Resurrection Again
The celebration of Truth meets us and challenges us anew each year
I preach several times a week, and I try to remember that it’s a long game of my own practice and improvement of this craft, and that every week won’t be a knock out of the park sermon or idea to share. But that pressure is immense during the few times when the church has an opportunity to minister to those who may not make time for coming to church at other times of the year. I’ve had people apologize to me that they are only “Christmas and Easter Christians,” but I have no hard feelings about that. Any time you can join with other believers is a celebration, and better sometimes than none-times. All are welcome whenever you want to come. But this also increases the pressure to “get it right,” to say the “most important thing.”
And so it comes again to Easter, what I can I say that hasn’t already been said, by many (better) and by me before? Nothing. And nothing….
And yet…. it strikes me that each year we are different people than the year before. Our struggles have changed, our situations have changed, and often so gradually that we fail to notice. The years go by seemingly faster and faster the older we get, (it shouldn’t feel like a shock, we’ve been warned about this our whole lives, and yet it IS such a shock!!) and in some ways I’ve been wondering this week how it feels like Christmas JUST happened.
Each year we need the cycles and the seasons, we need the religious rhythm and flow of life. We need Holy Week and Easter to remind us of the cornerstone of our faith!
And yet, often the people in church (*cough, *cough, pastors…) are sometimes the worst at reminding of what that cornerstone is, precisely because from the inside it seems so obvious as to hardly warrant saying it. It’s like standing inside a church building during the day, marveling at the beautiful stained glass windows and wondering why from the outside nobody can understand their beauty. From the outside the windows look almost black and opaque, and bystanders surely wonder what on Earth is so fascinating about them.
This last month I read another holocaust book. It seems there has been another flood of them on the market recently, and I “celebrate” this (though that hardly seems the right sentiment) because I do think it’s crucial to remember history, especially those dastardly parts where humans have been so shockingly cruel and evil to each other. As I was reading this book, which dealt with the idea of truth and lying, that age old question1, “Should you lie when the gestapo comes to ask you about the Jews you’re hiding in the walls?” came to mind again.
Should you? I don’t think any of us can answer this question with any idea how it would really play out, until it does, and most of us have never been in such a situation before and probably never will. However it struck me while reading this book that the reason most of us would lie, is because we fear the consequences of not lying.
What are those consequences?
On this side of history, we well know them - being shipped off to a death camp where you’re either be killed immediately or worked to the bone until you finally succumb.
We would lie simply because we don’t want to die, and we don’t want others to die. Death. It looms before all of us, even as we can barely imagine dying ourselves. We attend funerals shocked that, “We just saw them!” and, “I just talked to them!”. Yet it has always loomed for us. It was promised by God in the Garden to Adam and Eve - “If you go your own way, dying you will die.”
I heard a strange argument the other day that God wasn’t actually telling the truth because A&E didn’t die on the spot. That He changed the rules at that point. But the last time I checked we’re still dying as we die. My body is aging at a rate I continue to find shocking (my hands! my energy!) and it all feels unfair and tragic. We’re always surprised by this truth but … but Truth it is.
The kingdom we’ve entered when A&E made their choice so long ago indeed is one we still live inside — where death seems to have the last word. Where death looms ahead as the ultimate catastrophe for all of us. Kid dying in his childhood remains my biggest fear in life. How could Husband and I go on without him? How will I deal with my parents’ death? My siblings? What if I die first and leave everyone else in the lurch (who will organize the things?!)? You must know by now that I’m a giant catastrophizer, and as such I’ve considered all these scenarios (why yes I do have my funeral plans made, up to and including asking someone to preach!).
Even for me, the consequences of death are scary — it will be a truck load of suffering.
Which brings us back to the gestapo banging down our door. A good argument can be had for lying to them about the Jews we’re hiding (kudos for us for already taking that step!). But I think a better argument can be made not to. We lie because we fear death. Is God not the god of the living? Can He not see fit to protect us? And if He doesn’t in the way we want or expect, do we still trust Him? Shall we bend and restructure the truth and not live in His Kingdom here and now?
Christ has come to remind us, and every year we remember, that death is not the end. This door slamming grief that we experience over and over each year, is not everything there is. God is not crippled by death, and even knowing suffering and death loomed, Christ did not argue, He did not fight. He peacefully went to His sham trials, to His torture, to His death, He trusted the Father to make things right, somehow … someway.
We can’t make things right (though it’s so tempting to believe this!), there are so so many things that are wrong (the holocaust being a big thing in recent history), but God will and does make it right still.
This week I read an amazing article that outlined how despite so many persecutions and genocides, the Jewish people have persisted. Even the holocaust which is estimated to maybe have destroyed a 1/3 of the world’s Jewish population, did not deter them, and within three years were living in their own country. Their survival seems to be baked into the very fabric of the Universe!
“Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord of hosts is his name: If this fixed order departs from before me, declares the Lord, then shall the offspring of Israel cease from being a nation before me forever.” (Jeremiah 31:35–36, written approximately 600 BC.)
…
The guarantee of Jewish continuity is explicitly tied to the solar constant, to lunar orbital mechanics, to stellar physics, and to ocean wave dynamics. These are not poetic ornaments. They are physical constants. Jeremiah is explicitly anchoring the permanence of the Jewish people to the same layer of reality as the laws of thermodynamics. The falsification condition is stated with logical precision: if the fixed order of the cosmos departs, then and only then shall Israel cease. The contrapositive is equally precise: while the cosmos holds, Israel holds.
…
That is not prophecy as fortune-telling. That is prophecy as physics.
No doubt this would have been hard to see while slaving away to your tragic death in a death camp, and yet God’s work was and is never over. God’s protecting hand persists.
The resurrection reminds us, as part of God’s people, that God is not done. Death can never have the last word. Death is the only tool of evil, it’s the final victory of this anti-Kingdom we live inside. But it will not win. Did Jesus rise again because he’s so spectacular? Did He rise again simply because He has divine DNA? I think not. The gospel writers and Paul are eager to assure us that this future awaits ANYONE who trusts in God as well. And Jesus Himself reminds us of this when He meets Martha before raising Lazarus from the dead.
Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?” - John 11:24-26 NLT
Death can never overpower us permanently, and if this is true we need not fear any future. Obviously this is easier said that done, but I hope that we continue to practice this mode of operation in the whole of our lives, living with integrity, honesty and Truth so that when the gestapo bangs on our door, we can live inside the Truth, trusting that no matter the outcome, God will lead and provide.
May the rest of your Holy Weekend be blessed, and may you have the confidence to remember, as all God’s people should how great His love for us, REALLY is!
with love,
sierra
If you want a different Easter essay, please peruse this option:
Ask A Priest
Question: What are your thoughts on Christians participating in the “No King’s” marches that have been happening lately?
Answer: My opinion may be indeed be incendiary. I don’t think it’s appropriate for Christians to participate in these protests and marches. It’s fine if you don’t agree or support our current administration, we indeed need dissenters and opposing party membership in every administration. That said I think it’s vital to be very wary when joining up with angry mobs. I’ve said before that Christians are by nature political, because we believe in a God that is KING above ALL KINGS. So when we are tempted to march around and shout, “No Kings!” We are saying a little more than we mean. Doesn’t it seem strange that last weekend’s march was over Palm Sunday weekend? It strikes me as a little on the nose. It also reminds me of the religious leaders, as they plot to literally murder Christ, that they tell Pilot in response to his questions about Jesus’ claims to be the King of the Jews, “We have no king but Caesar.” Don’t allow the world to put words in your mouth, and belief in your heart.
Bits & Bobs
Last week I put a joke caption on the first painting. Husband, while reading the article said, “I think you made a mistake on the caption, this isn’t a picture of our front porch.” So so so dry….. ha!
We had a wonderful Passover dinner this week. The biggest one yet! And after ten years it goes very smoothly, though it remains a lot of work. I’m deeply grateful for my mother-in-law again, for all she does to set up, tear down, wash dishes, clean corners, watch Kid while I work long hours, and generally keep the wheels of life well greased.
I struggle to listen to podcasts. Do you? I think it’s for similar reasons that I struggle to actually sit down and read non-fiction. I have high hopes, but I just don’t seem to have much brain power left for it when the time comes. Maybe it’s just too much input? I have tons of podcasts queued and then never seem to get around to them. Give me a 25 hour audio book though, and I’m your girl!! This week I’m powering through “The Eustice Diamonds” by Anthony Trollope (free on Audible, and the reader is *chef’s kiss!). I think in later life (because I’ll have more time then, right?!) I’ll start another Substack about Victorian literature. I am loving it! It also deals with this theme of truth and lying, and I’m totally engaged in it. I’m hoping someone makes a miniseries about it in the near future!
We’re on dock to go for our show on Good Friday, but the weather as of this writing (Thursday afternoon) is terrible, snowing solidly from 4:30am to 9:30pm, and may indeed cancel us out. So pray for our wisdom in deciding what to do, and maybe for the storm to peter out entirely, or hit us with hot rain, since we desperately need the water but don’t want the plan-canceling blizzard. Stay tuned for details via the Homestake Opera House website.
I feel like when I was a teenager in the 90s there was a wave of holocaust interest, and this question seemed on the tip of many tongues.
“That said I think it’s vital to be very wary when joining up with angry mobs.” — thank you! That is exactly why I get a visceral reaction when people I know from church invite me to these demonstrations and marches. You are judged by the company you keep.
Thank you giving me good language to use when asked why I’m not participating in No Kings Day.