Easter!!!

The single most significant event of our faith-history will happen again this year – just like it did last year and the year before!

The poet calls it “the sun’s birthday...
the birthday of life and of love and wings! ....
(now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened!)”

Since that first Easter morning some 2000 years ago, folks have continued to celebrate what their eyes and ears could not believe – what all of human experience told them was totally impossible.

It seems to me that it is easy to loose sight of what happened that day – and what continues to happen in our days  (for that is the message and the promise and the reason, after all, for our faith).

The reality is that we are a resurrection people. 
Prior to that day there were no Christians.

So we do celebrate Easter as a birthday of sorts. 
The birthday of life itself – no longer confined to temporal physics – life that transcends the boundaries of space and time and even death. 

So we savor symbols like the butterfly and lily and pomegranate and mustard seed which must die before they live. 
For the word is out that we, too, can expect the sprouting of new life when our time comes.

And that’s good news, isn’t it?

Easter is a huge birthday party for us as we celebrate the discovery and revelation of the true nature of our God – and of ourselves.

Once a year we focus on tending the ears of our ears and the eyes of our eyes to become more awake and more open to observing and celebrating the presence of Christ in our world, in our lives, today.   

We do this, because like those early disciples, we so often look for love and truth and meaning in all the wrong places. 
When they found the tomb empty, God’s messenger asked “Why do you look for the living here among the dead?” 
That question is asked of us, as well. 

Either we don’t know where to look, or we are afraid to look in the right places.  
We need to come together,  hone our skills of discernment and celebrate the ultimate revelation.

This prayer is posted above my desk:
 
    He is risen! 
    That through Him we may recover faith:
    faith in ourselves,
    faith in our world,
    faith in our God.

    He is risen!
    That in Him we may rekindle hope:
    hope for the abandoned,
    hope for the despairing,
    home for the dreamless.

    He is risen!
    That in Him we may restore love:
    love to those from whom
    we have kept it,
    love to those who are most near us,
    love to those we will never meet.

    He is risen!
 
Easter is about discovering sparks of the Divine within ourselves and in our daily lives. 

My hope is that through our celebration together, Easter will so inform your life this year that you will know with surety, that you are a child of God, no less than anyone who has ever gone before, beloved of the Center of the universe and the Creator of life itself.

This Easter let us come to thank God for this most amazing day in celebration of Christ’s continuing presence with us.

See you in church  –  and bring someone with you.