Why Does Easter Matter?

How does Jesus life, death and resurrection have any bearing on our lives?

A Crucifixion in the Time of the Romans - Vasily Vereshchagin, 1887

If you prefer to listen rather than read you can click play above.

Did you go to church last weekend? Did they talk about Jesus’ death and resurrection? Sometimes we sit in the pews and wonder, “Okay, Jesus lived, died and rose again. Who cares? Why does it matter to me?”

Easter is a long season in the church - seven weeks. Seven weeks to consider this most crucial and foundational of Christian beliefs. It’s been my experience, that it’s so foundational that we assume we all “get it” when actually almost nobody does. I’ve sat through many an Easter service and thought how much the speaker/church/congregation talks around, but never really actually about, what it all means. Why does it matter? Who cares? It’s not a question that is always very clearly answered in church — to my chagrin.

We may sometimes hear, “Jesus died so you didn’t have to.” That doesn’t really actually make sense though, since we do die. What does that mean?

Or we hear metaphors, “We are washed/cleansed in his blood.” What?! Gross!

Or, “Jesus paid the price you could never pay.” Ummm…. Nobody asked him to.

Also, inherent in many of these metaphors and ideas is the subtle (and not so subtle idea) that Jesus is friendly, and God is angry, and it’s only because and through Jesus that we are able to not be smote by the angry God who remained far away in Heaven.

All of this sounds far far removed from our day to day life. All of it sounds like a load of baloney to me, if I’m honest! And if this is the only Christianity I had been exposed to, I would certainly be out the door.

Let’s set all that aside for a second and consider the story of the Bible.

God creates a world with creatures to love him, each other and themselves. All this creation works in perfect harmony. God is the life force, the way, the truth, the light - everything works because he sustains it with love. There is no conflict, no strife, no anger, no hatred.

Then the humans get tricked into taking, and also choose to take, God from the center and replace that center with ourselves. Except we don’t actually understand how life works, and the world with us at the center is dark - full of selfishness, scarcity and its mindsets, hungering for power and influence, and disaster.

God continues to seek us out, even though we rejected him. Over and over he invites people to participate in putting his kingdom back together, putting love back at the center. Over and over he approaches them, to love them, so that they might also love each other.

There’s one person who listens, Abraham. He’s not perfect, not even close, but he does begin to learn how to trust and follow God. He begins to see that a life with God at the center works better. And then he dies. But during his story there are these other clues and hints in the Bible that there are other people in other places also trusting God (Melchizedek, a priest of the most high God, and also a Canaanite), and listening. But Abraham’s story is the one we follow.

God continues on to reach out to Abraham’s decedents, Issac, Jacob and his sons. On and on God goes, trying to invite people back to a kingdom that is abundant, generous, loving. Is it because the Hebrews are so much better? Far cry. But God has to work through somebody, (the blessing and curse of love), and so he continues the story through this people. Always working behind the scenes, always trying to show how much he still loves us, and how true life can only be with him.

He even delivers them out of several hundreds of years of slavery, only to have them complain endlessly, worship other gods and ultimately destroy the country he gave them and be hauled off into exile.

Like all human beings, they began to get caught in the trap that what God MOST wants is good behavior. And that if our behavior is good enough, we can avoid the pain of living away from God. We can prevent misery and suffering by being good.

Thousands of years pass.

Jesus comes. Jesus is God himself, coming to dwell with us — to “Tabernacle” (which can literally be translated, “pitch a tent”) among us. The God of the universe came to us, this dust speck (that’s generous even) in the innumerable galaxies, in order to win us back to Trust him.

His people (all of us) had failed to really communicate his message, and instead of being a bridge for the whole world to know Him, had walled ourselves off to try and protect ourselves from those icky “thems.”

Jesus, who has nothing to recommend him, not power, not titles, not good looks, not family connections, not money, not possessions, (sorry Mr. Darcy) came to us and loved us. But the only people who would really listen, about the way God’s kingdom works, are the ones already on the outside. They are the ones who have nothing left to lose, because all humans work from a scarcity mindset when it comes right down to it. But the ostracized, poor, humble, grieving ones, they have nothing left to lose. In our lack, we can finally recognize our need for true healing, for a new way.

Because the ones who should have listened, who should have welcomed God with open

arms into their midst, the preachers, the church people, the believers - rejected him completely. In fact they hated him with a PASSION! Why? Because he was not the god they wanted. He couldn’t actually help solve their immediate problems, couldn’t give them money and power and influence. He didn’t do what they wanted, wasn’t who they “knew” god to be.

He got in our way, he blocked the path, so we killed him.

