Dear Friends,
Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed! Alleluia, alleluia!
One of the wonderful things about Easter is that it is not over – it has just begun.
While the rest of the world may mark Easter Sunday with bunnies and chocolate and then move on, the church knows that the mystery of Easter is far too big and deep, beautiful and important, to be explored or celebrated in just one day. The mystery of the rising is so great, that it takes not one Sunday, not one week, but seven, to truly enter the mystery. Well, perhaps it can take our whole lives to really comprehend the mystery of the resurrection, but the circle of the church year gives us seven weeks in which to hear all the ways the disciples encountered the risen Christ, and to look together for signs of unexpected and paradoxical new life.
During this season, the Risen One is made known to them in absence (in an empty tomb)…in the breaking of the bread (on the road to Emmaus)…in doubt (with the disciple Thomas)…and in waiting (for the day of Pentecost).
I am always struck by the way Jesus reveals himself to his friends. He does not come in a show of glory and power, blasting open locked doors, like a superhero. He does not perform wonders and miracles, like a magician. Rather, he comes in silence, hardly recognizable at times, a physically scarred human being.
It takes the disciples a long time to recognize and accept the mystery of Easter, and I find this tremendously comforting. This broken, beautiful world is suffering right now, and just like the disciples, I am often full of doubt, and fear, and confusion, and longing.
It helps, I think, to remember that the word “faith” in scripture, doesn’t mean a cognitive acceptance of intellectual truths. It means something more like trust, loyalty, giving your heart. Rather than talking about “having faith”, we should perhaps talk about “faithing” – the choosing to give our heart to the Risen One and the kin-dom he proclaimed and embodied. To trust that the rising is occurring, “unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see” (in the words of Natalie Sleeth). And then, to commit our lives, our words, and our actions, to be witnesses of these things.
May we be given the grace to trust in God’s power for resurrection, and to keep our eyes open to see it, ears attuned to hear it, and bodies prepared to enact it, even and especially when it is hard to glimpse.
During the season of Easter, and beyond, you’re invited…
to the Theological Banquet!,
to take a Deep Dive!,
to Live Generously!,
to enter into Pilgrimage!
Easter Blessings,
Michelle
