Easter - March 31

Easter 2013

What is there to say about Easter? It’s a celebration of life over death that Christians see in the resurrection of Christ. That celebration is overlaid on top of the Spring and fertility rituals of other cultures, and in fact the name “Easter” itself is not of Christian origin. I smile knowing that the highest Christian holiday is named for the goddess of the dawn, Eostre (of Anglo-Saxon origin) or Ostara. Some rather xenophobic Christians say that this is reason enough to stop celebrating Easter altogether. They can quit if they want to, but I kind of like Easter and its life-affirming position so I think I’ll keep it.

                A few observations about Easter, or the resurrection of Jesus, if you will: it is not depicted in any of the four canonical gospels. All we are shown is the empty tomb. We do not get to see the actual event itself. Beyond that, the 4 gospels begin to diverge in some significant ways: In Mark (the earliest gospel), it is the 3 women who find the empty tomb and hear the announcement that Jesus is risen from a youth, who tells them that Jesus will meet them on the road back to Galilee. In Luke, we now have two people (the Greek noun says men) in bright clothing who tell the women not to look for the living among the dead. In Matthew, the earth quakes when an angel rolls the stone back, causing the guard to faint dead away (Mark mentions neither angels nor guards). Again the message is given that Jesus will meet them back in Galilee.  John (the newest of the 4 gospels) tells us that Mary Magdalene is alone when she encounters the empty tomb, but she runs and gets Peter and the guys who run to the tomb and check it out for themselves.

                What I take from these various attempts to describe what happened is this: none of us ever witnesses resurrection itself. What follows in all four gospels are widely divergent accounts of people experiencing the risen Christ in their lives and in their midst. And, I believe, it is this ongoing experience that has fueled the best of the church ever since. People continue to experience the living Christ’s presence in widely divergent and mostly unexplainable ways but it is those experiences that sparked the early believers to continue on the Way, and do so for us as well.

                Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong has written specifically about this ineffable experience when he tries to enter into the mystery of the resurrection: http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/2001/04/The-Easter-Moment-Drawing-Conclusions.aspx
Maybe for those of us who look at things through a progressive lens this should be added as a fifth account.

                But it brings me to what I think Easter should be: us telling each other our resurrection stories, times and places where we caught a glimpse of something Christ-like on the road ahead of us or a healing presence when part of us was dying, or the love that beckons us to rise when all we thought we wanted to do was die. If Easter, or Christianity itself, is to make any sense in this hurting, crazy world of ours, then we have to tell our stories. Not to prove to disprove anyone else’s experience, just to say this is what I know, what I see, what I feel. Did Jesus bodily rise from death and walk or fly out of the tomb? To me, the answer to that question is irrelevant. What I can answer is how I sense the life of Christ in my own life.

                I’m still looking for music that we can use in worship that gathers all this together, and will probably be looking for a long time. Here’s a couple that I have found. The first is an old Melissa Etheridge song, “Heal Me.” Not a great video, but really good lyrics. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB5p_Vi4HXg
The other is by Christopher Grundy (the “More Light” guy): Every Step of the way https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Wj0cHXzAGTI
Not directly speaking to Easter, but easy to sing and talks about being on the Way.

I’m also wrestling with re-writing Christ the Lord is Risen today, but as usual the Spirit is waiting three days for resurrection to happen.

                How have you experienced resurrection? How can we offer a worship experience that invites people to the possibility of their own experience?