Here in Central Texas the Spring and the Easter season take place at about the same time of the year. Colorful wildflowers and birdsong remind me of the One who makes all things new (Isaiah 43:19). It is a season of miracles with new life springing up all around.
Growing up in a Christian home, I knew Easter to be the time of celebrating the miracle of Christ’s resurrection. On the first Easter, women carry spices to anoint the dead body of Jesus. He touched their lives in profound ways and they loved him. Now they anticipate tending to his dead body – an act that will no doubt remind them of the encounters they had with him. They will touch his feet and remember the roads he walked. Hold his hands and recall the healings. Wipe his face and see in their mind’s eye the broad smile he shared with all the world. They go expecting to find death, but when they arrive they encounter two men – the scriptures say the men had dazzling clothes on and we think of angels. These messengers from God tell the women that Jesus is alive and are sent to go forth and live their lives, transformed because of all they have experienced.
Joan Chittester is a Catholic theologian and she says it like this, “Like the women who go to the [tomb] on Easter morning to bless the body because of which their entire lives have been changed, we have been preparing to answer this last, most momentous question: Will we ourselves, touched by Jesus, now rise and do life differently?”
I am learning that the resurrection Easter calls us to is our own. As we consider living in the time of this pandemic and sheltering in place, we have been reminded of the universal truth that we are all connected. Living through this experience, how might we be challenged to rise and do life differently?
Stay encouraged!,
Teresa
Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.
Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection. – from Wendell Berry in Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
Find Teresa’s Easter video to the district here.