Renewing Faith: Easterize Your Life

In this teaching the menfolk were still hiding out together, perhaps in the same room where they shared the Passover meal a few nights earlier. Their fear was justified – Jesus was falsely accused, put through an illegal trial, found guilty from biased jurors, and was tortured and executed. As his followers, they assumed they might be next. No judgment here. The women wouldn’t likely be bothered simply by attending to Jesus’ body, so they ventured out:

But very early on Sunday morning the women went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. They found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. So they went in, but they didn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus. As they stood there puzzled, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes.

The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.”

Then they remembered that he had said this. So they rushed back from the tomb to tell his eleven disciples—and everyone else—what had happened. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several other women who told the apostles what had happened. But the story sounded like nonsense to the men, so they didn’t believe it. However, Peter jumped up and ran to the tomb to look. Stooping, he peered in and saw the empty linen wrappings; then he went home again, wondering what had happened. - Luke 24:1-12 (NLT)

Easter is one the most important days in the Christian year as it affirmed some of the deepest hopes of humanity about one of the biggest sources of anxiety: is there "more" after death? What happened on Easter also radically transformed Jesus' followers' grief and fear into joy and courage, a clear indicator that their experiences of the risen Christ were real and extremely powerful. Their experiences also served to strengthen their belief that "the Way" of Jesus was valid, worth following, and was clearly endorsed by God. Instead of killing a sect of Jewish upstarts, the death and resurrection of Jesus sparked a movement that is still impacting billions of lives today.

Easter is a day that we look to as a reminder that death does not get the last word. There is “more” that awaits us beyond the grave which welcomed Jesus. Walking in the Way of Jesus gives us confidence that we will be welcomed, too. The more is stronger than death in all of its forms – a message that Jesus proclaimed throughout his ministry. Power to transform our grief and fear into joy and courage to live. Easter represents hope for tomorrow, but it also offers us hope for today. If we’ll have it, we will join Paul in saying Death, where is your victory? Where is your sting?

Maybe for you today, the threat or pain of death consumes you. Have hope! The experience of Easter was real and the result unquestionable. Whatever comes next is surely marked by love, acceptance, restoration, healing, and peace – if it wasn’t, Jesus wouldn’t be there. For those who have gone before us, we can be assured that they experienced all of those things. And we will, too. If that’s all you need to hear today, rest in peace!

But we don’t have to wait for our death for Easter to be relevant. I would suggest to you that Easter was happening all throughout Jesus’ ministry. People were in the shadows, hiding in their suffering and fear due to things done to them or things they’d done or atrophied life that can happen gradually for anybody. While Jesus was alive, he talked about the Kingdom of God being all around us, in us, and that he came to wake people up to that reality and its potentiality. We don’t have to wait for what comes after death to experience love, restoration, healing, and peace. We can access it now. Easter proclaims this. Can you believe it?

And yet, many people struggle to realize it, to actually see it happen in their lives. Knowing “Easter is a thing” is powerful and hopeful all by itself, but it doesn’t automatically mean that we will experience the power of Easter in our lives now. For that to happen, we need to talk about Bruno.

Disney’s animated film, Encanto, tells the tale of the Madrigal family in Colombia that suffered tragedy that led to magic that allowed life to continue. Subsequent generations were born with great magical gifts to help the community thrive. Bruno’s gift was of prophecy – truth telling about the true state of reality. He could see the writing on the wall related to Mirabel. The magic was to end with her, and with it, the house of cards that had survived until then would fall. Nobody was allowed to talk about Bruno – reality – because it was more comfortable to live in denial. Encanto is a true story – it’s our story – because we all struggle with trying to maintain our respective houses of cards by perpetuating the stories we create, sometimes neglecting or denying painful truths that need to be addressed before they address us. We all need to talk about Bruno regularly. Or else...

The disciples didn’t spend the rest of their lives in the upper room writing up Christian theology. Instead, slowly and surely and for the rest of their lives, they faced their fears with faith and faithfulness, and found the risen Christ – life resurrected – again and again. First they faced the fear that death won. They were fully aware of the source of their grief, but slowly and actively opened up to the possibility that there was more. Their realization of Easter turned into comfort, and courage, and speaking hope, and doing the things Jesus did, and eventually facing their own martyrdom, but with confident hope. Easter changed them. Easter helped them live into the presence of God that is here, right now, that will also fully welcome us, love us, restore us, and heal us in some way postmortem.

