Resurrection is Out-of-the-Box Believing

None of us are familiar with resurrection, are we? Dead people do not come back to life except in horror movies. This is entirely unnatural. But as unnatural as it is, every time I return to this story I find new things to confound and inspire me. In a sermon preached by Barbara Brown Taylor, she says this, "A resurrection is a miracle of another order. There is no continuity with life as we know it. The spark is utterly extinguished. The heart stops...Death occurs, beyond a shadow of a doubt. The living withdraw to get on with their lives and the silence is complete. Then, when everything is over, something entirely new begins. What was cold becomes warm again, and what lay still sits up. Creation occurs all over again - not a spark rescued from the ashes but a whole new fire kindled out of nothing - the gracious act of the only one who can make life out of dust, not just once upon a time, or even at the end of time, but over and over again."

And here is the point that I want to emphasize in the midst of this Easter season. Life is more than what we can experience. Jesus did not die to rescue us from God, Jesus died the way he did so that we would understand that the God we worship knows what suffering and death is like and we are never alone. Jesus rose again, so we know that death is not a final ending, but a new beginning. Now, there's a lot we do not know. God keeps things invisible - like the resurrection - and these invisible truths are more important than anything we can fact check. Paul says in Corinthians that if we do not believe the resurrection "our preaching is useless and so is our faith." (1 Corinthians 15:14). He's a good one to speak on the subject since he witnessed first hand God's mighty power on the road to Damascus. Because here is the thing...

We no longer have to believe that it is up to us keep things alive. Not our children, not our parents, not our spouses or even ourselves. Because we know this - "God has never forgotten how to breathe life into piles of dust."

BTB

In my life, I confess that I have felt a strong pressure to keep struggling or dead or dying things alive. No more. This is God's work. But it is encouraging to know that He works in this way. What have you spent too much time and energy trying to "keep going"? What pressures have you put on yourself that you need to release?

What Does Easter Mean to You?

Technically, Easter is the period of fifty days from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday. So although our traditional Easter Sunday has passed...I'm still thinking about the resurrection. I guess it means more to me this year, this promise of God's breath resurrecting dry dead bones. This past year has been one of great losses for many. One of the things I think about on Easter are some of the ways I see people believing in the power of resurrection. My friends, who before they met lost spouses through divorce, each lost a children through death related to SUD and Mental Health issues but somehow in the intervening years found each other. Today they are married and living a resurrected life. They have certainly not forgotten their losses, but have found their dry, dead bones breathed on by God, revived by love when they least expected it.

Or my friend Lori who finds a sense of purpose in sitting with other mom's who have lost children. Or another who, having lost a child pours all his energy into finding ways to help other families maybe save their own children before it is too late. What generosity of spirit! They have not run from their deaths; they have leaned into resurrection. And it is hard.

Or someone who early on in the pandemic donated extra that she had to help pay rent for someone in our community who could not have kept her home without that support. Totally unsolicited, unaware of the need, she gave at a time, just the right time, to revive a young couple who was losing all hope.

This is not just an individual matter. Consider St. James Church here in Richmond, Va. which burned in 1994. Built in the 1770's it burned to the ground. But what did they do? They carried on. They even acquired a motto: "Let us rise up and build" Nehemiah 2:18.

How might we all benefit from a new motto, after a long year of losses?How might we rise up and build?

A Life Worth Defending

Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

In the midst of our current situation - quarantine, COVID-19, shortages on toilet paper and lemonade (of all things) - we continue to have no shortage of divergent perspectives. I recognize that I am extremely fortunate. No one in my family is dealing with a job loss. I happen to like my husband and enjoy quarantining with him. I do not have small children to raise in isolation or high schoolers to keep on track with their schoolwork. I am a blessed woman.

AND I am acutely aware of those who are struggling with an accumulation of anguish. How do you manage living in NYC with a partner who needs daily radiation to treat her recurrence of cancer? How do you sit at home in Atlanta while your sister passes away after a massive stroke in NC? Our normal life sufferings - life and death, sickness and health - are all disrupted. We are still getting sick, dying, healing, and living - but without the accoutrements of hospital visits and funerals and reasonably safe travel to and fro. For many, normal life suffering has escalated and accumulated.

What a time we live in. This is the time we sit and ponder and remember what we value when nothing feels at risk. We love life; it is dear to us; we will defend it.

So my relatives in NYC are given the loan of a car to help them travel safely for those daily treatments; we pause the funerals and press on in our mourning. We celebrate our recoveries and appreciate our health. We find joy where we can without forgetting that for many, it has been lost in transit.

How can we ease the accumulation today? What can we do to remind ourselves that our planet is blue and green, a virtual breeding ground for suffering AND also a place of rebirth, renovation and restoration? How can we appropriately lament the losses and nourish the thriving? What is your superpower? How will you use it today?