I was struck over the weekend when we read the passion in Mark again. The religious leaders taunted him, spit on him, hit him. What behavior. It’s appalling. And yet…. If we’re honest with ourselves we all know how easy it is to get wrapped up in that same behavior. It could have been me just as easily.

His disciples, who he’d spent his most intimate time with, talking to, getting to know, loving — dessert him in those awful hours. He’s deserted, taunted, embarrassed, tortured, abused, ridiculed, naked and killed.

This god, the God of the Universe, does not fight it. He does not talk back, he does not argue. He just stands there, mostly silently and takes it. He’s killed, he dies. He feels the heaviest weight of loving all, and being utterly rejected.

But God is not just human, he’s also divine. And he’s not bound by the time and space and materialism that we’re bound by, and so this death doesn’t really kill him - because death cannot overcome that which is LIFE.

If this were an action western we’d expect him to ride back in and find all those bad guys and murder them. Serves them right. But because he’s God he plays the long long long long game (damn it!). He knows that living away from life will result in it’s own doom.

He let’s us go, because he loves us.

But he keeps on loving us. He keeps on inviting us to be part of his upside down crazy kind of kingdom. He keeps on asking if we’ll let him be the center, to try his way, to trust him.

Easter shows us that all the things we fear in this life, death, and also embarrassment, poverty, betrayal, disaster, will work out. Maybe not for us directly, but in the end, everything will be brought to a good end. Death cannot win. And neither can bad guys, and mean people, dirty politicians, corrupt bureaucrats, and all the things that are so awful!

So how does that change my life right now? Today?

It paints a picture of a God who loves extravagantly, and who’s love for me and you cannot be dulled by any terrible action or behavior on our part — we murdered him, and yet he loved us.

And when I stop to consider this God, who loves us even with that, then he also gives me the courage to keep loving a world that will inevitably treat us the same. I will encounter really difficult things in my life, people who are mean, and maybe won’t kill me, but may hate me enough to wish they could.

I will experience suffering and misery, because we’re all kind of in a waiting room to the next disaster — yet I will be okay — because all of that can be redeemed. I can have the courage to keep on loving and forgiving. I don’t need to worry that there won’t be enough love because I am part of the the kingdom of God, where love NEVER runs out.

Christians don’t love perfectly, but part of being here is helping each other to love better and more generously that we ever imagined we could.

The disciples all went on to preach about this God, all went on to suffer disasters of big and horrifying proportions. They stood bravely with courage because they could, like Jesus, say, “Forgive them, I love them too.”

Easter matters because it tells us about the kind of God we serve, it helps us to have the courage to face hard lives, to consider trusting him with our futures and our presents. To love others as we have been loved - extravagantly and generously!

May this season bring you fresh eyes to see what God has, is and will continue doing all around us!

_________New & Notes

The performance of the Last Supper (mentioned here) went spectacularly! We packed out the house with 250 people! I was expecting maybe 50, since our Good Friday ecumenical services are never super super well attended. But wow! The cast did an amazing job, my husband was Judas, and if you know him, you know he’s a spectacular bad guy! My favorite part was when I asked people to leave in silence and they all did, reverently filing out of the theater to the reception hall. We were stunned it worked! I was so honored to build that experience for so many people’s Holy Week - what a blessing for us all!

We had a wonderful Passover Seder dinner observance on Maundy Thursday at St. Jacob’s! Katherine is going to write about it soon! It was the most I’ve ever hosted that dinner for (26) and with back to back shows/events I was pretty exhausted but grateful after Easter evening.

Speaking of Katherine (my sister), she’s been annoyed with me lately and says my emails ask too many questions. “It feels like you’re afraid to just say what you want to say, so instead you cage it as a question. It’s like you think you can’t take any blame for it because you never actually said it.” This isn’t something I recognized I was doing, but once I saw it…. I could also see she was right.

Horrifyingly I read an article (because of course, I can’t remember who or where) that talked about how if you’ve grown up in a complementarian church/ideology you’re probably more likely as a woman to cow toe. This might include a submissive tone, behavior or couching all your statements as questions in order not to threaten. Oh my gosh… *face palm. Ah culture, what a grip you have on us, even without us realizing. It’s not like anyone told me to behave this way, and if you know me, you know I’m not subservient, or particularly submissive, but those invisible ideas still take hold. Thank you, sister, for helping me begin to even notice how to break loose from this. It’ll be a long road… feel free to bop me in the head if you notice me doing this!

I was able to order my new work computer! I’m so excited! Thank you to all who so generously pay to subscribe to help with this work! I’m honored. If you can’t subscribe financially perhaps you could share this with a friend who might enjoy it? I’m deeply appreciative of all your support!

With love,

Sierra