Holy Cross Monastery Sermons

Wednesday, March 25, 2026

The Annunciation of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Blessed Virgin Mary, March 25, 2026

Br. Ephrem Arcement, OHC

The Annunciation of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Blessed Virgin Mary, March 25, 2026

Click here for an audio of the sermon

Listening to the Infancy Narrative from Luke’s Gospel in snippets may be necessary for liturgical worship but much is missed when we don’t see the whole canvas on which Luke paints his grand, programmatic overture. But when we do see the whole, we begin to appreciate Luke’s rhetorical and theological strategies. And, in this case, what stands out among them all are the series of contrasts he makes between the birth of John and the birth of Jesus. His point is clear: while comparisons with John are understandable, they ultimately and woefully fail because in Jesus God is doing something utterly unique…something no one has ever seen before…not even dared to imagine.

Between the two birth stories many elements are shared: the angelic visitor, the proclamation, the overcoming of a human deficiency (age and barrenness in the first instance, youth and virginity in the second), and a sign to legitimate the prophecy. Because the form of the angel’s statement in each case is so similar, the difference in content concerning the identity and role of the respective children attracts the reader’s eye. John will be great before the the Lord, but Jesus will be Son of the Most High. John will prepare a people, but Jesus will rule the people. John’s role is temporary, Jesus’ kingdom will never end. John is to be a prophet, but Jesus more than a prophet: he is Son of God. John will be “filled with the Holy Spirit,” but the overshadowing of the Spirit and Power will make Jesus “the Holy One.” The full meaning of these epithets become clear only in the course of Luke’s narrative, but from the start the reader is prepared to see in Jesus something far more than a Davidic king.

Luke expands his theological vision by also drawing contrasts between Zechariah and Mary. In contrast to Zechariah, we notice, Mary holds no official position among the people, she is not described as “righteous” in terms of observing Torah, and her experience does not take place in a cultic setting. She is among the most powerless people in her society: she is young in a world that values age; female in a world ruled by men; poor in a stratified economy. Furthermore, she has neither husband nor child to validate her existence. That she should have found “favor with God” and be “highly favored” shows Luke’s understanding of God’s activity as surprising and often paradoxical, almost always reversing human expectations.

Mary’s mode of response is more positive than Zechariah’s. Instead of his “how shall I know,” which is a demand for proof, Mary simply asks how the promise might come true in the light of its obvious roadblock, her virginity. When the angel makes clear that not human actions but divine power will effect this birth, she responds in obedient faith as powerful as the response spoken later by her son in the garden before his death, “let it be with me according to your word.”

Finally, there is the contrast in signs. Zechariah is struck mute, but Mary will magnify the Lord in song.

Yet, even as this overture comes to an end and the themes have been clearly introduced, no human ear will be prepared to hear or apprehend the chords struck and melodies developed by the Gospel’s end, and we, too, will sit awestruck like Mary before Gabriel wondering how can this be?

The Annunciation of Our Lord Jesus Christ by the angel Gabriel to Mary, the maiden of Nazareth is, then, about the total subversion of all norms and customs and paradigms. Nothing that has come before can contain this new thing that God is about to do. Except two things…a faith that is open to discover new wonders and an imagination wild enough to contain it. And its Mary, not Zechariah, who serves as our guide to this expansive faith and wild imagination.

Mary, then, is the archetype of how God’s new thing, God’s kingdom, comes into our world and establishes itself. Several points can be made to help us follow her example and live into this archetype.

First, we should be open to surprises from God. Pope Francis used to always say that God is full of surprises. So, we need to develop a contemplative gaze so that we don’t let them pass us by. Mary had that contemplative gaze and open heart that didn’t let this divine theophany pass her by.

Second, we should listen with humble reverence to what God is trying to tell us. “Listen, my son, to your master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart.” To listen humbly with a burning desire to know, to understand, and to put what we hear into practice is the proper posture of the Christian disciple and monk.

