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.