The freeing nature of Easter is that we are allowed to change. We are allowed to get better. To become new.
For Sunday
Easter
Collect
O God, who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son to the death of the cross, and by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy: Grant us so to die daily to sin, that we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Reading
From Luke 24:1-12
“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. “
Reflection
The joy of Easter is palpable. We can feel it in our bones. These late forty days of penitence and preparation lead to a letting loose in collective joy.
The word that always comes to mind is free. Easter is freeing. After a season of feeling restricted by self-discipline to prepare and learn, we are now free to experience life without those constraints!
What’s funny about this, of course, for those who endeavor to participate in Lent’s self-denial and discipline, is that when the season is over, we often don’t want to go back. If we’ve given up sugar, sugary things now taste too sweet. If we gave up something we once thought was necessary (caffeine?) we now know what it is like to not be dependent on it. And those who have taken up Bible study or devotions often don’t want to just…stop.
We may be free from the season of self-discipline, but we’ve found the discipline to be life-changing.
In a sense, the true magic of Easter for many of us, is that we arrive at the day the church celebrates the transformation of death with the realization that we changed before now. We’ve arrived already changed.
These words in Luke’s telling of the Easter story, when Mary and the other women arrive at the tomb and the figures in white ask “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” we might at once find them the strangest words and yet the most obviously right ones. For why would they be looking for Jesus where they saw him last if they trusted him?
This is what we receive in Easter: not only the celebration of freedom, but the centrality of trust in that freedom. This, of course, is not unlike seeing hope in the crucifixion because of the resurrection.
As followers of Jesus, we’re not commanded to take up our crosses and follow Jesus into his death and resurrection for the fun of it. As if God has some sadistic tendency. We follow because we trust that death leads to resurrection. And that the death and resurrection of Jesus reflects our life of faith.
In short, we need to get better about letting things die so they can be reborn. Because that is a true act of faith.
Trusting in a God of hope. Of generosity. And of true love.