Easter Day
April 20, 2025
If for this life only we have hoped in
Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of
those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the
resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all
die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own
order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to
Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the
Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For
he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last
enemy to be destroyed is death.
******************
No doubt, many people
here are familiar with a phenomenon called “HMKS”, which stands for “Holiday
Morning Kid Syndrome”. Its primary
symptom is insomnia. Sometime around an
hour before parents would normally wake up, a child (or sometimes children)
will wake up and find it impossible to remain in bed. What follows next varies with family
circumstances, but often involves shouts of “He was here! He was here!” referring, depending on the
holiday, to Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.
At this point the child may fall into a frenzy that involves dragging a
parent or parents by the hand to see what has happened. Although doctors and grandparents have
advised against the treatment, especially on an empty stomach, efforts to calm
the fracas often involve doses of small amounts of chocolate or
marshmallow. Sometimes it can also be
countered by the administration of hardboiled eggs.
That’s a pale and almost
frivolous analogy, but it is a distant echo, of something important that is at
once solemn and joyful: the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, because when
he arose he didn’t just say, “Well, what do you know!” and get back to his
carpentry. When he arose, he became the
first one up, and then began to wake up the whole human family from the night
of death and sadness and pull them out into life and hope and joy.
“But in fact Christ has been raised from
the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came
through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a
human being …” [I
Corinthians 15:20-21]
In a lot of Eastern Orthodox icons of the
resurrection, Jesus is depicted like he is in the one on the screen, not just
rising up from the grave, but dragging Adam and Eve with him, out of the dark world
of the dead into God’s sunshine, out of the ground into the fresh air.
“…for as all die in Adam,
so all will be made alive in Christ.”
[I
Corinthians 15:22]
The
resurrection is not a complete wiping-away of all that is wrong in the world,
but it is a sure and certain sign that God has begun the process of setting
this world back on track, that we are being saved, and that in God’s own time,
everything that is out of line will fall back in place.
“But each in his own order: Christ the
first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes
the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has
destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign
until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be
destroyed is death.” [I
Corinthians 15:23-26]
The resurrection of Jesus is not the end of the
process. It is the beginning. It is the turning point. It is the moment when the fever breaks and we
know that healing has begun. It is the second
when the lost sheep’s ears catch the sound of the shepherd’s voice. It’s when the drought ends with the falling
rain or when the floodwaters have reached their crest and start going
down. The resurrection is when you look
at the tree you were sure the frost had done in and see that there are tiny,
green leaves forming at the end of the branches.
The
resurrection of Jesus is not the end of trouble, but the moment when you can be
sure that trouble will come to an end. I
say, “trouble,” but it’s far more than that.
“For he must reign until he has put all
his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”
[I
Corinthians 15:25-26]
The faith that we find in trusting ourselves to a God
who has ended the power of death to end all that is good and true is a faith
that gives us the ability, so very much needed, to mourn without despair, to
grieve without bitterness, to bear up under injustice without hating the
tyrant, to look at a fallen world and say, “God is not finished and has not
given up.” We have not arrived, but we
are on the way.
It’s
how Christians have found strength at some of the deepest moments of
sorrow. The English poet and preacher John
Donne and his wife Ann had twelve children.
The eighth was stillborn. Three
of the others died before the age of ten.
Their last child also was stillborn, and Ann died in delivery. His writings show that after one of the
children died he was in a condition where he did not have money to pay for the
burial himself. Can you imagine what
that must have done to him? And he lived
at a time when the plague was still passing through both London and the
countryside every couple of years, exposing them all to yet more danger.
But
one thing he had was faith, and because of that faith he had courage. And he wrote one of the most defiant sonnets
ever. You’ve probably heard at least the
opening:
“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate
men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.”
So there!
“If for this life only we have hoped in
Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of
those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the
resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all
die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.” [I
Corinthians 15:19-22]
No comments:
Post a Comment