a different easter
During Holy Week, we read stories about the feelings of defeat experienced by Jesus and his followers. At the cross, those who believed in Jesus’ vision of God’s reign saw their hopes suffocated. Where was God in the midst of such turmoil and despair? But, in the dawning of a new day, they were reminded of God’s everlasting love and faithfulness. Though the powers that seek to rob people of faith may seem to be in control, the renewing spirit of God can bring life out of death, hope out of despair, a future out of barrenness.
This year, from what are you seeking rest?
What kind of resurrection do you need?
What kind of resurrection does your faith community need?
It is a different easter from what most believers have known. Prayer vigils are happening in makeshift home chapels. People have to create silence in their home rather than go to silence at a church. Youth won’t be leading a sunrise service. No breakfast in the fellowship hall. Clergy are not testing the temp of the water in the baptismal. No one will check to make sure there is enough communion. You know, there are usually more people at easter worship. Like Christmas, let’s offer our best hospitality to the seasonal or first time worshipper.
A colleague told me about a realization during this different lent and holy week. The realization that he didn’t need to be the best apologists for Jesus or Christianity. It’s not his job to lead people to Jesus or the Church. As a believer, living as the best example of Jesus was his calling. As a minister, helping others live their lives as the best example of Jesus she or he can is his calling, his “work.”
I don’t serve in “preaching ministry” which means I am not obliged to have words to share with a congregation weekly. When I do preach, I remind the those gathered what I’ve observed about humanity.
Each person is seeking to hear and experience the good news of God.
The Lord’s mercies never cease;
the Lord’s mercies are new every morning; and the Lord’s faithfulness extends beyond our ability to see in a mirror dimly, or recognize the image of God in others as well as in our own face.
When you get outside the doctrine and dogma of Christian tradition’s interpretation of who Jesus is and what Jesus means you remember that the authentic Jesus pointed to God and not himself. You remember how he met other people and treated other people. You remember how he held those with political and religious authority or power accountable for the divergence of their words and their living.
Jesus never claimed to be God. Those are Christianity’s words, not his. And, he never claimed to be dying in anyone’s place because it was God’s salvation plan all along. Those are Christianity’s words giving Jesus an origin story and a resurrection worthy of belief. Those that followed Jesus in the early decades after his death lived differently as they interacted with culture and their neighbors. Maybe they listened to the beatitudes closer or applied the samaritan parable better than we, than I. There is quite enough “sinners in the hands of an angry God” theology, death and death dealers out there dividing the world with religious and political walls that exploit fear, exploit humanity, and exploit God. I wonder if that theology can ever be allowed to die.
This different easter, reminds me a quote from the film, “Second Hand Lions.” Hub is giving his nephew, Walter, a part of his “what every boy need to know to be a man” speech. Really, it’s not gender specific.
Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man [sic] needs to believe in the most: that people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; that love, true love, never dies… You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in.
Second Hand Lions, 2003.
Things worth believing in. That’s what this different easter might be doing for people. How can God’s everlasting love and continued faithfulness give you hope in a time when you will “go forth in the dance of the merrymakers”?