April 8, 2018

Easter is Change


Easter Day has come and gone. In the eyes of the world, Easter is over. There’s a meme making the rounds on Facebook noting that Easter lasts 50 days-until Pentecost. However, mostly life has moved on. Even in our churches, the Easter lilies are drooping. Clergy and everyone involved in all the services of Holy Week and Easter are tired, and secretly glad that Easter 2 is a ‘low Sunday’.

What has happened to the Alleluias? Where are the burning bushes we noticed throughout Lent?

The streets have returned to their regular rhythm. The homes and people have returned to the daily tasks and struggles. The news abounds with shootings and disasters and conflict.

Where is the change that should have happened?

As the hymn Christ is Alive (#182, Hymnal 1982) says, ‘Christ is alive, let Christians sing. His cross stands empty to the sky. Let streets and homes with praises ring. His Love in death shall never die.”

Brian A. Wren is author of the text. He wrote the words in April 1968. Wren notes, “It was written for Easter Sunday, two weeks after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I could not let Easter go by without speaking of this tragic event which was on all our minds. . . . The hymn tries to see God's love winning over tragedy and suffering in the world. . . . There is tension and tragedy in these words, not just Easter rejoicing.’ 

The hymn goes on “Christ is alive! No longer bound to distant years in Palestine, he comes to claim the here and now and conquer every place and time.”

Since it is true that in Christ’s Resurrection, God has reclaimed the ‘here and now’, we should still be running around shouting ‘Alleluias’ to everyone we meet. It’s way too easy, though, to get dragged down by the appearances and challenges of the world we live in. But Christ is here, “Not throned above, remotely high, untouched, unmoved by human pains, but daily in the midst of life, our Savior with the Father reigns.”

As Wren’s hymn reminds us, Christ in right in the middle of everything that happens! That should be cause for an Alleluia or two. Even “in every insult, rift, and war where color, scorn or wealth divide, he suffers still, yet loves the more, and lives, though ever crucified.”

We, as witnesses to the Risen One, are called to stand up against those things that divide, to speak up for those who have no voice, and to proclaim the victory.

With Wren we can announce, “Christ is alive! His Spirit burns through this and every future age, till all creation lives and learns his joy, his justice, love and praise.”

We have seen the empty tomb and are called to ‘go and make disciples of all’. Even more than in Epiphany, we need to ‘go tell it’.
Over the next few weeks, until Pentecost, we’ll consider some of the ways Easter might change us by looking at how the experience changed the early followers.

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