Two weeks from today is Easter Sunday, the day when Christians around the world will celebrate the triumph of life, hope, and love over fear, despair and death. And so I have started to ponder what the Easter message needs to be this year.(The title I have listed for that sermon is What Are You Looking For?)
At the same time, this morning in worship we read about Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones and the raising of Lazarus. A time to talk about whether we see the finality of death or the possibility of renewed life (or more likely both). In that sermon I talked about the need to actually face the reality of the death in order to be able to look for the possibility of life. I also talked about the reality of the church that has talked about dying, or its imminent demise for several decades and pondered if part of the issue is that in all that lamenting we have, due to our cultural discomfort with death, steadfastly refused to name the reality that a way of being the church has died. Has that left us unable to realistically look for the possibility of renewed or new life?
Also I am in the midst of reading this book. I am between half and two thirds of the way through it thus far. The chapter I finished this afternoon was looking at the rise of the "nones" and what the statistics tell us about that phenomenon. And I had a thought (which may make it into the Easter sermon yet).
Do we miss the possibility of new life because it is not what we expect or want it to be? I know this is hardly a new thought but in terms of the church I thought of a new twist. And it shaped in my head in relation to the Scriptural story of defeat and exile.
When the first temple fell the people went into exile. When in exile they mourned. When they returned from exile they wanted to rebuild what had been lost. Indeed there is a sense that there was a great deal of discomfort in how hard it was to rebuild what had been lost. And while the temple was eventually rebuilt as a grand edifice the glory days of David and Solomon never returned.
Then the second temple was destroyed and the people were sent into diaspora. This time the people responded differently. Out of this experience the Talmud was written and rabbinical Judaism grew. I suspect there may be outliers who expect/hope that some day the land will be reconquered and the temple will be rebuilt but that does not appear to be the general hope of Judaism (recognizing that the question of "reconquering" the land is a very complex one in relation to the nation of Israel and the reality of the Palestinians). New life after the Romans dispersed the people was not a return to what once had been, it was a new thing altogether.
Is that what resurrection for the church means? [Personally I think it most definitely is.]. Even when we name that there is a death and loss, even when we lament we claim to b people of resurrection. But I think we see resurrection in the wrong way. I think we are making the choice that the people of Israel made after the first temple fell, a choice that, in the end, was not actually the path to a lasting future. WE think resurrection means finding the magic bullet that will give us back what we once were. That is in fact resuscitation.
Resurrection is new life out of death. It is new hope out of despair. It comes as a surprise. It is not what is expected. And most importantly, it is not the same as what was before. There is still something lost, even as there is something gained. In the Jesus story the relationship with Jesus is different before Easter than it is after Easter. The old relationship, the ability to walk the streets of Jerusalem and ask him questions has been lost forever. There is a continuing relationship, it is just different.
So what might resurrection mean for the church? What will be the points of continuity and what things are lost forever? Will we even know until after we have started to live into the resurrection? I think we can not predict the answers to those questions. I think we have to be willing to look for something different than what we know or what we want. I have no doubt those first disciples would have rather having Jesus walking amongst them as he had been before, instead they got resurrection and a transformed life.
Do we have the courage to name that our losses are in fact lost, not to be reclaimed? Do we have the courage to let go of what we dearly want and expect to leave room for God to work resurrection in our midst? Or are we still looking to rebuild and resuscitate what was comfortable and known?
I think I know what answer we have been giving over the years. Maybe it is time to change our answer and actually live as resurrection people...
