For Those Who Don’t Believe in the Easter Bunny Anymore

Suggested Scripture: John 20:1-18

Easter has fallen on hard times. What do modern, scientific, rational people do with this amazing, bewildering, awesome, ridiculous story?

Some just accept it at face value and find life in it. But others can’t accept it as literal truth, and they struggle to find what truth it does carry. Some practice reductionism: in an honest effort to make this story acceptable to contemporary thinking, they reduce the story to something that no longer has any power. And there are those who are bored with the story, finding no connection between it and their own 21st century life.

I have preached 25 Easter sermons. That has been a privilege, because it has forced me to go deeper into this story than I would have otherwise. In order to preach it, I have had to go deeper than doubt, deeper than dismissal. I’ve had to go deeper than the question “Did this really happen?” I’ve had to go deeper than the theology that says God sent Jesus to die, because many of the folks I ministered with could not hear any good news in that. I’ve had to go deeper than the position that Jesus was a victim because there is no good news in being a victim. I’ve had to go deeper than any “one right way” to understand the resurrection, and let many diverse ways of understanding resurrection live side by side.

Let me remind you first that the Easter story, resurrection, is only half of the story. It is really a story of crucifixion and resurrection together. Many people (and many of their churches) bypass the Good Friday part of the story. If you do that, you do not get the good news, or the truth, of Easter. We get to the Easters of our lives by going through the Good Fridays. We find transformation (Easter) by walking the path of self-giving love (which Jesus on the cross models for us.) Though I am limiting these thoughts to the Easter part of the story, in my life and my ministry, I do not, cannot, separate them.

I love this story, and I trust it. It has grown with me. I have understood it in different ways at different times. I never get to the bottom of it. It shows me how life and growth work. It is about the journey that my soul makes, the steps of my soul’s journey towards God. It shows me the pattern of deepening consciousness. Because of this story, I know that death is not the end; I can trust the unknown that comes after death. This story convinces me of God’s power, in spite of vigorous contemporary efforts at reductionism. It also tells me something about that power: it is not about armies or contol over others; it is about self-giving love.

I was looking over the sermons I’ve preached during these two and one half decades. Sometimes I have been able to pick out one sentence that captured a truth of this Easter story for me. I am going to share some of those sentences with you. (If I took this sentence from someone else, I credit him or her.) Each one offers one way to understand or respond to resurrection, one truth or insight that the resurrection of Jesus holds for us. I invite you to reflect on these images. Don’t read them as if this were a grocery list. Read them slowly, pausing to let each one play with you a bit before you take in the next. Here they are, some of the truths that this story carries for me.
Don’t believe in resurrection. Expect it.
            We are not yet out of grace.
            Never place a period where God has placed a comma. (Gracie Allen)
            I have been seized by the power of a great affection.
            I experience in life an extravagant and unruly grace. (Thomas Long)
            God is stubborn: there is a persistent mercy in the universe.
            Resurrection is against the law. (It happens anyway.)
            God’s nature is mercy within mercy within mercy. (Thomas Merton)
            Dying is safe.
            God acts on another’s behalf, brings life when death is expected, brings goodness in spite of the odds.
            Easter is about bumping up against the edge of God and finding there is no edge of God.

Missing from this list is “Jesus died for my sins.” I find it useful to use fresher language in our time, and more expansive images and understandings. Atonement theology—the name we give to the belief that Jesus was punished for our sins—made sense in a culture in which people believed it necessary to sacrifice a life (animal or human) to appease God. We have a different understanding now. However, I have no need to eliminate this ancient interpretation. It still carries truth, including but not limited to these: that Jesus’ death was for me, in that he showed me the way to life; that new life (salvation; liberation) requires sacrifice; that the greatest power in the universe is self-giving love; that we must “die” to our ego-self (our small self, our self-centeredness) if we want to experience transformation or union with God. I’m very cautious about throwing out traditional expressions, because it is so easy to also throw out the truths that they hold for us.  This profound mystery that we call resurrection has many layers of meaning, and I prefer to let them all stand side by side. They each have a gift to offer; and anyway, all the truths that we can articulate, claim, and argue over do not begin to capture this incredible Mystery, which is always beyond our understanding. When we’re talking theology, when we’re claiming to know what is true and what is not, when we’re debating the ways of God, we sometimes find ourselves having to choose between arrogance and humility. I try to always go for humility.  

Bless you on your journey with resurrection, Jesus’ resurrection, and your own. You may embrace this story or wrestle with it or hardly know it. But if you live with it, and live into it, you will find that this is a story that gives life. Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

                                                                              ©2007 Janice Jean Springer