PH’s Page –
Try to think of it more as a way of being than as a single Sunday in springtime. Easter, that is. Try this, “what does it mean to live a life of resurrection?”
If we think of Easter as only one day, it’s hard to let it be the life-giving, life-changing gift that it is. The ancient church gives us some help with that. They’ve never thought of Easter as a day, but as a season – lasting all the way until the day before Pentecost.
If you’re a fan of fun math facts, here’s a good one for you. This Church season of Easter is often referred to as The Great Fifty Days. To get to fifty, you have to include both Easter and Pentecost. The actual season of Easter is therefore forty-nine days, or a “week of weeks.” Seven is seen in Scripture as the number of perfection, completion. Seven days of creation, for example, which got that whole ball rolling.
What does all this have to do with “what does it mean to live a life of resurrection?”
I think that the Church year gives us these forty-nine days to rehearse our resurrection life-style. Every Sunday in the Easter season when we gather, our Scriptural texts and our liturgies remind us: Hey! It’s Easter. Still. That week-of-weeks season gives us a pretty substantial chunk of the year to get our minds wrapped around the question. What does it mean to live a life of resurrection?
Every one of us will answer that differently, of course. God has made us each unique. But there are some common strains in the thoughts of the faithful that bind us to one another and to our Risen Lord Jesus. Resurrection life is a life lived without fear. What’s there to be afraid of anymore, after all? The worst that could happen – death – has been obliterated. Wiped away. Christ is risen. Christ is risen INDEED.
A life lived more fearlessly frees us up to think less about ourselves and more about others. That’s what Jesus did. He thought first about us (all of us, not some chosen few!) and God answered Christ’s faithfulness with the gift of resurrection. Truly, there is nothing left to fear.
So why, then, do we continue to live in a world of suffering? Hunger? Poverty? Violence? Death?
It’s because we forget. We forget that we are called to live a life of resurrection, and just like the Israelites who tried to save up the manna God freely gave them, we hoard God’s good gifts for ourselves and forget that God has already taken care of us. The resurrection proves it.
The root of all the world’s suffering, death, hunger, poverty, violence, death? A world turned in on itself. A world that forgets that God is our protector, our endless giver, our life.
The week of weeks of the Easter season spreads itself before us. It’s a time to read and learn, listen and pray as each weekly worship brings us more good news about the Risen One and about how the first people of the resurrection learned to live with lives turned outward, toward others. They’re great teachers, those first Christians. And we’re great teachers for one another, too.
I look forward to all you have to share with me, and all that I can learn from you in the coming Easter season. I look forward to singing and praying, eating and drinking together every Easter Sunday morning so that together we can learn from one another what it means to live a life of resurrection, not just a day. So…
See you in Church,
Pastor Hoffman