Thoughts on an Easter Resurrection Sermon

Sunday - in the eyes of the women, the stone rolled away and the empty tomb meant one ugly but logical conclusion - theft. Someone/Some hateful group had stolen the Master's body. There was no immediate understanding but a gradual but shocking revealing of what was true - that Jesus was who he claimed to be and that death met its master. The angel messenger prompted the women "Don't you remember?" and then the Word says "and then they remembered!" Luke 24:6-8

Have you ever been in the midst of a situation or event that did not make sense? Or rocked your world of what you thought you understood? Or every sense (sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste) were telling you one thing, but your mind another? Our speaker identified that experience as "having no categories" to understand something foreign. He used some examples:

• a Central American Indian traveling in a car on the interstate for the first time and thinking that a type of dragon was after her in the form of an 18-wheeler coming up fast behind them.
• Scholars cited the Islanders/Mexican Americans that greeted the New World explorers as gods, not understanding their armor, their ships, etc. They had no categories to comprehend the tools and accoutrements of these humans.

I have only personally experienced a bit of this phenomenon when in other cultures:

• a Guatemalan trash dump where whole societies were arranged in a pecking order of who had the highest community standing to have earned the honor live at the 'top of the heap' (literally) to scavenge the best pickings as the dump trucks delivered the 'fresh' trash. Everyone else descended in levels until the lowest of the low who lived at the bottom of the pit. I walked in a daze - unable to comprehend this sight, to take it in fully. Embarrassed - knowing that I didn't have to stay here, live here, that I could leave at any time to go get clean (or try to) and have some time to try to understand what I had seen.
• Or sitting in a room full of orphans in Ukraine, trying to get by with nonverbal nods, smiles, and gentle looks to try to connect and bless while waiting on an interpreter.

I can't imagine trying to wrap my mind around resurrection and all its implications, especially with tear-puffy eyes from grieving, from a state of exhaustion (emotional and physical), and while on a mission to tend to a burial scene that had been hurriedly put together (another's grave, borrowed - spices not applied, wrapped properly). I can hardly understand now - except for in one way.

Our speaker, Josh Graves, briefly mentioned fairy tales - Disney stories. Idyllic longings for the seemingly impossible (but the just or right) to become real. That possibly the Resurrection Miracle is the norm in God's equation, and our broken world the anomaly. I think of the Matrix movie, and so many other literary associations of wrestling with the injustice and wrongness of the world (To Kill a Mockingbird).

I believe this to be true. I came to find ways of affirming this life/death/life cycle (especially visually) and believe in the promised return of life years ago after watching the Disney Firebird short video. It epitomizes my thoughts on this cycle. This longing in me for things to be made right, for justice to be truly administered, for the broken to be mended or restored completely is a reflection that things have gone horribly wrong here and need redemption. That I'm part of an interim timeframe where it is my joy to shine light, to support the lifting of a standard high that sometimes will show how horribly things have shifted from dead center, where they need to be. And sometimes that the world hates seeing or recognizing the contrast. And that in that moment of recognition it brings out a visceral hatred. Keep things dark, so that we can all agree that it's just dark. Don't mess with the system (or wake the volcano). Or even worse - don't be made a fool of, don't be naive. Stay cynical.

On a lighter side note ( I know, I digress all the time, sorry) - this makes me think of the HGTV show Holmes on Homes - we all want the building contractor who knows how to use the plumb line correctly - that he can tell when there has been shoddy work that won't stand the test of time, and he knows just how to fix it - to "make it right" as he says. We all want that kind of hero to come in and save the day in an hour show.

We live in a messy world, where nature, friends, children - die. Or where relationships get twisted, marred -  misunderstandings abound between people and nations. Sometimes my tears have the power to heal, or at the very least draw attention to, injustice. I know people much more talented at this than I, but I want to walk in their footsteps, and learn from an ineffable Holy Spirit that always knows a way to heal, to restore. And when there is silence, and an inability to do anything at all to help, to wait silently and in trust that the mysteries of the Godhead will resolve it in a wondrous way that I could not have imagined.

I don't believe this is naivete - I have experienced this cycle over and over again personally in my short life, and there is no denying the agonies of the death phase, when you truly believe that there will be no returning light. Or even just the numbing, trudging surviving phases where lifting the spoon to your mouth exhausts all your reserves. But I do testify to the reality (that is in the truest sense 'real') that life comes again - that the dawn breaks even if behind obscuring clouds, the burnt blooms again, the catepillar dies to his form to break out of his tomb a radiant butterfly, that fellow believing mourners can laugh at death's sting, that the birthing mother believes she is to die only to bring forth new life, and that abandoned daughters can learn to trust again.

Ask around - and see if there are not compelling evidences of rebirth. They are but pastel hue examples of the real stained glass, my friends, of new transformed life after passing through death.

