Risen

I feel like I’ve been in a year-long season of Lent. No need to give up anything more this year. We’ve already given up so much. As the end of this pandemic comes tantalizingly close, we arrive at this Easter season full of hope of renewal of the normal good things we had come to take for granted–family visits, meeting with friends, going to church, restaurants, movies, the local coffee shop, school taking place in school. The list goes on.

We come to this season of resurrection and new life full of hope that we might confront the social ills that infect our country–issues of racism, gun violence, poverty and inequality, and prejudice of all sorts. Our enforced isolation has given us time to reflect on these issues and to make known to our civic leaders that we want change.

The message of the risen Christ is that transformation is not only possible. It is inevitable. That is the “good news,” the gospel. We can help delay or hasten it, but the movement of all creation is toward renewal. 98% of the atoms that make up our body are replaced every year, so that literally we are a new creation annually. Even science backs up our belief in resurrection, so that it is no longer simply a fantastic event we have to take solely on faith. The whole of creation is moving toward restoration and renewal. Jesus tells us that nothing the Father has given him will be lost. Why does it take us so long to embrace this simple truth that we see happening all around us?

Where Jesus has gone, we are to follow. May this Easter season be for you a time of rebirth and renewal in many ways. As the grain of wheat must die to itself to produce much fruit, may our own path lead us through the cross to the fullness of life, both in this world and in the next. Easter blessings!