Easter: Re-Thinking Resurrection

When I stop to think about it, Easter has never been my favorite high holy day. Maybe you feel the same post-deconstruction. I don’t know if it is all the forced optimism hidden behind every “He is Risen!” social media post, the embrace of blind hope to escape the harsh realities of life, or the fact Christians tend to weaponize the resurrection as a sort of triumphalist trump card to show their religious superiority. Whatever the case, Easter is complicated and confusing.

We are two thousand years on the other side of the empty tomb and war, holocaust, plague, and racism are still running rampant. Nothing seems to have changed. The same politicians posting about Jesus on Sunday will vote for school children to be massacred tomorrow. The same mega-church worshippers praising God this morning will fall back in cult-like formation on this week behind the most craven criminal in American political history. White supremacy didn’t suddenly end because a brown man rose from the dead. The cancer is still here, the bills haven’t been paid, your taxes are still due, and the depression remains. And though Easter tells us the kingdoms of this world do not have the last say, Rome has just been replaced by America as the most dominating, far-reaching, and violent empire known to modern man with a special penchant for crucifying Black and Brown bodies.

So, you will have to forgive me for not embracing the naïve belief things are miraculously suddenly better because of Easter.

What if, instead of being a one-time historical event we acknowledge once a year, the bodily resurrection of Jesus is an invitation to participate in the real change that comes from resurrection and renewal? What if Easter beckons us to live into the natural cycle of putting old things to death to make room for newness of life? What if resurrection isn’t so much something to hope in but rather a practice to participate in as the way to make all things new?

Think about it for a minute. Everything is impermanent. Everything is constantly changing. Every created being is cooperating in the universal and observable pattern of death and resurrection, of decay and rebirth. When we simply pay attention, we realize death and resurrection are happening all the time. On a cosmic level, scientists estimate 100 billion stars are being born and dying each year. In nature, the cycles of the seasons ebb and flow from the dead of winter to rebirth in the spring, followed closely by the flourishing of summer, which then wanes into decomposition in autumn. Each day, the sun springs to life in the east and goes to sleep in the west. Life is constantly changing. If you are paying any attention, if you aren’t hiding from the process or passively sitting by just waiting for God to intervene, you realize that every authentic journey of personal and spiritual transformation consists of a series of actions that lead to change. Set before you each day is life and death, the invitation to change or remain the same. Choose change, so we all might live. The real enemy in life isn’t death, it’s stasis, or the temptation to remain the same. 

The ancient message of Easter isn’t some pious platitude about how everything is going to turn out great in the end. It’s an invitation to change, to be born again, to participate in your own resurrection by doing the difficult, interior work of dying to yourself. Seen from this perspective, the resurrection of Jesus is not a one-time miracle but the epiphany of a cosmic pattern of renewal. “For many, resurrection is the lifelong journey of overcoming death-dealing messages from family, friends, churches, and schools about who you are,” posts Milligan for All.

Unlike Ted Lasso, I don’t believe in hope, but I do believe in change. As the wise coach said, “Most of the time change is a good thing and I think that's what it's all about–embracing change, being brave.” That feels like the faithful message of Easter to me. We are not so much a people of passive hope but a community committed to change. We have faith in the power of change and in the God that showed us the Way to change. I hold out no hope that God is suddenly going to solve the problems we refuse to fix. We still live in a Good Friday world, and the only way this old world is going to change is if we commit to the liberative work of death and resurrection personally, politically, socially, sexually, economically, and spiritually. We have the power to participate in Jesus’ journey of death and resurrection, . To work for the renewal of all things.  

As you continue to ponder the faithful meaning of Easter, ask yourself these questions. What needs to die in order for me to be transformed? What am I holding on to that is keeping me from renewal? What is preventing me from participating in the needful act of dying to myself? What gift or encouragement do I need to walk this road to perdition? 

And remember, you are not born just once, but a million times over on this unceasing journey toward theosis. 

May it be so.