In a few short days, we will move from the shadows of Lent to the bright light of Easter. The language of the suffering Servant will give way to the proclamation of the risen Savior. News about the empty tomb will be read from lecterns and announced from pulpits—and once more the language of resurrection will be given to us as part of the words intended to guide our lives and shape our conversations.
What always strikes me about the Easter story is how such an awe-inspiring, miraculous event as Christ’s resurrection invariably comes down to individual conversations and off-the-beaten-path moments of revelation. Think about it. According to the gospels, no one officially witnessed the actual resurrection of Jesus. The first people to learn about it where the women who gathered at the tomb in the murky light of that Sunday dawn—and the news was shared with them as individuals alone in that ancient cemetery setting. The next people to learn about Jesus’ resurrection heard about it from the first person accounts shared by these women-disciples. There was no angelic choir to get everyone’s attention (á la Christmas). There was no natural wonder, like a parted Red Sea (á la Moses), to divinely verify this Easter miracle. There were only the words shared by these witnesses—stuttering, surprised, hard-to-believe-it-for-themselves stories told individually to anyone who might listen. “Jesus is alive. Trust me on this.”
Beth and I have just returned from our sabbatical time spent mostly in Barcelona, Spain. There are so many memories and stories we could share about our time overseas—the places we saw, the people we met, the family and friends we hosted over the past ten weeks. There are “big picture,” impressive things we could talk about with you, such as the amazing “La Sagrada Familia” cathedral in Barcelona or the majestic “Alhambra” complex in Granada. But what lingers are the encounters we had one-on-one with locals, ex-patriates, and tourists we met along the way. This happened in restaurants with chatty waiters, with friendly souls offering us directions when we were lost, and with people of faith at the English-speaking Anglican church we found just north of the city. It happened while listening to audio guides while visiting enormous medieval cathedrals or standing on the same steps Columbus walked up to share with Isabella and Ferdinand his (troubling) news about his first voyage westward. We gained a fresh appreciation for the powerful sweep of human history and how, in so many ways and over so many centuries, people are struggling to articulate a common story about how to walk the journey of life together—whether from Español or los Estados Unidos—as children of God and siblings in the church universal.
God’s plan for Easter involves much the same dynamic. The resurrection of Christ is intended to be something that is shared person by person, moment by moment. It is not a flashy, “fireworks in the sky, bolt of lightning from heaven” type of miracle. It is the gift of life-affirming hope that is first accepted in one’s heart and then shared with others, one by one. As Easter people, God wants us to carry this resurrection story out into the world. By our actions and prayers, our simple deeds of kindness and our prophetic, courageous efforts on behalf of justice, we show forth the power inherent in Christ’s victory over death. Like women rushing from the cemetery, unsure how to put what they just saw into words, we spend our lives doing this exact same thing—finding ways to share with others that death has no ultimate power and that, yes, our Savior truly lives. He has risen! Christ is risen indeed!
—Randy Bush