Musings on Resurrection
Spring is here and Easter is fast approaching. Our plans for Holy Week are being finalized and our NoHo first staff and leadership are looking forward to marking this most holy season with our church family.
During Holy Week, we remember those last days of Jesus’ earthly life and the final lessons Jesus taught his followers: a lesson of humility and service as he washed the disciples feet; a lesson of faith as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane; a lesson in perseverance and sacrifice as he endured the cross; a lesson in waiting as the disciples hid, mourned and waited and then a lesson in resurrection on that blessed morning! You are invited to to participate in any and all of the worship services, in the “Holy Week in a box” devotions and in the celebrations of the Resurrection on Easter morning.
Resurrection is a difficult concept: that one who is dead would return to life. Resurrection is a miracle, so few have had personal experience with such an event. But small resurrections can be experienced and practiced every day, and these can give us a glimpse of the miracle of Easter.
For example, a few years ago I completed a sewing project in which I deconstructed some clothing items and re-constructed those pieces into a pulpit banner to celebrate Easter in the church sanctuary. This is not a miracle, but a transformation: from old to new; from clothing to banner; from scraps of fabric to celebratory decor. It is not spectacular, but a simple example of what how God makes “all things new.”
Many of our Easter traditions and symbols derive from Pre-Christian pagan spring festivals and they speak to the possibility of new life: the butterfly emerging from the cocoon, the beautiful spring flowers that begin as a dead-looking bulb and then emerge bright and colorful burst from their cold winter graves, a chick bursting from the cold shell of an egg, the empty cross. Symbols help us to understand the difficult theological concept of the resurrection.
But the Resurrection of Jesus is a gift to us all - a sign of hope in the glory of God; A sign that Death does not have the final word; a vision that assures us that “with God all things are possible.”
Let us practice resurrection each day, showing the world the transformation in us, the evidence of the gift of Grace given on Easter. Let us too be transformed on this Easter morning, so that in celebration of the resurrection we may exclaim, "Christ is risen! And we are risen indeed."