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True Resurrection – a reflection

This is the day of resurrection.

In our narrative, just three short days ago, hatred had free reign.  And now, as the sun crept over the horizon on yet another day, change was in the air. Heralded by the sound of a voice, the calling of a name, the offering of peace, the breaking of bread, change was waiting in the wings.

 

Hatred has had free reign through this year since we celebrated this festival last. And now as the sun creeps over the horizon on yet another day change still pervades the air. Silence and fear mix with the calling of a name, candles are lit, peace is hoped for, bread is broken, people pray, change is in the wings.

 

What do you do after a death?

Lost voices echo over the gulf of death and shake us, for though silenced, they will never be lost.

 

Actions, simple actions, will make memories real. My father’s hands, those of your mother, the painted nails of your daughter, the knuckles of my son – all familiar – all echoed in our own hands, bringing us up short. And tears, unexpectedly, sometimes inappropriately, flow and we lose control.

 

Then someone points out the significance of words which still stay with us, the occasions when we heard them informing what we say and how we act.

 

This is the day of resurrection, of re-creation, of persistent love.

 

Some hold this as an historic event easily, a matter of faith. Others feel it is beyond belief. Yet what happened in those days, miraculous or not, is mirrored in our own experiences, yesterday, today, perhaps tomorrow. This was a day that changed lives, offered a new perspective. Mary heard her name being called and the disciples walked into a new future. All that Jesus had said and done lived on for and in them. He changed attitudes and informed actions. But he had died.

 

Love, however, had not been destroyed. If you can have faith in a literal bodily resurrection hold onto it, it is a gift of grace. But whether you can, or not, reflect with me for a moment on how the first disciples kept Christ alive even beyond crucifixion, resurrection,  Ascension.

 

Acts 2

44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds[j] to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home[k] and ate their food with glad and generous[l] hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.

 

Christ was raised and lived on in the love and kindness of ordinary people like you and me.

 

Love, real love, cannot be destroyed, for there is nothing in all creation that can separate us from God’s love. That’s what matters and our ongoing love, our persistent loving kindness, is evidence of resurrection NOW!

 

That is real:

When we greet with loving kindness those who have betrayed us;

When we make peace with those who have let us down;

When we meet apparent strangers, yet learn their names, and call them in loving kindness;

 

Then Christ is alive.

  Christ is alive when persistent loving kindness is alive in your life and mine!

Good Friday reflection

Reflection

This event is almost inconceivable for me. You see, I do not believe in a vindictive God who sacrifices his Son. I do trust, through faith, in the incarnation – God being human. Hands that flung stars into space to cruel nails surrendered. A baby in a manger, ‘the Word made flesh’. But if this is our starting point then it is God who hung on a cross on that first ‘good Friday’. I cannot cope with some vast plan of salvation that requires this carnage. What I can understand is a God of love, from whose love we can never be separated (Romans 8, 38)

So where does that leave us? For me Jesus embodies God’s love in totality. Ultimate, complete and utter love has to be totally selfless and this is what I see in Jesus. It is the sort of love that challenges all hypocrisy, injustice and indignity to which we are exposed and which we still experience. But there is a problem here. The moment we start to love those whom others do not, or cannot, love we become a threat to them. We either have to acknowledge that love and ally ourselves with it, ignore it, or oppose it. We are inherently selfish. Humanly we seek our own preservation. That is a biological imperative. So when Jesus challenged the powers, those around him by challenging their economy – the overturning of the tables of the money-changers, the emphasis on the importance of the widow’s tiny monetary gift, pausing to heal a woman, deemed unclean, who pressed on him in the crowd, when he had been called to heal the daughter of a leader of the synagogue – in all these ways it felt as if he was a threat to the culture and religion, the very economy of the people. This threat was to their very being. And how they behaved was no different from how we, in similar situations, behave. They behaved, literally, naturally.

 

And Jesus response was the only possible response of complete and utter, unconditional, all-inclusive love: that is forgiveness – ‘forgive them for they (literally) know not what they do’!

And the cross becomes wondrous, not as some great theological bargain, or the culmination of a cosmic plan of sacrifice, but in the revelation of the nature of total love that we are called to emulate.

 

And the world is shrouded in darkness, inevitably for in darkness we cannot see, if God is dead this really is the end. And this is why theologians, then and now, you and I, seek to explain away this horror. Yet Jurgen Moltmann, some years ago in a book which still deserves to be read, The Crucified God, sees the cross to be the test of all that deserves to be called Christian, rather than the resurrection, for here we see God’s utter love and willingness to be vulnerable, as we are vulnerable, even unto death in order to be one with us. And the scandal and uniqueness is that gods are not meant to die, wondrous God, wondrous love indeed!

In simple, suffering love – Easter Vigil

In simple, suffering love

a man looks down, on all the world

  as empathetic tears drench cheeks that child-like,

  once had filled with laughter.

 

The shadows lengthen,

heighten the beam’s intersection,

as muscles, taut with strain crack, as a whip,

and feel the course of pain.

 

Finished? Is it finished?

But still the thunder grumbles

and lightning slashes dark and cloud.

     A drift of rain disperses yet a diminishing crowd.

© Andrew Pratt 2024