Happy, Happy Easter

Easter has always been a time of great pageantry, beautiful music, processional hymns, trumpets playing in my adult church experience. I wallowed in the exhilaration of music, colorful banners and stoles, beautiful lillies... the scents, sights and sounds of liturgical Easter celebration. This year it was different. It was perhaps, more like the first Easter morning with a small group gathered, one stunning solo Easter hymn (like Mary Magdalene singing out the news), more questions than answers and leaning on the arms of those who love us and hold us up. No razzle dazzle but plenty of slow cooker community and bits and pieces of illumination were there for me this Easter Sunday.
Some of our small Cat Square group met on the sunset deck at seven in the morning to wait for the sunrise. We waited... and waited... and waited. The sun played hide and seek with us as we heard all four of the gospel resurrection stories read aloud. Cold and shivering in spite of heavy coats and thick socks, we sat with the mystery much as the disciples did all those years ago. They had no idea how the story was going to end. And if the truth be told, neither do we. We still live with the mystery, questions more than answers, and that is how it should be. None of us, save God, knows the ending to this continuing story.
Worship, as it has been throughout Lent, used the book “The Last Week” by Borg/Crossnan as the centerpoint. Much of this book asks questions and poses less than traditional answers to the mysteries of Lent and Easter. “Death and resurrection, crucifixion and vindication... When one is emphasized over the other, distortion results...Do you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior?” Then another question, “Do you accept Jesus as your political Lord and Savior?... Jesus is Lord, the most widespread post-Easter affirmation in the new Testament, is thus both personal and political...a deep centering in God that includes a radical trust in God, the same trust that we see in Jesus. It produces freedom- ‘For freedom Christ has set us free’; compassion- the greatest of the spiritual gifts is love; and courage- ‘Fear not, do not be afraid.”
After all the church history, political and social history have been studied and we see a partial context for the life and death of Jesus, the central question still remains to be answered by each one of us. It is the same question Jesus asked the disciples. “Who do you say I am?” And that question shoves us into the true mystery of Easter, the one miracle that is the bedrock of my faith, the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus. If you can affirm that Jesus is Lord, then all things are possible. Walking on water, healing hurt hearts damaged by years of abuse, virgin birth, mending broken marriages, turning water into wine, breaking free of the bonds of addiction, rising from the dead, coming to faith in God without any earlier connection to church or church people... all are miracles made possible by God’s presence in our world. And the bottom line for me is the transforming power of God’s love in the person of Jesus who lived and died even as I live and die. Because he first loved me, I must love and act that love out in this imperfect world.
None of us can know the answers to the reality, the actuality of how and when and what happened all those long years ago. We know what we believe, and that faith, that way of knowing without certainty, leaves room for all those Christians who say in their creeds “ born and died and raised on the third day” as well as those who say “I don’t need a bodily resurrection to believe in Jesus.” I celebrate the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus this Easter. But most of all, I celebrate his presence in the world and in my life as the bearer of God’s love, a living ever changing always the same incarnation of the One who called me into being. Thanks be to God for all new life however it gets here. Happy Easter, a very happy Easter indeed. Amen.