Here and Now Resurrection

Today, Easter Sunday, we celebrate the Feast of the Resurrection

            and not just for today, but for the Great 50 Days of Easter

 

We need 50 days of Easter

            - and notice that this is longer than Lent. 

We need 50 days to celebrate and practice living in Resurrection Life

                        to foster being open to realization of Resurrection

                                    as a present reality and potency of life

                                                                                    right here and now

 

So to aid in this awakening during the Easter Season

            we do things liturgically to represent living in Resurrection

·      We stand.

·      We omit the confession, because we are acknowledging                   

     that we are living in the state of salvation and grace                                           that the Resurrection signifies.

·      And we add Alleluias whenever we get the chance.

 

In the Resurrection story we just heard read

            the women come to the tomb seeking the corpse

                        to do it service and honor as respects the dead.

In that dark cave of a tomb as they fumble around searching for the body,

            instead they suddenly encounter right beside them 

                        two men in dazzling clothes that flood the tomb with light.

That’s enough to make you jump right out of your skin!

But it’s the question they ask which is the most important:

            “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

 

I want to quote from Bill Ellis,

            who had been dean at St. John’s Cathedral in Spokane.

He wrote this to address that provocative question 

                                                            the two in the tomb had posed.

 

Our catechism tells us that 

            “By his resurrection Jesus overcame death 

            and opened for us the way of eternal life.” 

Were we to content ourselves with these few teachings, 

    most of which are couched in highly metaphorical and poetic language, 

we would draw the reasonable conclusion 

            that the resurrection of Jesus is not particularly relevant to us 

                        while we are alive on this earth; 

it becomes important only when we die by making the next step possible.  

And thus, as far as our present existence is concerned, 

            the resurrection is like an exit from a very large building.  

It is nice to know it is there, 

            but we won’t need it until we are ready to leave.

 

This is helpful for all of us, 

      as we deal with our own mortality and of those we love, 

                        but it is not enough.  

A religion that deals only with what happens after we die 

            is a religion for the dead, not the living. 

What difference does the Resurrection make to us right here and now?

 

For all of us, from the least of us to the greatest theologians,

            our understanding of the resurrection 

                        is much too small, too limited, vastly incomplete.

I think I know what resurrection is, and then, lo and behold, 

            the scope of resurrection in my experience and awareness 

                                    expands beyond the borders of my comprehension.

Resurrection is far more than life after death,

            far more than an idea about heaven.

 

We say in the creed we believe in the resurrection of the body.

            But what sort of body is this?

The women come to the tomb,

            and even before the stone is rolled away, the body is gone.

That’s some sort of body! a body that can dematerialize,

            and then rematerialize in a room 

                        where the way in by the door is barred.

What’s going on here?

 

Yet it is a body that can be touched, 

            a body that can take in food, eat and swallow,

                        not like Marley’s ghost whom Scrooge could look through

                        and see the waistcoat buttons on the other side.

What kind of body is this?

The bodies we are familiar with die and decompose and return to dust.

 

But resurrection is more than a body, a physical body or a spiritual body.

Resurrection came after the death of Jesus,

            a death into which Jesus had taken all our sins, all our suffering,

                                                all our deaths.

He died our deaths.  He died our deaths for us.

There he was one moment dead

            and the next moment eternally alive and present – to all – everywhere,

                        a new sacramental creation.

 

Resurrection is the New Creation.

When Jesus died taking on all our death,

            that death took with it all death.

With his last breath, the last breath of the One who is the Word of God,

            who spoke all creation into being,

            now in this last breath he takes with him all beings,

                        back into that realm of Uncreated Light,

                        the realm of the undivided waters

                                    over which the Spirit was hovering,

                        back into the Source, back to God,

and now he brings to life, lifts up all that the Father had entrusted to him.

 

And so now everything is New Life,

            new life sustained in the resurrection.

It is all the New Creation, 

            continually and eternally sustained in the resurrection life of Jesus.

 

Now we can begin to see what difference resurrection means to us 

                                                right here and now.

 

We are living in resurrection.

If we had eyes to see this, we would be able to recognize

            the newness of every moment,

            the incredible wonder of life, of breathing, of growing,

            the love which sustains all life new every moment,

                        despite all the strife, contention, warfare, and suffering.

 

We would see the abundance of goodness, of life.

We would see through our attitudes of scarcity.

We would see through our fears for what they are – baseless.

 

If we had eyes to see the resurrection

            we would see in each other the image of Jesus the Resurrected One.

 

We would see Jesus in each and every one of us,

                                                                        in all living beings.

We would bow down in awe and love before one another.

 

If our awareness of present resurrection were to expand,

            this would have great implications on what we would do.

 

It could shift our priorities, reorder our attitudes,

            change our emotional reactivity,

            reorient our aims and purpose in life,

            and energize us for participating more fully in life.

It would send us out as agents of resurrection,

                        lights sparked eternally 

                                    from that ultimate Paschal candle

                                    of Uncreated Light at the Source,

                                    the creating Word of God himself,

                                    the Resurrection Lord.

 

So that group of devoted women left the tomb

            and reported to the disciples and everyone all that they had seen and heard.

And the disciples’ response was not the joyful response we give when we hear

                        Alleluia! Christ is risen!

not

                        The Lord is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

 

They dismissed the women’s testimony.

            Easter Day was not yet a celebration for them.  They would be in hiding.

Still, Peter, at least, went to check out the report.

            But don’t go looking for the living among the dead.

 

May we not be so slow to believe, to accept the joyful Gospel good news.

 

This is the day of great rejoicing, this Easter Day,

            a day to offer our greatest praise and thanksgiving to Jesus,

                        for bearing our sins, our suffering, our death,

                        for revealing to us the heart of God,

                        for opening the way to life every new,

                                    and for the here and now.

            Offer our greatest praise and thanksgiving

                        for his incredible love and compassion,

                                                            for Jesus himself.

Alleluia.  Christ is risen…