Love And Liberation Will Prevail

Happy Easter Monday!

In Catholic circles, Easter Monday is a recognized part of the Easter holiday. It’s as if the church said, “One day is NOT big enough to contain all of what we’re trying to take in…” so they made a second day as part of the festivities.

I want to take a minute to say a heartfelt, “Thank You!” to all of our guest contributors who offered their beautiful reflections during this Lenten blog. I appreciate all of you! And I want to thank all of YOU who read along, commented online or said something to me in person about the blogs. It has been a true pleasure to journey with you during Lent, and I look forward to the continued journey throughout the rest of the year.

So on this Easter Monday, we’re invited to think again, “What does Easter mean to us?” In some ways I like to think about it this way, “How will the world know that we’ve just come through Easter? What will be different about us?”

In our first reading from Acts 2, Peter is addressing a large crowd. What is immediately evident is that Peter and the apostles are no longer in hiding. They have received a new boldness and a spirit of courage following the Easter event that enabled them to take on a new public presence. 

As I read Peter’s words in today’s scripture passages, I heard something new. He is talking about Jesus’ death and said that the world used “lawless [people] to crucify him. But God raised him up, releasing him from the throes of death, because it was impossible for him to be held by it.”

Sadly the world continues to use lawless people to crucify so many in this world. From the horrors of war and genocide to the violence of poverty and deprivation, so many people consciously and willingly participate in systems that harm people. 

For example, in a headline that just came out in the past few days, Oxfam reported that “the amount of untaxed wealth hidden offshore by the richest 0.1 percent exceeds the entire wealth of the poorest half of humanity.” The report shows that “the super-rich continue to exploit offshore systems to evade taxes and conceal assets.” The super-rich KNOW that most of the world lives in abject poverty and yet they would still try to shield their wealth from any taxation that would help contribute to even marginal social uplift.

Or consider our very own president’s Easter message to the people of Iran – who have already endured so much suffering in the past four weeks of the US/Israel war. He said, “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day and Bridge Day all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the (expletive) Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in hell – JUST WATCH!” [Note: It’s hard to know if he wrote this or someone else did, but either way, it’s on his official presidential account]

This administration has made it a point to flaunt the lethality of the attacks and denigrate not only international law but anyone who disagrees with them – brazenly using violence wherever and whenever they want to.

Lawless people continuing the crucifixion in real time.

And yet, while Peter’s message acknowledges that death may have the upper hand now, it cannot contain God’s spirit. God will not be held back by the powers and principalities of death. Life and love will prevail.

And in the gospel from Matthew 28, we hear the continuation of the Easter story where the Marys are overjoyed and also a bit fearful as they leave the tomb. We’re told, that “Jesus met them on their way and greeted them…Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid.’”

Jesus meets us on the way. This is, perhaps, one of my favorite lines in scripture, because it begs the question, “Jesus meets us on the way to where?”

And I think the answer is, “Yes!” Jesus meets us on the way to wherever we are going and he tells us not to be afraid anymore.

The resurrection reality that we are being invited into today is a whole new way of being in the world. 

First off, as Rev. Myra preached on Easter Sunday, our tombs (personal and collective) no longer hold power over us. We can let them go. This is a new moment for us, and we no longer are prisoners of what is behind us.

Secondly, our readings acknowledge that we are going to feel some level of fear as we move into this resurrection reality. We’re so conditioned by the culture of death into accepting the inevitability of death that we can feel afraid to go up against it in any substantive way. Furthermore, given the forces of death and destruction in the world, it can be hard to believe and trust that these powers will not prevail. And yet, this is the promise of today. Death will NOT have the final word. Love will not be contained.

Thirdly, we’re told that Jesus will meet us along the way as we move into this new reality. For me this gives me great comfort, and it has been true time and time again in my life. 

And finally, we will be given a spirit of boldness and courage to do and believe what we did not think might be possible. 

Taken together, as we live into these realities, the world around us will be able to see and feel the difference in us. Hope will be our currency. 

The great theologian, Walter Bruggemann, says that hope, by many accounts, is really an absurdity because it does not take what we have been told are the “facts” and base our decisions on them. Hope instead relies upon memory – personal and collective – and affirms that our God is tenacious and persistent in overcoming the powers of death, fragmentation and separation (even if we’re not always able to notice it).

But perhaps more importantly this hope seeps into our bones. It begins to inform our actions and our perspective. Far from believing that “everything will be fine,” it instead believes that the stories that we are in are not finished and, thus, in the words of Rebecca Solnit, “what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand.”

As we continue to take in this Easter reality, may we come to more fully believe in and embody this resurrection energy that has the power to change everything for us.

If I had to sum it up in a short, final reflection, I’d say this:

Lawless people
Trafficking in the culture of death
Do not remember
That our God will not be held captive
And neither will we
Do not be afraid
Do not be afraid
God will meet you along the way
As you move boldly in this world and in your life
No matter what the peddlers of death try to sell you
No matter what “facts” they may bring
Hope is our currency
What we do matters
The story is not finished
Love and liberation will prevail

Happy Easter, my friends!