Resurrection Stories

This coming Sunday, our Sunday School children will enact one of their very favorite rituals - Unburying the Alleluia. They had collectively found a 'hidden and dark' spot to store the Alleluia banner at the beginning of Lent, in a plastic bag, unbeknownst to the adults. And now, assisted by Fr Yehi and Yetti, they will 'find' the Alleluia, and ceremoniously process it down the aisle at the entrance hymn to hang prominently by the altar for the Easter season. There will be loud Alleluia songs and loud exclamations during the Holy Communion! I find it a wonderful Resurrection story - not just the banner which every Easter somehow comes back with new additions of sparkle, but the joy with which these children, our next generation, embrace the Easter acclamation as their own.

As a preacher, like all preachers, I know my own collected Resurrection stories.

The first supposedly takes place on the afternoon of the Resurrection. A young disciple runs to the home of his Jewish rabbi and mentor, excited, panting - 'Rabbi, rabbi, they say the Messiah has been raised from the dead, resurrected!' The old master looks out his window and says, 'I don't see anything different.'

I suppose that is the response for many of us on Easter Monday or Tuesday. The war is still going on, with threats of war crimes, the corruption scandals are still appearing, the ICE raids just took more innocent people breaking down doors of US citizens, the price of living necessities has gone up, and people around us are still getting sick, dying, struggling, feeling overwhelmed, and without any joy.

The world we see, at first glance out our window, 'doesn't look any different.'

The second Resurrection story takes place in communist Russia some years ago. A party bureaucrat convened a forced attendance rally - the topic was There is No God. For hours, the assembled crowd listened to the Marxist denunciation of God and religion - the crimes of faith, the destructiveness of religion, the imperial corruption of the church. At the end of the rally, the speaker says, "Who will dare to get up and refute these claims?"

The crowd is initially silent. Then an old man, dressed in a traditional Orthodox cassock, rises. He makes his way shakily to the stage and turns to face the audience. In a loud quavering voice, he shouts, "He is Risen!" and from the crowd in one voice comes the response: "He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!"

Nothing has changed, and yet, everything has changed!

If you ask me to go to the Resurrection story in the New Testament, there are so many different accounts; my favorite is Mary, who hears the voice of her beloved Rabbi and friend calling her name and knows that voice of love instantly. But more important than any of these Resurrection narratives is the immediate emotional response: HOPE. Where a moment earlier there was only darkness and death, there is suddenly life, light, and a path forward; there is hope.

This week, my Education for Ministry seminar is reading Bishop Steven Charleston's book Ladder to the Light: An Indigenous Elder's Meditations on Hope and Courage. Charleston, whom I follow and admire greatly, begins his chapter on hope with the story of the 1831 exile of Native Americans, who were forced off their homeland and marched down what became known as the "Trail of Tears". Thousands died (fun fact: did you know that many of the indigenous Choctaw had converted to Christianity and especially to Presbyterianism?) They sang their Protestant hymns and buried the dead with Christian burial rites. Charleston goes on to say, 'We lost our homes, our way of life, even our graveyards. We lost everything - everything, that is, except the one thing that could not be taken from us: hope. Hope kept us going, kept us going, kept us climbing towards the light, even though the world seemed to be filled with nothing but darkness. Hope," he continues, "is what emerges when you mix faith with blessing, and hope is a tool to create light."

Hope is what Jesus gives us in the Spirit. His ancestors, not alone, but as part of a inclusive humanity suffered, 'they embodied the finite and vulnerable condition of all humanity', the 'struggle for life, the pain of oppression and the fear of the unknown'...but even in their darkest moments they kept going, kept climbing (to the light) because they believed, and what they believed, they saw. They looked around and saw others walking beside them. They knew they were not alone. They knew the Spirit was in their hearts every step of the way...and with that faith and that blessing, they embodied the one force no oppression can ever overpower or contain; the hope they saw before them,' the surety of the love which holds us fast.

Our Resurrection story is the story of hope. When Mary, Joanna, and Mary Magdalene ran to tell the disciples the good news, when Peter and John saw the empty tomb, when the disciples on the way to Emmaus met Jesus on the road and finally knew it was He, alive, they found hope. Our faith is a faith of hope.

And when we claim hope for our home - when we make it the guiding energy of our faith, we transition from being scattered individuals who wish things would get better into being active partners withthe Spirit, reshaping the balance of life towards mercy, justice and peace...Hope becomes a force that will not be denied.

As we enter the season of expectation of the coming gift of the Holy Spirit, may the Jesus of hope, the Resurrected Lord of all, illuminate your life and the lives of all around you. May you see signs of love everywhere out your window. The Lord is risen, He is risen indeed, Alleluia.

Marcia+