Disciple: Practice Resurrection
An reflection on Easter
By the Rev. Ginny Bain Inman
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
The Lord is Risen, indeed! Alleluia!
This bold Easter proclamation is the single most radical statement Christians ever make—especially Episcopalians who tend to avoid exclamation points in church. The claim that Jesus the Christ, the one crucified as a criminal on the outskirts of Jerusalem, has risen from the dead is both brave and crazy. If there is one thing we know for sure, it is that dead people stay dead. Yet every Easter, we put on our pastel finery and seersucker suits and make our way through a sea of lilies to stand together and assert that we believe in a God who has not given up on this world or us, a God who makes a way out of no way, a God of resurrection who raises us still.
TURNING FROM DESPAIR
You know the story by heart. As the Gospel of John tells it, while it is still dark, Mary goes to the grave. But when she arrives to say her last goodbye, the stone has been removed. Jesus is not there.
We know this is impossible. We understand the way things work. All that lives, dies. We watched Rome crucify Jesus on a cross—a form of execution designed to cause maximum pain and ultimate intimidation. We saw his broken body anointed and put in the tomb. We stood witness as the stone was rolled across the entrance to the cave, and we resigned ourselves to the way of the world.
Yet the tomb is empty. Other disciples come and go, but Mary remains, rooted by pain and grief to an unfolding reality she cannot understand, and it is there he meets her. As Mary weeps at the edge of the empty tomb, Jesus calls her by name. “Mary,” Jesus says, and with one word, the light returns. “Rabbi,” she cries. And she turns.
She turns away from despair, away from the way things are and have always been—away from a Good Friday world—to embrace the full power of a love that has no end. She longs to hold on tight, but Jesus is already moving ahead.
“Go,” Jesus says. He knows there is plenty to paralyze us then and now: wars without end, racial unrest, the passing of political civility, economic uncertainty, growing extremism and violence. There are the pressing concerns of our daily lives: decisions about how to care for our aging parent or unhappy child, regret about things we have done or left undone, a gnawing sense we are not fully who God created us to be. Jesus does not mince words. “Go,” he tells Mary, “go to my brothers.” And Mary goes, announcing to the disciples and anyone who will listen, “I have seen the Lord.”
EASTER IS NOW
The Easter narrative encapsulates the Way of Love, a way that begins with our turning to God and ends with going to share the Good News of God’s power to resurrect, heal and redeem. In the season ahead, we are challenged to consider how these two particular practices, named in the Easter Gospel, might shape our life and call.
For we are all marked by death. We know what it feels like to be entombed by pride or sin, dishonesty or regret. We recognize the repetition of being stuck on the same soundtrack, a continuous loop of all the ways we are not worthy or successful, or fall short. We are sick and tired of being sick and so, so tired. We weep or run away or insulate ourselves with a variety of addictions. It is a hard truth that crucifixion comes before resurrection. But God does not look away, even when we have dug our graves ourselves. What is the stone that needs to be rolled away for you?
Easter begins with an invitation to turn from an empty tomb towards the One who calls us each by name. The resurrection is a potent reminder that God never, ever gives up on us. There is no place God will not go, no person God does not love. No matter how we got there, God does not leave us in the grave.
Easter begins in the dark, but it doesn’t end there. The statesman Winston Churchill understood this. At the close of the funeral service Churchill planned for himself, a single trumpeter stood at the west end of St. Paul’s Abbey and sounded “Taps,” the song that signals dusk, the close of the day, and is frequently played at military funerals. As the last note faded away, silence enveloped the great space, and it seemed a fitting end to a full life. To the surprise of the congregation, another trumpeter then rose, this time at the east end of St. Paul’s that faced the rising sun. He played “Reveille,” the song that marks the morning, the call to a new day.
Death does not have the last word. This is the great Good News of Easter. Resurrection is not a limited-time offer. It is not a singular event that happened long ago in ancient Palestine. Easter is the ongoing claim that love is stronger than death (or depression or divorce), that we are made to be joy-filled and generous, and what seems like the end may be the beginning.
When the Alleluias fade and all that is left from Easter morning is half a plastic purple egg and a package of Peeps (the fruitcakes of Easter), we can return to the routines of carpool or chemo, of cooking or classes, with renewed trust in the Risen Lord. We are not people who celebrate on Easter. No, we are an Easter people—formed by our experience of resurrection—a people who look for signs of hope, who act with courage in times of uncertainty, who keep faith in the face of fear, and who recognize that night ends and morning comes anew. Every single day.
Jesus left the tomb and will not stay where we put him. In every age, he refuses to be boxed in, limited, historicized or embalmed. The One who stretched out his arms of love on the hard wood of the cross so that each one of us might know the power of his embrace, is always going first, out in front, showing us the Way of Love.
“I have seen the Lord,” Mary exclaims. I have seen him bind up the broken-hearted and make a feast out of five loaves and two fish. I have seen him challenge Caesar, forgive a fraud and make the lonely smile. I have seen the real power of love to heal, transform and resurrect. You have, too.
Wendell Berry, the poet farmer, writes:*
So friends, every day do something that won’t compute.
Love the Lord. Love the world.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it…
Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.
Practice resurrection.
You, created in the image of God, are a full participant in the promise of Easter. Every time you manifest the redemptive love of God by praying for someone who has hurt you, by welcoming a stranger or comforting a child, you practice resurrection. Each day you confront injustice, stand up for someone who is suffering or see one who lives in shadow, you bring back someone from the dead. Do not stand at the edge of the tomb or construct a cave to keep you safe or contented or certain. Go. Live like one who has been called by name. Tell what you have heard and seen. Heal and forgive and serve. You are part of the loving, liberating, life-giving Jesus Movement. Practice resurrection.
Easter is not over. Easter is now.
*Excerpt from Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, Counterpoint Press, 1999.
The Rev. Ginny Bain Inman is the acting diocesan officer for adult formation and lifelong learning.
Tags: North Carolina Disciple
