ENCOUNTERING THE RESURRECTION

Easter is upon us: the resurrection of Jesus, an event to remember and celebrate, a day to give thanks. It is all that and more. It is more because it must be more than even a day or an event or even a reason for doing anything. Easter, to be Easter, must be lived to be real. Otherwise, it will remain only a day, and event, a reason to for a season.

For Easter is about a person we are to encounter such as the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. As long as the resurrection remained for them an event, a story, their eyes were blinded. But when they saw the resurrection as a person, their eyes were opened.

The same is true for us, is it not? We can tell the Easter story, recount the event as the Gospels do. But it was the person of Jesus who was resurrected, raised up. It is in the person of Jesus-raised-up that the resurrection is encountered and understood.

Yet, can we not go one step further and say that it is in our own person that the resurrection must be encountered, experienced, not only for us to understand Easter, but for others to understand it as well? Can we not say that the resurrection of Jesus must be lived by us, in us; and that is truly the only way that Easter can be proclaimed today? We are Easter People, you and I, not simply because we believe in the resurrection but because others encounter the resurrection in us, encounter Jesus in us.

That can be a little frightening, I think, because it puts a heavy load on our shoulders, on us as present-day heralds of the resurrection. The reason why we can do so, of course, is that Easter, the resurrection, also includes something that happened fifty days later: Pentecost. It is through, and only through, the power of the Holy Spirit, through the grace and strength of God, that we can even begin to live as Easter People. We cannot do it all on our own.

We cannot do it on our own because faith is not lived out on our own. If our faith were merely a story to be told or a catechism lesson to be learned, there would be no need for Spirit-ual help. But because faith is a person, is person-al, it can only be lived. It cannot be deciphered or told.

True faith will never be confused with stories about faithful people. That is not to say that is because people of faith sometimes tell the wrong story about what faith is when they – we – try to live out that faith. We are all less than faith-ful even everyday even as we try our best to be so faithful.

And so we struggle each day to be Easter People, to allow the Person of the Resurrection to live in and be seen in us. Every day we fail, perhaps because of our own unwillingness to do what needs to be done to make the resurrection visible. And, yet, thankfully, every day we succeed through the grace of God. Happy Easter.