CHRIST IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!!
Coming out of this winter of record snows and record colds, I am hearing a lot of people say, “I can’t wait for real spring”.
Not the spring that peeks in for a day or two and then retreats for another foot of snow or below-zero wind chills. Real spring. Where new life is popping up and gardens prepared, and the sun feels life-giving.
What I hear in those words is almost a plea – I cannot wait for real spring. And it is uttered in the same tone as words like – I cannot watch the news anymore. Or I cannot believe THEY think that or THIS is happening. There is a deep longing, from everyone, for light and life and hope.
It has jogged in my memory a quote from 1960s theologian William Sloan Coffin, who said that we live in a Good Friday world.
Sometimes it feels that way. That’s our human response to brokenness and cold, and pain around us.
But then we have God’s response. And THAT is Easter.
Easter is God’s response to our world, to our longings.
When we cry out in pain or fear, Easter is God’s response.
When we cry out in loss or brokenness, Easter is God’s response.
When we simply cry out, Easter is God’s response.
CHRIST IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!
The disciples – scattered, and scared, and disappointed in themselves and their dreams – gave themselves over to loss.
And suddenly God changed everything. They saw right there in front of them that death, brokenness, pain DO NOT GET THE LAST WORD.
This is not a Good Friday world – this is God’s world. And when events conspire to make us forget that God sends Easter. Not just one Sunday. Every day.
Christ bursts forth from the tomb. And resurrection comes. New life comes.
God sends resurrection and sends it continually – every day there are places where the stone is rolled away. Every day, there are ways we can look at death all around us and shout out that this is something more powerful, more life-giving set loose in this world.
This is God’s world, and we are Easter people.
We gather to shout this truth in every corner, in every place that longs for a real spring, a true resurrection. CHRIST IS RISEN is God’s response to a broken world – it doesn’t end after Sunday celebrations. We, beloved by God and trusting in the resurrection, whisper and shout and proclaim with our whole lives God’s promise and daily gift to us:
CHRIST IS RISEN! He is risen indeed!
