Easter Greetings
I offer you Easter greetings.
I do not know where you are in your faith journey, or even if you are on a faith journey. Perhaps you are, or perhaps you are not. Perhaps you are Christian, perhaps you aren't. Atheist, agnostic, Christian, believer, doubter, or some other category, I offer you Easter greetings.
Easter isn't about proof. I can no sooner prove the resurrection than I can any real article of faith. Hence the name article of faith. But what I find in Easter is a witness in the belief that God has validated Christ and the teachings of Christ and not the violence of the cross. Nor has God validated the liturgical and legal correctness of religiosity, or the self-righteousness that has come to so quickly and very, very sadly sometimes deservedly exemplify the Christian faith.
I find that in Easter, we encounter a metaphorical witness that speaks of God encouraging us to be the light to the world and to proclaim that hopelessness is not the will of God. We also hear the words of worth: God's validation of Christ was a validation of life. It bespeaks of God being love, not a wrathful, torturous God who seeks only to hasten the damnation of the world.
Easter is a holy day that should shape the eyesight of Christians - not as a get out of jail (or hell) free card, but as a story of mercy as well as teaching a resolute understanding that Grace is costly yet still to be offered freely. Easter is a day in which life can begin again. That which was is buried and gone. We encounter something similar, yet unique. Familiar, yet wholly other.
After the stories of the resurrection in the Gospels, we find that Jesus is rarely recognized on sight. Yet when the revelation does take place, it is a profound one and a revelation that the person who was Jesus should have certainly been recognized at once. Yet in that story is the profoundness of the faith: what is has not been fully revealed, but when we see it, we know it. Almost as if we had already met.
Perhaps this is something of a mystical greeting, but I find that Easter becomes mystical thinking as well as a holy moment of profundity that hides far behind the eggs, chocolate, rabbits and flowers. It is the moment in which the divine encounters us seemingly without our knowledge, yet wholly in the grace and mercy of God.
Easter is a metaphor, it is an offer, and it is a story of faith.
I bring you Easter greetings.
Happy Easter!
I do not know where you are in your faith journey, or even if you are on a faith journey. Perhaps you are, or perhaps you are not. Perhaps you are Christian, perhaps you aren't. Atheist, agnostic, Christian, believer, doubter, or some other category, I offer you Easter greetings.
Easter isn't about proof. I can no sooner prove the resurrection than I can any real article of faith. Hence the name article of faith. But what I find in Easter is a witness in the belief that God has validated Christ and the teachings of Christ and not the violence of the cross. Nor has God validated the liturgical and legal correctness of religiosity, or the self-righteousness that has come to so quickly and very, very sadly sometimes deservedly exemplify the Christian faith.
I find that in Easter, we encounter a metaphorical witness that speaks of God encouraging us to be the light to the world and to proclaim that hopelessness is not the will of God. We also hear the words of worth: God's validation of Christ was a validation of life. It bespeaks of God being love, not a wrathful, torturous God who seeks only to hasten the damnation of the world.
Easter is a holy day that should shape the eyesight of Christians - not as a get out of jail (or hell) free card, but as a story of mercy as well as teaching a resolute understanding that Grace is costly yet still to be offered freely. Easter is a day in which life can begin again. That which was is buried and gone. We encounter something similar, yet unique. Familiar, yet wholly other.
After the stories of the resurrection in the Gospels, we find that Jesus is rarely recognized on sight. Yet when the revelation does take place, it is a profound one and a revelation that the person who was Jesus should have certainly been recognized at once. Yet in that story is the profoundness of the faith: what is has not been fully revealed, but when we see it, we know it. Almost as if we had already met.
Perhaps this is something of a mystical greeting, but I find that Easter becomes mystical thinking as well as a holy moment of profundity that hides far behind the eggs, chocolate, rabbits and flowers. It is the moment in which the divine encounters us seemingly without our knowledge, yet wholly in the grace and mercy of God.
Easter is a metaphor, it is an offer, and it is a story of faith.
I bring you Easter greetings.
Happy Easter!
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