EASTER PEOPLE

Every time holy week comes around I find myself in full weakness to adequately express what is in my heart.  How does one communicate the passion, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead?  I certainly don’t have the communication skills.

Still, the impact on my life has been so great that I must try.  That God would empty “Himself of all but love and [bleed] for Adam’s helpless race,” still stuns me and leaves me standing in awe.  That God would include me in His loving embrace, when He could have written me off and no one would have held it against Him, still leaves me mystified, even at this late date in my life.    

           

To live within God’s loving embrace in a world so broken, and to live there forgiven, restored, re-energized with abundant life available only from the One who created me, still catches me off guard and leaves me amazed by grace.  

           

To be enabled to live in the abundant and resurrection life of God in Christ and, because of Him, to be on a journey to wholeness that will culminate in my own resurrection at some date still to be named, leaves me speechless. 

But there’s more. I love the words of N.T. Wright in his book, Surprised by Hope. He writes, “Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven…”

That’s it, isn’t it?  God is doing something right now, today, right here.  We don’t have to wait for heaven for the party to begin.  It’s already underway.

Pope John Paul II said, “Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”   I say, YES.  Join the festivities.

Remember, Good Friday does not have the final word.  Easter is on the way.  We may live in a broken world but the River of God is flowing in and through that brokenness.  The last words are not brokenness and death. The final words are, “HE IS RISEN.”