Wednesday, April 20, 2022
Diane Harvey
Resurrection
In a blog posted on Easter Sunday, Diana Butler Bass, professor and author who writes on American religion and culture, said this about the resurrection: “The resurrection is not one thing. It is a prismatic mystery. It is an unwordable story of God and Jesus and us; an experience of the beyond breaking in, the reality of love and life and justice and joy no matter the power of death. One story, a single angle of vision, can’t begin to explain or communicate it. Whatever happened on that morning a longtime ago, it keeps happening – to me and to millions of others in thousands of ways in a multitude of times and places. I’m less worried about what happened then than how we experience and practice it now.”
Diana Butler Bass went on to describe how she once quizzed a bishop about whether or not he believed in the resurrection. “Do I believe in the resurrection? Of course I believe in the resurrection,” he replied, “I’ve seen it too many times not to.” And Diana was willing to bet that for the bishop no two times were ever the same.
Since Easter morning I’ve been sitting with this question of where I see and experience resurrection, and the first thought that immediately came to mind was Easter 2020 when not only could we not gather together in church, we also were under stay-at-home orders. Do you remember how the Easter service began with an incredible montage of photos we had shared with Ashley Wade of what resurrection meant to us? There were pictures of families and individuals and nature, pictures of travel and stillness and movement. The power, beauty and joy of those images are still vivid in my memory two years later; and that was and continues to be resurrection for me. We couldn’t be together, but we were connected in Christ through those images.
I’ve also been thinking of how I experience resurrection given something Rob shared in a sermon, the words from Mr. Roger’s mother: “Look for the helpers. You will always find people helping.” I thought of our favorite restaurant in tiny Sargentville, Maine, nothing much more than a takeout shack; yet a month ago they raised $4000 for the World Central Kitchen and two weeks later did it again. And I think of neighbors and friends and the home health PT who this week have been resurrection for us in John’s rocky start to recovery after knee surgery. Mrs. Rogers was right. You will always find people helping.
So, where are you seeing or have seen resurrection? How are you experiencing and practicing it? May we delight in all the ways it happens.