Easter Revisited

It’s hard to know for sure what really happened that first Easter morning. A lot of ink and blood has been spilled in theological fights about it. Frankly, I don’t know if Jesus was physically resuscitated from the dead, and it makes no difference to me one way or the other. You may write me off as a heretic at this point, and I’m okay with that. Just be nice in your comments or I will delete them.

That said, I do believe with my whole being in resurrection. Resurrection is about far more than whether Jesus was raised physically from the dead. Resurrection is about a new way of living in the world. It is about the life and teachings of Jesus embodied in us. It is about our path to wholeness and freedom in the spirit. It is about the justice and mercy of Jesus embodied in us.

Resurrection is risky. It’s personal and it’s now. In this new way of being in the world there is no room for violence and privilege. No one is excluded. All the people we hold at arm’s length are now welcome at the table. We are called to invite them to sit beside us in the pew.

The metric we use to separate people into the left and the right, rich and poor, smart and less smart, good and bad, valuable and less valuable are no longer valid. The identity we have so carefully built on our homes, income and jobs is null and void in a new reality. Our new identity is found in the Holy, in what is good and right and just.

Walter Brueggemann writes, “The defining mark of the Easter world is driven, cosmic generosity that outruns our need and our want and our hope and our desire, to endow us with every gift, most wondrously of all the gift of new possibility. All our prepared destinations are vetoed at Easter.” (A Way Other Than Our Own: Devotions for Lent)

In these days of uncertainty, fear, economic anxiety and so much more, we need the Easter message that is about resurrection. The hope and trust is that we are held by a powerful God who is with us in the midst of it all. God’s presence doesn’t fix it, rather it makes it bearable. This is the promise of new life.

The risen Christ is everywhere around us and within us–at work in the world in every deed of kindness and love, in every act of mercy and grace, in the love we receive and the love we show to one another. The risen Christ is at work in the world, in the cycles of the created order and the rhythm of the seasons. The risen Christ is embodied in everyone who is working together in the midst of this pandemic to bring healing, comfort and relief.  In the midst of the pain of loss and uncertainty, we are in the presence of the risen Christ who says, “Peace be with you, do not be afraid.”

Richard Rohr writes, “All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain. Creation has a pattern of wisdom and we dare not shield ourselves from it or we will literally lose our soul. We can obey commandments, believe doctrines and attend church services all our lives and still daily lose our souls if we run from the necessary cycle of loss and renewal. Death and resurrection are lived out at every level of the cosmos, but only one species thinks it can avoid—the human species.” (Daily Mediations, CAC.org)

We cannot avoid the necessary cycles of loss and renewal. We have spent plenty of time in the loss part of the cycle and it isn’t over yet. On this Easter Sunday we want trumpets and joyful singing and loud Alleluias. It may be that Easter comes this year in far quieter and more subtle ways. Maybe this year Easter comes in new insights, in settling into the necessary cycle of loss and renewal and seeing the moments of renewal that come in the midst of the losses.  Life is never all one or the other, but some combination of both at the same time.

Dear readers, I wish you Easter blessings and every lengthening glimpses of the resurrected Christ.