Easter Sunday is the highpoint of the church year and of our Christian faith, for it is when we remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The language associated with Easter has been built around the theme of hope ever since the days of the first disciples and the apostle Paul. For example, Paul wrote to the church in Corinth and said, “We rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead (and who) will continue to rescue us; on him we have set our hope” (2 Corinthians 1:9-10). And in a letter of the early church it says, “God has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading” (I Peter 1:3-4).
For this message to be truly good news, it is important that the word “hope” not simply be tossed around as a pleasant thing we like to hear but which has no concrete meaning in our daily lives. Hope is not wishful thinking, as when a child hopes for a pony as a birthday present. Hope is not superficial and piein- the-sky, as when we hope serendipitously to find the place we’re looking for while driving without a map, or blithely hope that all forms of violence and pain will magically disappear from the world overnight. Hope is grittier than that, grounded in the dirt of earth even as it extends upward to the heaven’s heights.
Earlier this year, I read an article on a difficult subject, namely, the mental and emotional profiles of people who choose to be suicide-bombers. In those cases in which a bomb malfunctioned and the person was not killed, researchers have had the opportunity to learn more about what motivates people to accept the role of being a suicide bomber. What I found interesting was that anxiety about death itself played a significant role in moving people to agree to kill themselves as a suicide bomber. In effect, there was this paradox that the very fear of death, the fear of leaving no legacy or feeling their life was without meaning, was a key factor in motivating someone to choose violent death by their own hand. It was built around a twisted hope that killing themselves and others would somehow give meaning to that person’s life exactly at the point of their own death.
This is the antithesis of Easter hope. While Easter hope does not shy away from acknowledging the hardness of life, it never seeks to make life harder or increase suffering here on earth. We too may have anxiety about the meaning of our life, but the answer from Christ is that the gift of grace, the guidance of God’s spirit, and the redemptive power of love give us the courage to overcome every anxiety. Added to this is the assurance that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead was done precisely to show us that nothing in life or death can separate us from the love of God that is for us and all people.
That is why “Easter people” find meaning in acts of compassion and showing love for others, not in acts of alienation, violence, and fear. That is why we are people of a hope that moves beyond life and death to a greater power, rather than ones who diminish life by violent death for the sake of a misguided power. As Dr. Martin Luther King said, “We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.” In remembering that Christ is alive and has given to us new life that brings meaning and purpose to our daily work and play, may we remember to pray for all who are captive to ideologies and fears that would convince them to choose death and darkness instead. “Faith, hope, and love, these three abide…”