Practice Resurrection
Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash
During Lent this year,
I had a hard time
Not rushing ahead
To Easter.
Perhaps,
It is because
Of the state of the world.
Perhaps,
It is the season
In my own life.
Perhaps,
It is simply
The tendency
Of being human –
To desire
That
The hard –
However holy –
Be expedient
In its departure.
For whatever reason,
I have been
Longing for resurrection
In a particularly,
Almost painful
Way
This year.
Because of this,
My Lent
Was marked
By thoughts
Of Easters past –
Easters when I served
In Word and Sacrament calls
That walked with people
Through the season of penitence,
Through the Great and Holy Week,
Through the Day of Resurrection
That dawns
Not 24 hours,
But a season,
And a whole way of life,
Really.
I have been remembering Easters
When the band played.
The organ resounded.
The choir sang.
The bells rang.
God’s people
Emphatically proclaimed,
“Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!”
I have also been remembering
Easters when,
By Sunday evening,
The holy-day
Was coming to a close.
People were returning home,
And come Monday morning,
We all went back to work –
We all returned –
Returned
To the way things were
Before –
Before the trumpets
And the banners
And the choirs
And the Alleluias
And everything-has-changed-and-nothing-will-ever-be-the-same-again –
Except –
In the Easters of my memory –
Easter Monday,
Sometimes at least
Has borne an awful resemblance
To Good Friday,
Because
Even though
The stone has been rolled away –
Even though “there is the sound
Of exaltation and victory
In the tents of the righteous” –
Even though
We have proclaimed
With certainty
And with truth,
“I know that my Redeemer lives,
And at the last
He will stand upon the earth;
And after my skin
Has been thus destroyed,
Then,
From my flesh, I shall see God” –
Even though
This is certain and true –
Every Easter of my life
Has been followed
By a world
That is,
Well –
Unchanged.
Except it isn’t,
Unchanged,
I mean.
Every year,
People return
From Easter
To a world
That
Seems to exist
In a perpetual Lent –
But
Having heard anew
That
The end is the beginning,
That resurrection
Actually is –
A proclamation,
A truth,
A way of being,
A way of doing,
A way of living –
Not just a
Someday-off-in-the-distant-future-when-all-of-this-is-over –
But a now,
Today,
Everyday,
Practice –
Not as in a rehearsal,
Or a tryout –
But a practice
As in
A habit –
The usual manner of behaving or doing –
Enacted
And embodied
By we who,
By grace through faith
Actually believe
in the resurrection from the dead –
We are called to
As Wendell Berry advises
In the closing words of his poem,
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front –
We are called to
Practice resurrection.
Now,
I must admit
That often times
It is much easier
To practice crucifixion
Than resurrection.
It is easier to tear down,
Than it is to build up.
It is easier to build walls
Than it is to build bridges –
And our world seems hell-bent on doing so.
It is easier
To lord it over others
Than it is to kneel down
And wash one another’s feet.
It is easier
To consider someone different from ourselves
To be an
Other
An enemy,
Rather than a sibling –
With whom we all,
In fact,
Share 99.9% of our DNA –
A Sibling
In one,
Common human family.
It is easier
To open our mouths
And try to convince others
Of our own “rightness”
Than it is to be quiet
And listen to the wisdom
And truth
That others have to say.
But we are called to practice resurrection
We are called to be instruments of peace,
In a world dead-set on war.
We are called to bring hope amid despair,
Reconciliation in the midst of discord,
Wholeness in the midst of brokenness,
Justice in the face of injustice,
Liberation in the face of oppression,
Proclaim the dawn amid the dusk.
We are called to bring life,
To be the presence of life,
To be on the side of life,
In the midst of death.
We are called to practice resurrection
In my own life and ministry,
I have been
Deeply committed
To the power of proclamation –
Proclaiming the resurrection
Believing
That words
Actually do things,
That proclaiming the resurrection
With words
Actually
In truth,
Raises people from the dead.
I still believe this.
And.
And,
I am drawn,
In my ponderings about
Proclaiming –
And practicing –
Resurrection,
To remember
That
The Word became flesh –
In all its earthly fleshiness
Christ Jesus –
Who emptied himself –
Descended to
The dead,
The place and state
Of no life –
Jesus went there –
In earthly fleshiness –
And in divine holiness –
And there,
Where life was no more,
There –
Among the dead –
Is where life
First dawned
Once again.
Jesus –
The Word-made-flesh –
Even in death,
Practiced resurrection –
Not only in words
That were spoken,
But also
In words
Enacted.
Embodied.
Enfleshed.
And so do we.
So must we.
For,
That is our call.
Practice resurrection.
Where life is no more.
Practice resurrection.
Where Lent is perpetual.
Practice resurrection.
Where the principalities and powers
Wage death.
Practice resurrection.
Where God’s shalom is shattered.
Practice resurrection.
In your work
and in your play,
With your family
And among your friends,
For your beloved
And for the stranger –
Practice resurrection.
And,
The dead shall be raised –
Not just someday,
But today.
Afterall,
This is what it means
To proclaim in word
And in flesh –
Alleluia! Christ is risen.
Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Practice resurrection.
