Dear People Whom God Loves,
WHAT DOES EASTER MEAN?
St. Paul writes that if Jesus is not risen, our faith is in vain. Strong words. Let us see if we can understand what he is saying.
Jesus’ disciples were devastated by his crucifixion. This Jesus whom they admired so much was put to death by the Romans as a subversive revolutionary. How could this be? Besides being devastated, they were scared. The men were so scared that they ran away. To be fair, the women did not run away; but they were not in the same danger as the men. They were just women who didn’t count. They were not in danger of being crucified. The men were in danger.
Beginning on the third day, beginning with Mary Magdalene and eventually many more followers of Jesus, they began to experience that Jesus was still alive. Notice the difficulty these disciples had recognizing Jesus whom they knew so well. He was alive, but not alive in exactly the same way as they previously knew him. Gradually, many had this experience.
They realized that death was not the end for Jesus. It is this aliveness in a new way that we call the Resurrection. This is unique about Christianity. We speak of Jesus as alive…not dead. Jews do not speak of Moses as alive. Muslims do not speak of Muhammad as alive.
This belief went further. They saw Jesus as the first fruits. Just as Jesus entered a new life, we will enter a new life also. Death is not the end. The belief went still further. The world (as we know it) will end, but all creation will be redeemed. Not just people. We don’t know just what we and our world (we can now say universe) will be like. I imagine that it will be the same in some respects and very different in other.
I think that this is what Paul was pointing to. If Jesus is not risen, death is the end of us as individuals. And the end of the world is the end of everyone and everything. This means that there is no hope or purpose.
It is this life in the faithfulness of God that we celebrate today.
Smile, God Loves You,
Father Clay
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