Dear Family in Faith,

I do not believe that Jesus walks out of the tomb.  Rather, something happens to Jesus while he is “inside” the tomb.  However Jesus was when he goes IN to the tomb—it’s clearly “different” AFTER the tomb. 

In the Gospel stories, the tomb is already opened when witnesses arrive, but Jesus was clearly gone.  More disturbingly—one of the details of the resurrection is that Jesus’ grave clothes are folded and “left behind.”  Which seems to imply, there is an escaped, resurrected Jesus with no clothes somewhere!  The reminders all point to Jesus having told his followers about his crucifixion and death, but that he would see them again, in Galilee. 

This is just one more way the news of Easter is disturbing, unsettling, and should clearly be alarming to us! 

But instead, we take it as if it is a fait accompli.  This was all “supposed to happen” as Jesus said.  So we really can’t say the news of Easter is surprising.  Right? 

I think this means we continue to remain mostly ignorant and naive about Easter’s raw power!  It is not just that the tomb is empty, or that Jesus was not there; or, that Jesus is risen, indeed.  Jesus was dead; and then …suddenly, he was not.  We know what this means for Jesus.  But what should it really mean for all of us? 

Jesus died and was raised.  The story of our faith is death AND resurrection.  One is not complete without the other.  Death does not have the last word; rather, as Paul writes to believers, “death has lost its sting!”  The trouble is death and resurrection is meant to change us.  It clearly changes Jesus.  We can’t die and rise and still be the same.  Resurrection is not a restoration of what once was.  Resurrection does not mean living again in the same way.  Resurrection will not put us back on an old timeline.  If we complete the pattern we are dying to our old life and being raised into a new life.  And a new life isn’t identical to the old; we are changed—as individuals and as a community. 

This should be “good news.”  But it’s not.  Research has well-established over years, now, that when patients are told by physicians that they need to make lifestyle changes, or they will die—less than 10% are successful at making the needed modifications and changes!  That is, given a straight choice to “change or die”—more than 90% of us are unable to change. 

Change guru Ronald Heifetz writes that “people don’t resist change, they resist loss.” 

Death is synonymous with loss. 

Though the Bible tells us over and over, “do not be afraid,” when the first step is death, we often can’t see our way to “death AND resurrection.”  Fear of loss required by change, fear of change imposed by death, fear that dying and rising isn’t certain—ends up driving our stories rather than the promises of God. 

Easter is meant to change this.  It’s meant to tip the scales back toward God’s power, fueled by love, life, and joy.  Easter is a performative moment in which death and resurrection become a steady, reliable, progression of dying and rising.  We’re all dying and rising.  We’re all being made new.  We’re being separated from what was and transformed into what will be.  It’s already taking hold.  And resistance is futility. 

But what does this really mean for us?  God is at work making all things new.  Even us.  Especially us.  And what will be, isn’t just a fait accompli.  It’s still a work in progress.  We are dying and rising every day.  It doesn’t mean we are losing.  It means some things we get to lay down, or leave behind, so that God’s promises are driving our stories more and more. 

God’s promises driving our stories, always.  The Bible is a big book; there are lots of stories and promises.  Easter is a big one.  When we declare, “He is risen,” it isn’t only for a day.  

SACRED. HOLY. MOMENTS. And Shouting Stairs

 Dear Family in Faith,

This Sunday, which is Palm Sunday, we’re celebrating a baptism during worship; and we’ll be reading the gospel story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem—as if he were taking the worldly throne away from Rome, and occupying it himself.  As if this were to be the great restoration of the great Kingdom of Israel!  No wonder both religious leaders and Roman occupiers might have been “nervous” about this Passover celebration and the power of God. 

Ordinarily, THAT story is followed in worship by another story—where Jesus’ “victory” includes his betrayal, arrest, denial, and eventual crucifixion and death.  This second story, known as the Passion story, is a witness to Jesus’ suffering and dying.  You know already, don’t you?  The shouts of loud “Hosanna!” on Palm Sunday morning are drowned out by shouts of “Crucify!  Crucify!” on the following Friday morning!  

It’s between “Hosanna!” and “Crucify!” that Jesus is arrested, bound, and taken to Caiaphas to be tried (err, falsely accused) in front of Jewish religious authorities.  The religious leaders are empowered to accuse Jesus; but they are prohibited from imposing a sentence of death.  They can order their thugs to spit in Jesus’ face; to slap Jesus and mock him; and Jesus can comfortably turn the other cheek, knowing they cannot take his life.  The zealous religious prosecutors seek witnesses against Jesus, but they can’t find a corroborating account to any of their accusations.  And while the religious court will ask Jesus question after question, he will remain agravatingly elusive, or silent. 

Before all of this, Peter tried pledging to follow Jesus, saying:

"Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death!" 

But Jesus said,

"I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day, until you have denied three times that you know me." 

Rather than the false witnesses the religious leaders line up, rather than Jesus himself, enter a fowl to become the star witness in this drama!  And though Peter has been told how this story will end, he remains dedicated to any ending but the one Jesus shared with him!  Until …that cock crowed. 

In Jerusalem, there’s a set of stairs rising stately up an incline toward a Church that now sits atop what many people believe was the location of Caiaphas’ house, outside the Jerusalem walls, in the old City of David, in one of the most ancient parts of the holy city.  The stairs are said to have ascended to the courtyard where Peter would arrive to stand around a fire to warm himself.  Where Peter would be accused of being one of the men with Jesus; one who knew Jesus; even one who believed in Jesus.  Yet unlike Jesus, Peter did not remain silent. 