Third, we should never allow our circumstances to limit the power of God. Though Mary knew she was a virgin, she had a faith that God was bigger than her circumstances and not constrained by her limitations. “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

Fourth, it is not a lack of faith to seek clarity like Mary. It is a lack of faith to doubt the power of God like Zechariah. Reason should be a handmaid to faith, not its substitute.

And fifth, we should consent whole-heartedly to the mystery of God’s message and come to know the implications of it through pondering it in our hearts.

Through the movement of this five-fold process a uniquely Marian spirituality is developed. Every Christian is called to be a God-bearer and to birth the divine life into our world. We do this just like Mary did through this process of openness, deep, reverential listening, faith in God’s power, the acknowledgment of our own limitation, and the contemplation, or, in this case, gestation, of God’s word.

Yet, this Marian spirituality remains part of the overture to Luke’s programmatic prophecy. The story to be told is not ultimately about her. The events of her life, at this point in the story, foreshadow a similar, yet altogether greater, event about to unfold.

The two other lessons for today’s feast point also to this utterly new thing that God is doing, not just in Mary but more specifically in Christ. Hebrews quotes Psalm 40, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me…. Then I said, ‘See, God, I have come to do your will.…’” The old order of worship is abolished in the establishment of the new in the offering of the body of Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for sin once for all. Isaiah captures the utter newness of what God wants to do when God insists on giving King Ahaz a sign: “Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.”

The feast we celebrate today is the feast of new beginnings. But, let’s be clear, it’s new beginnings of a very special kind. This is not about renewal; nor about reform. This is about the birthing the unimaginable…about putting human ingenuity and control aside and letting God be God. This isn’t just another feast that marks the changing of the seasons of time. The Feast of the Annunciation is more like a turning point in history…the turning point of time itself. For here, in the womb of this humble maiden, the eternal, transcendent, all-holy God bears a human face…to be seen, known, and embraced…but, also, with the possibility of being despised, rejected, and spat upon. In the Annunciation, God becomes Immanuel in daring, vulnerable immediacy, and the Word becomes flesh, and God speaks directly to the human heart.

What will the human response be to this appearing? This is the fundamental question which each of the Gospels pose to those who read them. Luke, here in the Infancy Narrative, as he will do throughout his two-volume work, interrogates us with this question. Will we be like Mary who responds in humble faith? Or will we be like Zechariah who doubts, only to come around after much rationalizing? Or will we be like those to come who will reject him altogether? For, as he will soon put forth in Simeon’s address to Mary, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel….”

Today different paths ahead now open up before us in this feast of the turning of time, and Mary and her Son show us the way to proceed forward. Luke’s Gospel, his good news to us, is that heaven and earth are becoming one in this new, decisive in-breaking of God to humankind…and God is in search of some who will give their unequivocal fiat, their whole-hearted “yes” to this summons. God’s power plus our “yes” equals a new creation…one where the dust of the earth is transfigured and can bear the face of God. Will you dare to believe? Will you, too, out of the dust of your life come to bear the face of God?

Sunday, March 22, 2026

The Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 22, 2026

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Bernard Delcourt, OHC

The Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 22, 2026

Click here for an audio of the sermon

Today’s gospel is, at its heart, about the act of believing. In John’s gospel, belief is never a noun, never a static possession to be stored away. It is always a verb — a living, active, ongoing commitment to who Jesus is and what God is doing through him. And in the raising of Lazarus, that act of believing is brought to its most dramatic test.

Let us begin with what is perhaps the most startling detail in this long passage: Jesus deliberately delays. He receives the urgent message from Mary and Martha — “Lord, he whom you love is ill” — and he stays two days longer where he is. He is not indifferent. We are told plainly that he loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet he waits.

Why? He tells us himself: “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” And then, almost shockingly, “For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.”

God’s timing is not our timing. The delay is not abandonment. It is, in fact, preparation — an invitation to a deeper believing than the disciples, Martha, and Mary had yet imagined possible.

Martha meets Jesus on the road. Her words are grief-stricken but also theologically precise: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Even now. There is a faith clinging to life in those two words, even though the rawness of her loss.

Jesus responds with what is, in John’s gospel, the climax of his great “I am” sayings. There are seven of them in this gospel — seven, the number of completeness and divine fullness in the scriptures. “I am the bread of life.” “I am the light of the world.” “I am the good shepherd.” And now, here at the tomb, the seventh and final declaration: “I am the resurrection and the life.”

This is the summit. In the Bible’s symbolic language, seven signifies wholeness, a finished work. These seven “I am” sayings together constitute Jesus’ complete self-revelation as the human face of divine fullness. And the resurrection and the life is the fullest revelation of all: Jesus is not merely a prophet who speaks of life, nor a healer who restores health. He is the very source and substance of life itself.

Notice, too, where this declaration falls in the sequence of Jesus’ seven signs — his miraculous works in John’s gospel. The first sign was the turning of water into wine at Cana (John 2:1–11), a quiet, almost hidden act of abundance at a wedding feast. The signs grew in scope from there: healing the official’s son, the paralyzed man, feeding five thousand, walking on water, giving sight to the blind. Each sign pointed beyond itself to the glory and identity of God’s Son.

And now the seventh sign: the raising of Lazarus. The climax of the signs matches the climax of the “I am” sayings. Both sequences find their fullness here, in this moment, before this tomb. It is as if the whole of John’s gospel has been building to this point: the demonstration that Christ holds sovereignty over death itself.

Martha understands resurrection. She believes in it. “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day,” she says. She has the theology right. She knows the tradition, the hope of Israel. But Jesus gently reorients her: resurrection and life are not only a future promise for the end of time. They are a present reality, standing right in front of her.

This is one of the most important correctives in the New Testament. We Christians are indeed a resurrection people — we live in hope of the life to come. Jesus himself promises in John 6:40: “This is the will of him that sent me, that everyone which sees the Son, and believes in him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.” That promise is real and sure.

But the raising of Lazarus insists that God’s power to bring life out of death is not only reserved for the final judgment. It is available here. Now. In the midst of grief and stench and stone-sealed tombs. God is already in the business of resurrection. Our dead places do not have to wait for eternity to come alive.

Then comes one of the most tender moments in all of scripture. Mary falls at Jesus’ feet, weeping. The crowd weeps with her. And Jesus — the one who is the resurrection and the life, the one who already knows what he is about to do — is “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved.” And then: “Jesus wept.”

The shortest verse in the Bible. And one of the most profound.

The crowd says, “See how he loved him.” But there is more being said in those tears than personal grief over a friend. The Son of God weeps in the face of death. He does not remain aloof from human sorrow. He enters into it. He who is the resurrection and the life allows himself to be undone by the weight of mortality, by the tears of those he loves.

In the passion narrative we are now approaching, in Holy Week, this same Christ will enter his own death. The Lazarus story is a manifest prefiguration of what is to come: the death of Jesus and the new life that will burst from the sealed tomb on Easter morning. Lazarus comes out still bound in his burial cloths. Jesus will leave his burial cloths behind, neatly folded.

But before the miracle, there is resistance. Martha, still grieving and perhaps frightened, protests when Jesus orders the stone removed: “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” It is an entirely reasonable objection. There is no good reason to open that tomb. There is nothing left inside but death.

Jesus says: “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”

This is the shape of faith in John’s gospel. We do not first see the glory and then believe. We believe, and then we see. Faith is not the reward that follows evidence. It is the posture that opens our eyes to the evidence that is already there. The stone has to be moved before Lazarus can come out. And sometimes, we have to be willing to roll away the stone before we know what God will do next.

What are the sealed tombs in our lives? What are the places that have been shut, that stink of old death, that we have stopped approaching because there is surely nothing left there worth hoping for? A relationship that ended badly. A vocation that collapsed. A grief we cannot seem to get through. A part of ourselves we have buried because it hurt too much to keep alive.

The God who raised Lazarus is the God who stands before those sealed places in our lives and says: take away the stone.

Not because we have it all figured out. Not because we are certain of what will happen. But because the one who calls himself the resurrection and the life is present, and he is not finished with us yet.

In John 20:29, after the resurrection, Jesus says to Thomas — the same Thomas who here at the Lazarus story said, “let us also go, that we may die with him” — “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” That word is addressed to us too. We have not seen the raising of Lazarus with our own eyes. We have not watched the stone rolled away or heard the voice cry out. But we are invited into the same act of believing that John’s entire gospel exists to evoke.

We are a resurrection people not because we have all the answers about what comes next. We are a resurrection people because we have staked our lives on the one who says “I am the resurrection and the life” — and who has shown us, in Lazarus, in his own rising, and in countless small resurrections in human lives across twenty centuries, that this is true.

So today, as we enter the final stretch of Lent and turn our faces toward Jerusalem, let us ask ourselves: Where do I need to hear the voice of Christ calling me out of the tomb? Where is God asking me to take away the stone, even when I am afraid of what I might smell when I do?

The resurrection and the life are not waiting for the end of time. He is here. He is calling. And he says to us, as he said to those standing around Lazarus: “Unbind him and let him go.”

Amen.

Thursday, March 19, 2026

The Feast of Saint Joseph, March 19, 2026

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Francis Beckham, OHC

Saint Joseph, March 19, 2026

Click here for an audio of the sermon

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you, O God, my Creator and my Sustainer. Amen.

Among the many rites and ceremonies contained in the Book of Common Prayer is a service of Thanksgiving for the Birth or Adoption of a Child (page 439). As envisioned in the Prayer Book, “the parents, with other members of the family, should come to the church to be welcomed by the congregation and to give thanks to God.” The book further states that, “it is desirable that this takes place at a Sunday service,” such as the Eucharist or morning prayer.

In the section concerning adoption, there is a moment where the priest, holding or taking the child by the hand, gives the child to the parents, saying:

“As God has made us his children by adoption and grace, may you receive [this child] as your own son or daughter.”

The service concludes with a Trinitarian blessing over the family, part of which bids, “May God the Son, who sanctified a home at Nazareth, fill you with love.”

With these relatively few words and simple gestures, the Church publicly affirms, celebrates, and blesses the bonds of family in a profoundly sacramental sense. A child, begotten and beloved by God, is entrusted to people with whom they may or may not share a biological bond, to be nurtured, protected, taught, and – above all, loved – in no less than the very same way in which God loves. Here, an adoption ends and a family begins.

I think this beautiful little ceremony models quite well how God desires all of us to treat one another, regardless of whether we’ve ever adopted or been adopted in the usual sense. And I also think it really captures the faithfulness of Saint Joseph in his role as Jesus’ earthly adopted dad. Although the gospels don’t record any of Joseph’s words, their accounts of his, Mary’s, and Jesus’ family life – and certainly of Jesus’ adult life and ministry – speak volumes about how much he accepted and loved Jesus as his own child.

From Saint Matthew’s gospel, which we heard at Matins this morning, we know Joseph was a righteous man. That is, he was committed to living the way he believed God wants us to. So, when he found out Mary was going to have a child who wasn’t his, he sat down and had a good, long think about the best way to proceed. On the one hand, Joseph knew he needed to honor the law, but on the other hand he genuinely wanted to spare Mary from shame and suffering. A quiet separation seemed like the best way to go, until an angel reassured him that all would be well, and he should still marry her and raise the child as his own. And we know from various gospel accounts that Joseph did indeed take the angel’s command, as well as his parental role, very seriously. There was the Nativity, in which Joseph went to great lengths in difficult circumstances to find a safe place for Mary to give birth to Jesus; then there was the flight into Egypt, a perilous journey Joseph undertook to protect his family from Herod’s murderous violence; there was also the Presentation, in which he and Mary brough Jesus to the temple to fulfill the law, and where Jesus was recognized by people who were expectantly awaiting Israel’s messiah. And then, of course, there was the family’s annual trip back to Jerusalem for the Passover.

In today’s story from Saint Luke’s gospel, we find the Holy Family making one of these yearly Passover pilgrimages. Presumably, this had become pretty routine for them by this point, and so Joseph and Mary feel comfortable letting Jesus – now twelve years old and, religiously at least, an adult – travel in the company of his friends and siblings while they walk with the other grownups. When they finally realize Jesus isn’t in the group, they do what most parents would: initially freak out (probably) and immediately begin backtracking. Their exhaustive searching eventually leads to the Finding in the Temple, where they’re stunned to discover Jesus engaging with the teachers.

