Wednesday, April 8, 2020
“The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.” (Romans 8:11, New Living Translation) 

                If we ever needed a Resurrection Story, these are the times.

                As we live out our personal and communal fears, despair and anxiety throughout these crucifying Good Friday days and weeks we need some Good News. As we sequester ourselves in the solitary and lonely “tombs” of our homes and avoid contact with each other we need some message of hope and possibility. As we grieve the immense loss of lives, we need to experience that there is Life. As we lose our sense of confidence in progress and science and as we need fresh reassurances about the future we need a story that offers re-assurance that we are not really alone or abandoned or forgotten or even God-forsaken, even though it may feel, for the moment, exactly the opposite.

                The Resurrection Story of Jesus is not facile or easy grace at work. We are taught that this incredible hope is born out of suffering and dying. It is a serious confrontation with death and sin and evil. It is a confrontation with brokenness, loss and grief. It is a huge victory against all that which perverts and destroys life and offers so much more: “the blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.” (Luke 7:22, NLT)

                Resurrection is the new dawning of God’s gift of Hope, Joy, Love and Life. Jesus embodies the new creation, both in our immediate now and for what is the New Reality after death. Jesus brings into focus the creative and innovative work of God to bless, heal, forgive, love and raise us up with Christ.

                If we ever needed such a Resurrection Story, it is now.

                “But God released him from the horrors of death and raised him back to life, for death could not keep him in its grip.” (Acts 2:24, NLT)

                Jesus’ Resurrection is a core piece of the Christian narrative. It can be for some a hard story to accept or have faith in or some deem it deem too fantastic to be true. Even some of his own disciples were skeptics. But I would argue that this challenge to take this “impossible” Story to heart becomes part of the process to awaken to its true reality and power.  

Rather than pick it apart, parse it, explain it, argue its historicity, ignore it, dismiss it, I would like you to simply read the Story again and let it grab you. Let it take over your imagination. Let it seep into your soul and spirit. Let it tease your mind and mess with your definition of what is real and what is deeply sacred. (e.g. Luke 24: 1 – 12)

Who would tell such a tale? But it is a Story which is told and re-told. It invites us to worship, adore and love a God who has experienced the loss of his Beloved One but celebrates that death is not the final word. God has given us advanced tidings that as Jesus experienced New Life so may we.

If we ever have needed a Resurrection Story, this is the One we should grab onto and hold onto for dear life.

Many are looking for God in the midst of this pandemic. Dare I suggest that God is not there? But rather, God is once again rejecting the message and means of death and dying, illness and disease and is using his Loving Power to forge New Life, to strike a New Reality, outside and beyond these old decaying norms. As the Easter angel asked the women who first experienced the empty tomb: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” (Luke 24:5, New Revised Standard Version).

May the Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, live in you.

Have a safe and healthy Easter. Blessings! 

Dale