A Gift to be Lived

Isaiah 25: 6-9

It will be said on that day,
Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him,
So that he might save us.
This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.

John 20: 15-16

Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).

New Testament scholar and author Serene Jones writes:

We do not go to church simply to remind our conscious minds that God lives and we are called to follow Christ. We need to show up so that our bodies can be reminded of him too, and the unconscious recesses of our psyches can be moved anew, our dispositions toward grace rejuvenated, our anxieties quelled as the world shifts once again into place and Easter comes, and comes, and comes again. In this yearly event we enter into the … fullness of our embodied, uniquely personal lives—this is the shared space where Jesus meets us, calling our name, receiving our touch, calming our anxious worries, and reminding us again and again that grace is not an object to be known but a gift to be lived.

This prayer from the Book of Common Worship is both a summary and a challenge.

Almighty God, in raising Jesus from the grave, you shattered the power of sin and death. We confess that we remain captive to doubt and fear, bound by the ways that lead to death. We overlook the poor and the hungry, and pass by those who mourn; we are deaf to the cries of the oppressed, and indifferent to calls for peace; we despise the weak, and abuse the earth you made. Forgive us, God of mercy. Help us to trust your power to change our lives and make us new, that we may know the joy of life abundant given in Jesus Christ, the risen Lord.

The prayer calls us as the church to embody Good News. We are called to share grace not just as an “object to be known,” but “as a gift to be lived.” The Good News changes everything; Easter makes all things possible. May the gift of Easter once more open your whole being and rejuvenate you in body, mind and spirit! Thanks be to God!

~Harrell