The Church is Easter. Out of death: life.
Out of darkness: a lush green world, flowers in the ice,
sunrays in the storm, mustard seeds galore.
Our souls enter a spiritual spring time,
our bodies given over to leaping and dancing,
our very beings saturated in hosannas.
Our shouting crashes in upon ths world: the Lord Lives, We live.
Resurrection resounds throughout our community. (Ann Weems)
We are a people of the Resurrection. An Easter People.
The challenge we face, whether we’re aware of it or not, is to go out into the world and without fear, embarrassment, or hesitation, share the story of what happened, and continues to happen since that first Easter Morning … Saying “Christ is Risen” and “He lives” and all of the slogans that are part of this Season in the Church, is about affirming life and celebrating our certainty that God is with us each step of the way.
Easter is not about the chocolate and bunnies and coloured eggs, it is instead about affirming and celebrating life, even in the face of death.
Over the last couple of days, I’ve been reading a book about preaching the Gospel – the Good News in a world that is seething with violence and fear … the author ponders how we are to engage our theology – our story – as a Church in a world that seems diametrically opposed to our values and our core beliefs … too often, in the Church when we realize that juxtaposition, we tend to pull away and form an isolate little enclave that prides itself in NOT being of the world, but removed from it … or we simply shrug our shoulders and say “what can we do?” and become part of the world …
The calling of the Church today, as it was when Mary stood in the garden and found the empty tomb, is to find a way of proclaiming the core of our faith, and offering our society and our world a better and a different way … and it ALL begins in that moment when Mary stood in the shadowy darkness of dawn and heard her name whispered by a familiar voice …
Why do we look for LIFE amongst the dead?
Why do we look for LIFE amongst the graves?
Why do we look for LIFE, when through the Resurrection it has found us and it calls us to celebrate?
The resurrection is ALL around us, we need only open our eyes to see it, then we can head out into the world and share that Good News – afterall, that’s what we’re called to do as The Church –to share the Good News that ‘because Christ live, we live …”
(In search of New Resurrections – Ann Weems)
May it be so – thanks be to God … Let us pray …
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