies of the ransomed saints Throng up the steeps of light: 'Tis finished, all is finished, Their fight with death and sin: Fling open wide the golden gates, And let the victors in.
2 What rush of alleluias Fills all the earth and sky! What ringing of a thousand harps bespeaks the triumph nigh! O day, for which creation and all its tribes were made! O joy, for all its former woes A thousand fold repaid!
3 O then what raptured greetings On Canaan's happy shore; what knitting severed friendships up, where partings are no more! Then eyes with joy shall sparkle, that brimmed with tears of late; Orphans no longer fatherless, nor widows desolate.
4 Bring near Thy great salvation, Thou Lamb for sinners slain; Fill up the roll of Thine elect, Then take Thy power and reign: Appear, Desire of nations, Thine exiles long for home; Show in the heavens Thy promised sign; Thou Prince and Saviour, come.

The hymn was written by the Rev. Henry Alford, Dean of Canterbury, and sung at his funeral in 1871. Alford wrote over 60 hymns including one we sing at Thanksgiving, “Come, ye thankful people come, raise the song of harvest home.” 

The third verse of 10,000 x 10,000 expresses our personal hope in the resurrection:
O then what raptured greetings
On Canaan's happy shore;
what knitting severed friendships up,
where partings are no more!
Then eyes with joy shall sparkle,
that brimmed with tears of late;
Orphans no longer fatherless,
nor widows desolate.

We have all had friendships severed by death. Many of us know what it is to be orphaned by the death of parents, and we know something of the desolation of losing to death someone whom we love. 

The good news of Easter is that in Jesus’ resurrection we and they are given new life in him, today, tomorrow, and for ever more!   Amen! 

 

Alleluia! Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia!