Easter, Astrology, and Rainbows

The following is the sermon I preached at the Lamy Chapel in Santa Fe on Easter of 2024. The service was called “Songs About Rainbows,” and we sang Kacey Musgraves’ “Rainbow,” “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz, and Kermit the Frog’s “Rainbow Connection.” The scripture for the day was John 20:11-18. I recommend listening to “Rainbow,” reading the scripture, listening to “Over the Rainbow,” reading the sermon, and then listening to “Rainbow Connection” if you’d like to follow the arc of the full service.

Special shout out to my teacher, Chris Brennan, for connecting the concept of “epimarturia” for me in his book Hellenistic Astrology.

Some of you may be surprised to know that in addition to ministering Christmas and Easter services here at the Lamy Chapel, I’m also the resident astrologer in the Lodge’s healing arts program. It’s unconventional, even heretical, some might argue, to be a Christian minister and also an interpreter of heavenly signs, but when put that way, is it so hard to understand? 

My first experiences of God did not come from Church or from a Bible story but rather from the depths of my own childhood unrest and heartbreak, staring out the window at the night sky. Kids don’t have to have the language to describe what’s wrong in order to know something is wrong. When I was kid, there were a host of things happening around me and to me that weren’t ok. From a place almost beyond words I could feel my soul chanting, “things don’t have to be this way, things don’t have to be this way.” 

At night when everyone was asleep I would pull back the curtains on my window. I can still feel the contrast of the cold air greeting my warm face. I would find the dimmest stars visible and stare at them, trying to understand how far away they were. I was never afraid of the vastness of the sky. It comforted me, knowing that there were realities and expanses of places far away from my loneliness. It helped me feel safe, and whole, that little sad me in my little sad room was not the whole picture. Other things were possible. And they didn’t have to be this way.

In our Gospel story today, a bereft woman leans inside the tomb of her friend who has perished at the hands of human violence. I wonder if Mary’s soul was chanting the same words beyond language: “things don’t have to be this way, things don’t have to be this way.” As she leans into the tomb to take sight of her best friend’s slain body, she sees two figures. Whether she registers that they are angels is unclear, as her primary, grief-stricken concern is the whereabouts of Jesus’ body. She wants to bear witness to him, to his death.

It was three summers ago, the first time I realized my devotion to my faith and also my divine experience of the night sky were completely compatible. I was reading a book on Hellenistic Astrology, of which I am a student and a practitioner. Hellenistic astrology is the tradition of sky-interpretation that developed in the Mediterranean basin, pre-dating and also solidifying alongside the early Christian tradition. 

A big part of sky-interpretation involves the angles that planets are forming to one another. Those are called aspects, the Latin root you may connect with words like spectacles, respect, or spectrum. These are all words connected with sight. Well, in the Greek texts, they didn’t use Latin, and the Greek or Hellenized astrologers called these configurations between planets epimarturia. This word means “witnessing” or “giving testimony,” and the root of that word, epimarturia, may sound familiar. The Greek root is martys, which means “martyr” or “witness” And this is the same word used in the original Greek in the New Testament to describe witnesses of the faith both living and dead. In fact, this word or a derivation of it is used 95 times in the New Testament! 

Bearing witness is both central to the tradition of astrology and to Christianity. And this is where we turn to the Gospel According to Kermit Thee Frawg. In his perfect, amphibious voice, Kermit asks us, probably rhetorically, but that’s never stopped me from answering: “Why are there so many songs about rainbows?”

I found an article from Popular Science entitled, “Rainbows are (literally) in the eye of the beholder.” The main thrust of the article is that rainbows, as Kermit points out, are visions, but only illusions. In that, our eyes see rainbows under very special conditions, but rainbows don’t exist on their own.

What I find annoying, even troublesome, about this article, is the way it begins: “Rainbows are perhaps the closest things we have to real magic. They appear like beautiful, ghostly apparitions in the sky just as the rain clears and the sun peeks out and gosh they make you feel happy, don’t they? Like all seemingly magical things, rainbows get even better when you understand the science behind them.” ::groan::

Seemingly magical? Why do we insist so ardently on drawing lines between magic and science? Why do the beautiful things that move us draw condescension if we can’t point to their independent, material existence? 

When Mary Magdelene turns to face Jesus, discovering that her friend indeed no longer lies dead in the tomb, he tells her, “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father.” This line has puzzled me for a long time until considering it beside rainbow phenomenology. As the author of the Popular Science magazine article subtly wrestles with what to make of a phenomenon that she feels is both real and yet not real, so too does Jesus confront us with his own resurrection. No touching allowed. Do you have eyes to witness? Is that enough to believe? Thomas, of course, gets a special exception.

What I think is the profound subtext of this article that the author maybe did not intend is that rainbows must be witnessed in order to exist. They are most certainly real, and what makes them real is relationship. We see them, and so they are seen. 

And so maybe, Kermit, this is why there are so many songs about rainbows. Most of us can see them, but we can only see them because we have eyes to see them. Rainbows are a scientific phenomena, but they are also a relational phenomena. And maybe that’s why they are magic.

I remember my ordination committee asking me if the Resurrection was real; if I believe Jesus literally rose from the dead. My response: just because someone says something isn’t real doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

Many people tell me astrology isn’t “real.” Many people have told me God isn’t “real.” But like rainbows, I think there are many spiritual phenomena that can only exist when witnessed. And I believe the resurrection is one of those phenomena.

For those of us who have that still, small voice inside, insisting, upon witnessing tragedy in our own lives and in the world: things don’t have to be this way, things don’t have to be this way; the resurrection is real. And it is by our faculties - ears that hear and eyes that see, hearts that leap, intuitions that trust, spirits that know - it is by our faculties of perception, of relationship, of bearing witness, that we will bring about the way things could be, that we will bring about heaven on earth.

Amen.