Yet we won’t experience much of this in the here and now unless we talk about Bruno, unless we are honest about the parts of our lives that have not been touched by Easter but are hiding out somewhere in fear. Ignoring and denying represent normal human behavior designed to protect ourselves from undue pain. Unfortunately, when left unchecked, this mechanism can result in much greater pain than we are trying to avoid. We can become the proverbial frogs in the kettle, who cannot detect the slowly warming water that will eventually rob them of their lives.

To talk about Bruno is to ask the question about your kettle, your reality, your mess, what’s not working, what’s not healthy, what needs healing. Sometimes we intuitively know this and can name those areas in our lives that need to be “Eastered”. Sometimes lights on the dashboard of our lives tell us: our marriage needs an oil change, or we need to replace the air filter that is choking our environment, or our engine light is on suggesting we need a tune up. Sometimes it’s even more obvious: people who care about us tell us bluntly, “this is unhealthy.” Sometimes it’s painfully obvious – the pain we avoid wrecks our lives in many forms of addiction, dead marriages, estranged family relationships, losing a job, terrible health, etc.

What’s your reality? What fears are you dealing with that keep you in hiding, from allowing your True Self to live? There are probably a handful of things messing with you. What are they? Can you bring yourself to talk about Bruno?

What can you learn from the disciples about how to bring Easter into your reality? How can you begin to wake up to a new way of living? What choices are you making to foster more of Easter and less death in your here and now? One thing is for sure: if you want your life to stay exactly as it is (and likely to get worse), change nothing. Let the suckfest continue. Eventually you will hit rock bottom and not be able to deny reality anymore. The good news is that Easter is always available and will always prevail, even if it only comes after our literal deaths. Please don’t wait that long.

What do we do differently? What is actionable, measurable, to help us “Easterize” our lives? Begin every day with a commitment to walk in the Way that leads to life. I believe this is represented and taught by Jesus. Usually this will mean that we will run into situations where we are forced to ask the question, “what is the Way that leads to life at this moment?” This means we need to build space in our lives to learn what the Way looks like, which is likely to include talking to others on the Way to sort things out, open ourselves to loving care, and help others figure it out as well. The Way that leads to Easter now and forever is going to look at a lot like Jesus, who found a rhythm that kept him connected to God, that stretched his thinking throughout his life, that served others as brothers and sisters, that lent his voice and action for the sake of justice and mercy, that was marked by humility and malleability. Begin your day committing to that. Build time in your life to continue to get nurtured in the Way
(BTW: attending church helps a lot). Note: we meet every Sunday, not just Easter! Monitor your walking in the Way by literally evaluating it regularly. Some traditions examine it twice a day. How about starting with once a week, reflecting on where we welcomed Easter’s hope over death’s sting? End each day with gratitude that you are in the love of God. Rest in peace until you finally rest in peace.

To the Yeahbutt family who hears words like this and comes up with lots of scenarios to challenge it... What about American slaves from centuries ago who suffered untold abuse – what was Easter for them? Or Ukrainian refugees? Or people dying of cancer? Or Dodgers fans? Even in dire, somewhat hopeless circumstances, Easter wins if we let it. Nobody can take away our power to choose our response to the Good News that Easter prevails. Nothing separates us from the love of God, not even the worst horrors we can imagine or inflict. The love of God that empowered and empowers Easter is available even as we suffer. It’s what enabled slaves to create and sing their spirituals while they hoped for emancipation. It’s what allowed prisoners in death camps to face their fate with hope instead of despair. There is a choice to make regarding Easter, and when we make it, it can make all the difference.

May you know that you are deeply loved and will be forever. May you know that there is more beyond the grave, and that the “more” is already here for the taking and the living. May you, in a thousand ways from here to your grave, experience resurrection from death as you live toward that final consummation. May you choose to Easterize your life, so that you might increasingly live, because nothing can separate us from the love of God.