He is not here! He is risen!

Alleluia!

Remember when?  I'll bet your family has some great stories which start with 'Remember when.........' and get told again and again. These are the memories which get us laughing or leave us pensive or taste a little bittersweet.  They are our stories; they make us one.  Family members know the story and those who know the story are considered family.

Children love these kinds of stories, especially when Mom or Dad are the main characters and were young and did something silly .....you know, they acted like the children they were.  My children always loved to hear about adventures from 'when they were a baby' including all the ways they managed to fracture the English language as they learned to talk.  I only get nervous when my children are telling stories to one another and I have absolutely no recollection of the 'incidents' being described.

Sharing stories after the death of a loved one helps us place this moment in the context of an entire life lived.  The stories connect us and give us a sense of belonging while at the same time carrying us along the current of inexorable time.

When we read the stories about Jesus, we get to listen in on the disciples' story telling.  Remember when.....he fed all those people on the hillside?  Remember when.....he made that terrible storm go away?   Remember when.....he ate that last supper with us?

Remember when.....we thought he was dead.........but he wasn't?  The earthquake!  The angel!  I couldn't believe it.  I wanted to, but it was too incredible.  I told Mary and Peter told me and then I spoke to Thomas and then......it was amazing.

He is not here!  He is risen!  Who could imagine that?  What can I say?

Alleluia!  Alleluia!

What kind of love is this?

Having washed the feet of his betrayer, Jesus plunges into the depths of love.

What kind of love?

Creating love: the kind that was present when this creation was called into being by the Divine Power.  The kind of love that is manifest when life is called into being, when light enters the void.  It is the foundation of this world and the foundation of the eternal Divine Kingdom.  It is love that works from the bottom up.

It is hard work.

This love is such a powerful force that it can enter the darkness of the tomb, surrounded by the odor of death, and step out risen and alive.  Yes, we think of the tomb that held Jesus but there are thousands of other tombs: tombs of the living who die a little each and every day because they stand in the presence of death and cannot recognize the life giving power of love that beckons to them.


The back of the tomb is God territory: where the most deadly things happen and yet, in God, are never the last word on anything.  There in the back of tomb where humans are convinced that the power of evil has prevailed is the power of God's love - bringing life - bringing light - making a new day.

So we cannot fool ourselves:  loving another into resurrection is backbreaking work.  But it is not our backs that it breaks, but rather, it breaks the back of racial prejudice and superiority.  It breaks the back of poverty and oppression.  It breaks the back of all the categories we use to separate and (de)value one another: categories like sexuality, age, gender, nationality, religion, criminal record.

This powerful resurrection love breaks our fear, which is the tomb that holds us all.  We fear being found out to be frauds, to be unholy, unworthy.  We fear that the ugliness of jealousy and lust and greed will become visible to everyone and in the end no one loves us and there is no way out of this tomb of fear.

Yet Jesus stepped willingly into the tomb.....in absolute certainty that God is God, and God could and would continue to love him....right back into life again.

Loving another into resurrection is back breaking work.  It will kill you.  It will bring you into life again - a life that cannot be taken away.

That's the love that Jesus is talking about.  Love one another.  Just as I have loved you, love one another.

A lifetime of work to bring about a time of life.

Empty or Full?

Looking back on it all, the tomb wasn't really empty.

It was so filled with life that it overflowed, out the door and into the world.

He is not here.  He is risen!  Thanks be to God.

Expectation v. gift

from artist He Qi:  women at the tomb

They lugged the spices with them because they were expecting a dead body.

What they received was a gift - the gift that is visible only after the death.

That is God's way.  Let it go and it will come to you.