On this night, Jerusalem was in the hands of the Romans, whose military might and authority had arrived to be especially stationed in the religious capitol during the celebration of the Passover—the proclamation of the story of the Hebrew liberation from Egypt.  The Romans were guarding against any attempt to reprise the story for real.  And the Jews were necessarily gathered secretly, out of sight of Roman spies and Jewish bystanders—because what they were talking about involved whispers of messiahship as well as blasphemy, sedition, and the possible overthrow of Rome.  About which, Jesus says nothing. 

This set of stairs now sits in a less-popular neighborhood, despite its historically significant surroundings.  We quickly and easily identified the poorer residents who lived in nearby homes as as our group began to climb the stairs and arrange ourselves for worship.  Then, someone read a psalm.  Another prayed a prayer.  Another took out a bible and began to read from the gospel account central to this location …when it began …crowing.  At first, each of us seemed to believe we must have been “hearing things.”  But the cock just kept crowing …and crowing.  Eventually, gazing into one another’s faces we could see—we were all hearing it.  The cock.  Crowing.  And crowing, and crowing, and crowing, and crowing.  As if Peter’s denial had been unleashed like the flooding rain of a summer thunderstorm, over and over and over.  Annoyingly persistent, the crowing kept up, until all we could do was stop worship …and just listen. 

Sacred.  Holy.  Moments.  And even those stairs seemed to be shouting. 

Come this Sunday.  Add your voice to the shouting choruses—carry a palm, profess your faith, submit yourself to follow Jesus to the cross through the crowds and with the deafening cock-crows that might dissuade you.  It’s time to join the parade of faith, to remember your own baptism, to voice your own promised following, and wait, listening in hope .  …God is rewriting our stories.  See you in Church!  

It's Happening Again: Resurrection is not Resuscitation

 

It’s happening again.  Two years ago, the same thing was happening.  A pair of cardinals were building a nest in the shrubbery outside of my bedroom window.  We’ve watched them do this for years.  You see the cardinals around, and then one day, mamma cardinal is nervously watching me dress through the window pane.  We’re almost certain it’s the same pair.  But each year, the nest ends up in a different part of the shrubbery. 

Two years ago, as COVID was just beginning, it was an amazing distraction.  Desiree and I spent hours one morning just watching the nest during feeding time.  But this year … nest build day number two, is slated on a day with a pretty mean weather forecast.  And as I’m writing this, I’m wondering once again if they’ll make it.  …And I hope these birds will make it one more year—building a nest, hatching some eggs, feeding some babies, and some more cardinals in the neighborhood.  But …we can’t know today what the outcome will be. 

Our first year, a bad storm flooded the nest right after eggs were laid, the nest hung sideways for days until gravity finally had its way.  Another year, the baby birds in a nest low in the shrubbery, disappeared suddenly before they fledged.  Two years ago, we accounted one new baby bird for each egg we’d seen in the nest, and they grew big and fat over the summer and into the fall.  One chance in three? 

Two years ago, as we were trying to wrap our brains around this new thing called COVID-19 that had interrupted all of our lives, I wrote this:

Resurrection is not resuscitation--we’re not going back to what was before COVID-19 when all this is over, to restart our lives.  We’re going to live in new ways because COVID-19 happened to us, like a storm flooding out a bird nest.  And sure, we need COVID-19 to die and all that; but there are still other things about us, in us, that need to die so that love can rise.  And in the midst of this storm around us--that’s a gift. 

Can we live through this?  How long will it last? When will it be over?  How will we know? 

In two years’ time, now, we’ve suffered through disease, dark and darker days, at least two Hurricanes and a wicked winter storm; now, there’s added war in Ukraine.  First there was COVID, then there were surges, and different forms of the disease; …and now, none of us are the same.  We’ve all been changed from what we were back then, in ways that make it impossible for us to “return” to whatever we knew before. 

Two years ago, Sarah Howell-Miller invited me into this question about my life during that Lent: “What needs to die in order for love to rise?”  Because resurrection isn’t resuscitation.  Jesus died; love arose.  And as we walk the road toward Jerusalem and Jesus’ death we should never be expecting that what happens after Good Friday is that we just return to whatever “normal” was or might have been before Good Friday.  Good Friday happens.  Easter morning happens.  And none of us are the same. 

These cardinals.  They build a nest.  They do their best to keep safe and keep others safe in their world.  And sometimes, what happens is a storm blows the whole thing out, or drowns them out, or predaters are more crafty or an individual is careless.  …But there’s a new nest each year, not always in the same part of the shrubbery, some lessons are learned or retained—no individual seems just the same, though they remain similar. 

Jesus never said life was or would be easy.  Jesus does say, over and over and over, that he will be with us.  And he does say over and over and over and over—that we should not be afraid.  He even says rather famously, for the wind and the waves to “cease” and to “be still”—and they obeyed him.  So …can we risk dying so that love can rise? 

If I were a cardinal, I’d have given up years ago!  No use trying, if the end result is always in peril.  Farmers in Nebraska used to say there was no use speculating if the weather was going to be your friend—the only part that was certain about the weather was that it was going to change  …We’re all being changed.  I suppose our hope should be that every day we’re able to look and be more like Jesus—who is love risen. 

There are people whose lives we will touch …and they and we are changed forever.  There will be chances to serve and be served.  There are parts of us that will die, so that more love rises.  We will witness transformation in our little neighborhoods that make life better for our neighbors—and ourselves.  This is the secret of the Lenten journey.  It happens every year—come what may.  This year, it’s happening again.  It is a blessing, again.  It is salvation, again.  It is just what we need …again.  And none of us will be the same. 

See you in Church!