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!