Mary, understandably, confronts their son, telling him how much anxiety this has caused her and Joseph. It’s in this line, I think, where we come about as close as we can to hearing Joseph actually speak. While we don’t know exactly what words he used, we know he was a worried, panicked parent. Whatever any of us thinks we’d say in a similar situation, Joseph probably said it, too. I really wonder what went through Joseph’s and Mary’s heads when Jesus responds, basically, that it’s no big deal and they obviously should’ve known where he’d be anyway. I can imagine Joseph thinking, if not actually saying, “Oh, I know exactly where you need to be, mister! At home! With your mother and me! In Nazareth!”

Whatever the exchange, it seems Joseph and Mary’s relief at finding Jesus far outweighs any anger they may have been feeling and, with Mary treasuring all these things in her heart, the three return to their home in Nazareth, where Jesus would spend the rest of his youth “increasing in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.”

This is the last we really hear about Joseph. Scholars figure he probably died by the time we meet Jesus again in his early thirties more than a decade later, as he begins getting ready for his public ministry. But while Joseph may have been physically out of the picture, I think his influence remains present as ever.

I suspect it’s there in the way Jesus gathers his own adopted family of disciples. I also think we catch glimpses of Joseph whenever Jesus shows mercy to people society doesn’t think deserve it, like the Gerasene man afflicted by demons or the woman about to be stoned for adultery. He heals and corrects, but he doesn’t condemn – and I’ll bet he learned that from Joseph, a person we know was both genuinely righteous before the law and profoundly caring toward others. And then there’s Jesus with the little children; and when he calls anyone who does the will of God in Heaven his family. And let us not forget his great priestly prayer in chapter seventeen of Saint John’s gospel, where Jesus makes intercession for all of us (yes, that includes you, me, and everyone else, ever) before God, whom he is completely comfortable relating to as a son, as if he really knows from experience what it’s like to talk with a truly loving father. Then, at last, on the cross, when Jesus tells Mary and John that they’re nothing less than mother and son, and to take care of one another. I think in all these instances, and many more, we feel the far-reaching effects of Joseph’s parental faithfulness toward Jesus.

Much is often made of Joseph’s royal lineage, both in the readings for Christmas and today’s feast, as well as in the substantial popular devotion millions have had toward him over the centuries. But I really think it’s his faithfulness to honoring God by doing what was best for Jesus and Mary (and probably many others) that matters most of all. And that’s good news for the rest of us. Regardless of where we come from, what our socio-economic backgrounds are, or who we’re related to by blood, Saint Joseph shows us that we can – and do! – have a positive influence in the world simply by treating others with the same dignity and love God has for all of us. And in times such as these, that’s more important than ever.

Perhaps it’s worth reflecting on the Saint Josephs in each of our lives: those people who, despite not necessarily having to, nevertheless have chosen at some point or another to accept us as we are, to ‘adopt’ us in a very true sense. These could, of course, be parents who have literally adopted us into their families, as well as teachers, mentors, friends, ministers, co-workers, and even bosses. For me, my first supervisor comes to mind, as well as older and more experienced friends I’ve had over the years who welcomed me into their homes and social circles and made real efforts to support me as I began discovering who I was and how I could best fit in with the world around me. I’m both indebted to and grateful for these Saint Josephs. The wisdom they’ve shared and the lessons they’ve taught remain with me today, and they do have a very real influence on how I’ve come to know and approach God, as well as how I engage with and pray for others.

The story of Saint Joseph is one of loving faithfulness and accountability – both to God, and to others – as well as an example each of us is invited to follow. With the words quoted earlier from the Prayer Book in mind, may we, like Joseph, freely welcome Jesus in all whom God sends our way. And may we all, in supporting and caring for one another, come to fully see ourselves as members of God’s one Holy Family, created out of love and called to increase in wisdom and in years, and in human and divine favor, together. Amen.