Easter Day C, 2007
Luke 24:1-12
IN THE MIDST OF BROKENNESS, HEALING STIRS
Easter Day – today - is regarded as
the most important day in the liturgical life of the church.
This day we celebrate life over death.
This day we celebrate changed possibilities.
And give thanks for the Spirit of Life visible in Jesus,
visible in each one of us,
visible in people in all walks of life...
As we do celebrate, we also acknowledge that all we have,
are the stories, shaped and reshaped and told orally,
by people of faith from generation to generation.
No logical, scientific proof of a ‘bodily’ resurrection.
No videotape of an empty tomb.
No seismograph of an Easter earthquake. Just the stories.
That in the midst of brokenness, healing stirs.
That in the midst of darkness, a light shines.
That in the midst of death, life is breaking forth.
That when all seems gone, hope springs eternal.
True, Jesus’ death mattered to all those early storytellers.
But only because his life mattered more.
So they spoke of his death in ways that affirmed his life.
And to be embraced by life, not scared of it.
My ‘resurrection’ invitation to you all today is similar:
be embraced by life, not scared of it?
How? Let me offer some suggestions you might like to ponder sometime:
• How do we care for each other interpersonally in ways which do not suffocate and oppress?
• How is the well-being of our neighbour pursued in the complex problem of global hunger and international war?
• How are communities developed positively around respect and care for each person, rather than around a common enemy?
• How are the systemic causes of non-love eliminated?
Bishop Jack Spong also has a comment which I reckon is worth pondering:
• Loving God… means that people do not treat the legitimacy of their own spiritual path as a sign that every other spiritual path is somehow illegitimate.
• Loving your neighbour… means treating all people - regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, nationality, ethnicity or economic class - as holy, as having been made in God's image.
• Loving ourselves… means basing our lives on the faith that in Jesus as the Christ all things are made new and all people are loved by God (Spong Newsletter, 23/3/06).
To live with these particularities coursing in our veins,
is to live in the spirit of the sage we call Jesus,
is to embrace life, not be scared of it.
Because ‘resurrection’ can and does happen every day!