Will Spring Ever Come?

          “Will spring never come?” has become the exasperated cry of many folks living in New England though, of course, when you read these words, the issue will have been well-settled:  The snow will be gone, the flowers risen and blooming, and the sun standing taller in the midday sky (at least we are hoping this will be the case!).

          So, too, with Easter, I think.  We believe that Easter will come – every bit as much as we trust that spring will (finally) arrive every year.  It is reassuring that that is so but also a little bit regrettable:  In a perfect world, I think, Christians would be utterly shocked and delighted by the rising of their Savior from the dead.

Think of it:  The man (who-is-God) was crucified and has risen from the grave!  Is this not the most astonishing idea/reality in the entire world?  Could anything possibly be as mind-boggling as this?  And yet we often say “Christ is Risen” with no more surprise in our voices than if we were announcing that dinner is on the table.  That is not to say that we are bad Christians or people of little faith.  Not at all.  But, perhaps, we need to sit in silence a little longer, pray a bit more deeply, open ourselves more fully to what God is doing in our lives and in our world.

          Wendell Berry – a name you’ve heard from me before – is a farmer, poet, novelist and ecologist.  He is revered by many for his intelligence and sensitivity.  One of my favorite Berry poems is about Christ’s rising:

                      What hard travail God does in death!
                        He strives in sleep, in our despair.
                        And all flesh shudders underneath
                        The nightmare of his sepulcher.

                         The earth shakes, grinding its deep stone;
                        All night the cold wind heaves and pries;
                        Creation strains sinew and bone
                        Against the dark door where he lies.

                         The stem bent, pent in seed, grows straight 
                        And stands. Pain breaks in song. Surprising.
                        The merely dead, graves fill with light
                        Like opened eyes. He rests in rising.

        -- from A Timbered Choir

I dearly love one line above all:  “Surprising the merely dead, graves fill with light.” Yes – surprising the merely dead: that captures something essential about the Easter moment. 

Perhaps Easter might also surprise the merely alive, you, me.

Christ is Risen!

-Pastor Mark