DEATH TO LIFE

We are all born to live to die to live again. We do it every day. Every day we are born anew, live a full day's life, and then end that day as we fall off to sleep. In sleep the day is done. The day is dead. And tomorrow there is new life. Tomorrow there is resurrection.

It is an endless cycle until the final resurrection, until eternity. Until then we die a thousand deaths. In fact, each passing moment is life-death-resurrection-to-new-life. Each part of that cycle is important. Each leads to the next. Each depends on the other.           

Easter is the celebration of Jesus's new life, a life that would not and did not come without Good Friday, without his death. That is what makes what happened on Friday in some/any way good. Murder is never good. The unjust murder of an innocent person is never good. The only good is that for the one murdered there is resurrection to new life. That may not be a comforting thought when in the midst of the grief of the tragedy, but it is still the truth.

           
And sometimes that knowledge is the only belief, the only truth that gets us through the moment, through the grief, through all those unanswered and unanswerable questions. Perhaps that is why as Christians, as those who celebrate the events of Holy Week, we don't dwell on Good Friday, on Jesus's death. We are thankful for it, to be sure. But we know that in Jesus’ death there is the forgiveness of our sins; in his death there is the promise of new life for us.           

Easter is a joyful celebration and reminder that death always leads to life, new life and, it is to be hoped, a better life. We always hope that tomorrow will be better than today, no matter how good today has been. We certainly hope tomorrow will be better if today has seemed like Good Friday. And tomorrow can be because tomorrow brings new life, brings resurrection.

          
Easter is also a reminder that it is not all up to us to make tomorrow better. If it were, we would fail. The reason that our todays sometimes seem so bad, seem like Good Fridays, is that we all too often want to be in control instead of allowing God to help us though the day, even through the bad. Jesus did not raise himself. He was raised from the dead, from death to new life by and in and through God.

We do not discover new life, make new life, all on our own. It is God who gives us each new day. It is God who resurrects us to new life each new day. And it should be with and in and through God that we meet each new day. That may sound and seem so simple. And it is. Unfortunately, if you are like me, it becomes more difficult to do because I want to be in charge of the resurrection process and in charge of the new day. So often I only call on God when I've made a mess of today. And then my only hope is that tomorrow, with God’s help, is a new day, a new Easter.

Easter comes every day for you and for me. As God was in charge of that first Easter, so we need to allow God to be in charge of our daily Easters. Then maybe we won’t have so many bad Fridays that need God’s help to be made into Easter Sundays.