Rev. Stina Pope,
Easter 2004

Easter

Easter has come after a long Holy Week, starting with the passion of
Christ, no, starting with Jesus on a donkey entering Jerusalem in triumph
and being proclaimed as the Messiah, the savior predicted in the
scriptures. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, the
people sing, and put their cloaks on the ground in front of the colt. A short
time later Jesus celebrates a special meal with his closest friends and
shocks them with the words, this is my body, this is my blood, whenever
you break bread and drink wine, remember. Remember. Re-member, give
shape and body to what you do.

After supper, Judas leaves, the group goes out into the public gardens, and
Jesus prays while his weary disciples sleep. Judas comes with the very
angry and frightened religious establishment, they arrest him, and the
passion begins. We have been treated recently to a very gory picture of
what happens next, and while much of Gibson’s portrayal is probably true,
it is not the whole story. I don’t even think it is the most important part of
the story.

For me, the cross is the final act of a man whose whole life intent on the
healing of the world. And, the cross is not the final act of the play, just the
last act that Jesus did. The final act is God saying “no” to death because of
what Jesus did. I’ll get to that in a minute.

Jesus showed us, over and over, how to heal. When we look at how he
lived, and how he died, we see the pieces. To heal, he had compassion, he
reached out, he forgave, and by extension, he invites us to do the same.
When we look at the cross, we see a man still intent on healing, having
compassion on his mother, his friends, the women who followed him,
even the thief being crucified with him. He reaches out with compassion,
not only to them, but also to the very people who put him up on the cross,
and forgives. That level of forgiveness, as Carolyn Myss said, blew him
through the cross into resurrection. There was no question about the depth
of his forgiveness. It went all the way to the core of reality. When you
forgive that totally, that completely, even death cannot hold you.

So what about resurrection? Do I really believe that Jesus was literally
brought back to physical body life after the crucifixion? That’s what
Easter is all about, right? Well, that’s what we’ve been taught, for sure.
Let me put forward some thoughts on it. Do I believe God can do that sort
of thing? Absolutely! Do I need to believe that the resurrection happened
like the people in the middle ages think it did? No, not at all.  Would my
faith be shattered if they “found the body?” I don’t think so, because while
I do really think a physical resurrection is possible, I don’t find it
necessary. There’s a big difference. Let me explain.

When we go to the Bible, what we find is that when the women went back
to the tomb, his body wasn’t there. When people were gathered, suddenly
the presence of Jesus was palpable to them, really there, more than a
ghost. There was a time after that when they sensed that the presence of
Jesus as they had known him left them somehow, and that the reason for
that leaving was so that the presence of the Holy Spirit could become
more focused in their lives.

What is important to me out of all of this is the understanding that Jesus
showed us that death in the physical sense no longer matters. Forgiveness
matters. If we want to live, we will forgive. If we want to die, we will not
forgive. It’s that simple. Jesus showed us that there is nothing that cannot
be forgiven. Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu showed us that there is
nothing that cannot be forgiven. There is no forgetting in this forgiveness.
It is knowing at all levels that forgiveness is the way out when we are
caught in dying. When we get that, really get that, we “get” what Easter is
all about, and we celebrate with passion.

Jesus invites us to the party of life at Easter. There’s just one catch. We
can’t bring our unforgiven stuff with us. He meets us at the door, looks
with compassion at all our baggage, all the old hurts we’ve been lugging
around for so long, and invites us to put them all down. He suggests we
have fun throwing them in the river and watching them float away, or
putting them in the fire and watching them burn up. One thing is clear. We
cannot come into the party looking like a homeless person with a shopping
cart full of crap. When we look at ourselves, as Jesus does, we can see that
we have bits of unresolved anger in this pocket and that, old coffee cans
stuffed full of rotten resentments, garbage bags full of memories when
we’ve been hurt, when this person got the promotion we should have,
when that one got better treatment because they had more of something we
didn’t, when things simply and absolutely weren’t fair. Sometimes we pull
them out and caress them, reminding ourselves that we really are justified
in holding our anger about each of the pieces, and telling ourselves that we
don’t know who we would be any more without them. We find ourselves
getting angry at Jesus for even suggesting that perhaps we should let them
go. We will be lost, bereft, without the protection of our anger. We won’t
get anything we need if we let go of this stuff.

Gently Jesus assures us that there will more than enough for us inside. He
shows us where to change our clothes, and when we look, we realize that
our old clothes won’t be there after we change into the new ones. This of
course raises this little matter of trust. We want to go in and check it out,
to make sure that it’s worth it, to make sure there really is enough.
We don’t get that. We get to trust Jesus, or not.

This is really hard to deal with. It feels like death to let go of all of this old
anger. We ask Jesus again if we have to, knowing before the words get out
that we don’t even need to ask. Yes, we have to let go of the stuff that
makes us die if we want to live. We can ask for help, but we have to
accept it.

Jesus invites us to the party of life. The cross for us is forgiveness. When
we forgive, we are resurrected, brought into a new life, a life where death
has no hold, a life where we are truly free. Will you come to the party?