God’s economy of time

5/9/07 writings after first Ukraine trip

These words are like a trumpet call – to a higher, nobler life. That new birth we’ve been initiated to is messy, it’s painful, a struggle, a fight. But living in that new life, how do I walk it out? Well…first – led by a Spirit and only in his strength and in the midst of everyday living, of minute by minute decisions. I don’t know a lot about the Holy Spirit, but I think I have known Him all my life, I just didn’t have a familiar name for him. A hallmark of following in my life has been choosing openness, vulnerability when I just want to run away, when I desperately want to hide or find a compelling distraction. So, I am trying to bookend my days with a request in the morning to God to be with me and guide me and help me to hear his call and respond, and at the end of the day asking forgiveness where I have stubbornly refused his help or his leading.

It means going on an adventure of seasons- the death of winter, the renewal of spring, an understanding of the fullness of time and not quite yet, of trusting that the events of my life and the world’s life do have meaning and symbolism.

But how do I interpret the events? The timing of my actions? I won’t have a full view til heaven, but I do have an interpreter. When I was in Ukraine recently, I had to go where I was led, trusting completely in my guides. I had to trust that they were understanding my intent with my compilation of English words and that they conveyed back to me in their thoughts. We were both limited, but through body language and smiles, we spoke. Having to interpret others speaking English as their second language, and their phrasing being so unique and different, it made what they said very poignant to me. One example was "Of course it is raining, you are leaving us and the sky cries." It's like having deep, heart-talk conversation all the time, in regular conversations! I would have been completely lost without them…I had not prepared for my trip by studying maps, landmarks, places to see. I went in faith, so every moment was an adventure. I think that my faith walk needs to be more like that trip, where I prepare as much as possible, but let it all go as the day or the length of the trip unfolds. My choice, actions, decisions have impact.

My choice to open up, to have boundaries, certainly, but to have a certain willingness of heart is a constant hard work of the day, minute to minute. At work, do I have to prove myself or my stature, or can I let my work and attitude speak for me? Can I allow myself to make mistakes in judgment, to fall, trusting that He who is stronger and gentler than me will lift me up, rather than me yanking myself up by my bootstraps? God has the full, long view of history and my unique place in it. Will I trust myself to his leading? When it’s quiet, will I allow myself to rest rather than rushing to fill a void?

An example - In the midst of a broken and shattering relationship with a family member, I am unsure of myself. The implications of my actions each stand out like a sore thumb – how will it be interpreted by someone who hasn’t understood LOVE, the deep transforming love I am coming to know. I don’t know how to display love accurately within the context of a warped and estranged relationship, where their definitions of love and relationship are the absolute least common denominator. But I have resources to the full, to draw on. I have this family, this body, I have the love of my husband, real active love, I have the strength of a stepfather who adopted me as his own, I have a storehouse full of love that has been poured into me. Can’t I give out of that fullness? Can’t I ask for strength, for superhuman ability to love on the crucifix of broken relationship and hurts? I know that my answer has to be a Yes, unequivocally yes. But it is a hard thing to live out – it is a spirit-filled struggle.

The spiritual life is a lifelong process of opening ourselves to God. The spiritual journey begins even before we are aware of it and brings us to the point of opening our hearts to God.

As we grow in our practice of personal spiritual disciplines, we grow in our responsiveness and obedience to God's call. Personal prayer, Bible study, spiritual reading, fasting, journaling, acts of justice and compassion - these and other personal spiritual practices, all are means of opening our lives to God. I am impatient – I want to see the results now, I want the reconciliation and resolution now. I want the future now, because I have no faith. I am unsure of what the future holds, so I fear and worry and fret. Listening and walking with God, what does that look like? What does this new life mean to me? I always used to ask my mother “Out of two good choices, how do you know for sure if this thing or that thing is the right thing to do? How do I know it is the right choice?” I struggle with it even now – but now it is a spiritual struggle with resources to call on. It calls on me to be faithful in the moment of the Spirit’s leading, of trusting that even if I can’t see the end result that I have answered with willingness. There is such a thing as “in the fullness of time”…and am I willing to wait or will I play my own end game? A description of this new life in all these scriptures – it is active, it is knowing, it is trusting, it is loving, it bears eternal fruit – think of that. That has always been amazing to me, that in partnership with the Spirit’s power, I can join in creating something eternally lasting. God did not create this new life to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited, mainly with joy in trusting the one I am continually coming to know. Romans 4:21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. And what are those promises? Do I claim them to be true, do I remind myself of truths despite how I feel in a situation or difficult relationship? Do I believe that I can do all things through Him that strengthens me? It’s His strength – do I claim it?

I do think you have to hold your life lightly - and you have to have a trusting relationship with God that allows for turns and twists, for trusting when it seems impossible. I recount and remember his generosities to me, and out of that wellspring, go forward.