It’s impossible to say what happened nearly two-thousand years ago, but something transformed a small group of people. They were in hiding, afraid that the Romans would capture and kill them, now that their leader, Jesus of Nazareth, had been killed. They were without hope. They had bet-it-all on Jesus’ becoming the Messiah and defeating Rome. They had completely miss-understood Jesus’ Way. Jesus was dead, for nothing.
What they experienced changed all that. They emerged reborn, sharing their experiences with others, proclaiming new life and confidence that Jesus’ Way was truly that of the Creating and Loving God. The rest is history.
Many today still celebrate that occasion. Christ the Lord is Risen Today will be sung throughout the world and the Risen Christ will be praised. So what? It will mainly stop there. People will return to their lives, the holiday well spent, but spent. Few lives will be changed, let alone, reborn.
Easter shouldn’t be about what once was, as much as about what is possible, now. Or about believing in any doctrine. It’s a promise, but one that must be chosen and enacted by people, not merely believed. Those disciples back then had a choice. They could have stayed hidden, going back to their towns and lives with good stories to tell. They didn’t. Because of their choice, lives have been changed ever since.
If ever there’s a need for lives to be changed, for people to be reborn, it’s now. What a wonderful gift it is to have Easter come around, just when we need it, reminding us that we really do have the ability to change, even to be reborn. Our lives are not ‘in stone’, no matter our pasts and circumstances. If we stay the same, it’s because we choose to do so.
This is expected, normal and of no risk. Easy. But often deadly to our souls and to the earth. If the earth is going to change, even a little, it is necessary for many of us to become human enough, holy enough, to risk being ‘reborn’. This is our common calling, shared by all understandings, ignored by most of us. We have, again, the reminder of this at Easter. We can let it be a one-day observance, or the start of hope. In this time of Spring, let us take the time to decide in which direction we will grow. But know what you are doing, and not doing. Don’t delude yourself. Doing nothing is making a choice. Given our present situation, it is probably choosing for death, more than life.
Anthony, still in the process of re-birth.
