Greetings to you and yours on this, the beginning of the Season of the Resurrection of Jesus! It is here, for now, that our little reflections will cease (here where everything begins). For continued readings and resources of this sort, feel free to wander over to St. Stephen’s Publishing. Catch you in Advent!
Joel Mason
Scripture for Reflection:
“But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing; and as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living One among the dead?”
“He is not here, but He has risen.”
Luke 24:1-6
Easter Sunday Reflection
I remember going out one Easter morning with a few friends for an early sunrise service; we decided on Todd’s Point, a slab of rock overlooking the water. We had prepared in our minds vistas of sun and sea salt ricocheting off each other in dazzling displays of beauty and in reverent devotion to the occasion. But even as we plunked through the dark with our flashlights, guitars, and armfuls of firewood, we could tell that it would be a grey and misty beginning to the day. We lit the fire and huddled around its unimpressive flame, waiting for any sign that night had turned to light, that Jesus was anywhere close to exiting His tomb. I remember vividly the wall of fog that slowly revealed itself as the sun was dragged up over the hills, sitting invisible behind grey and white; we couldn’t even see the water. All we were left with was grey fog upon grey stone, our faces quickly following suit as the cold continued. We tried to play some songs of worship to raise our spirits but our fingers grew numb within seconds; We were speechless as the poetics of our time surrounded us: did God really raise Jesus from the dead? Perhaps we are fooling ourselves; we should’ve stayed in bed.
There is no part to this story where the sun comes out; no finale where our spirits are lifted by nature’s kind intervention, proving all our doubts to be counterfeit. The fog stayed with us for the whole day. And this is how the resurrection is to many; we know that it is supposed to be important but we often live with the sense that we are cut off from its depth, truncated from God in the hour when we should be most connected. The crucifixion is easier, at least in the sense that people are tortured and killed everyday. But the resurrection can seem to stand aloof from the grasping hands of our minds and hearts.
That morning, something else did happen. For me, it happened without drama and without organized fanfare. I looked up from the fire to see my friend walking down the rock to the place where the impenetrable wall of fog shot up from the water. In his right hand he held a conch, a shell that you can blow like a horn. He stopped in front of the grey and blew the conch; the sound reverberated around us and beyond us into the formless mass. It peeled like bells in the wilderness. It was a distress call and a song of praise all in one. It was mystery colliding with history colliding with our small brains, bodies, hearts. It was protest and lament, thanksgiving and stubborn hope. Soon after, we packed up and trod the muddy trail back to our cars and, in our cars, back to our beds.
I want to put my hand in the scarred side of the risen Jesus. But sometimes all there is is my feeble song of faith sounding into a formless void. Somehow, on that day, it was enough. My friends and I had a certain idea of how our celebration of the resurrection of Jesus should be; and it was thwarted quite completely. But perhaps what really needed deconstructing was our idea of the resurrection itself. Perhaps the strange mix of disappointment and joy that sat in my belly as our car jangled and bumped its way home was the realization that we had indeed celebrated the risen Jesus. Can a celebration be akin to a cry against a void? Can something be so mysterious and so explosive that its sound waves escape you completely?
One day the fog will lift and I will scatter song in the full assembly of the sun and sky; but until that day, my heart does not stop singing. It is fired by a sun which shines as well in darkness as it does in light. My song does not have to be a certain melody of clarity and picturesque moments; it can exist, can thrive, can still utter the only refrain I believe when I believe nothing else: He is Risen.
