Now that we can just barely view the pomp and circumstance of Easter in our rearview mirrors, I’d like to talk a little about Easter. Not that Easter; not the Easter egg hunts, Easter hats, and shouts of “He is risen” kind of Easter; I want to talk about the whole of the Easter story, which reminds me that the American dream is a dream built on the back of a system of domination.
Jesus’ life was not an expression of a judging, vengeful vision, but was about manifesting a way of life that wasn’t driven by mere survival. Jesus’ life was grounded in a commitment to freeing people to love beyond their boundaries and their fears – beyond tribe, race, ethnicity, gender. This is the kind of love that enabled him to give his life away.
The calendars we give and receive as Christmas gifts – Sudoku-a-Day desk tear-offs, or expensive, hang-on-the-wall art photography – don’t pay much heed to the Christian calendar aside from noting its two largest festivals – Christmas and Easter – and helping retailers take advantage of a few minor ones – Valentine’s, St. Patrick’s, and Hallowe’en. Denominational church calendars fill in more of the blanks, but we all know that the year we follow starts on the first of January, a bleak and dreary date in the northern hemisphere and a riot of colour and beauty in the southern. I don’t know anyone who hangs up a calendar that starts the first day of Advent and marks their year in the way Christians once did long ago. Of course, I don’t know any monks. Perhaps they do.
Paul was the first, perhaps he was also the most important, but he was not the only witness to the resurrection of Jesus in the biblical narrative. To complete …
Last week, we explored the Pauline corpus of the New Testament in order to learn what Paul meant when he wrote that “God raised Jesus” to the “right hand …
“The Easter event gave birth to the Christian Movement and continues to transform it. That does not mean, however, that Easter was the resuscitation of Jesus’ deceased body …
Almost all of us, at one time or another, have participated in a Christmas pageant. We have been angels or shepherds, wise men or Joseph, the Virgin Mary or …
Something happened! Lives were changed. God was redefined. Liturgies were reshaped. New holy days were born. Whatever Easter was, it constituted a transformative moment. It is easy to understand, …
Peter had so clearly wanted to be loyal to Jesus following his arrest. The story is told that he tried to follow Jesus into the courtyard of the high …
We have now explored our sources, looking where we could beneath the literal words of the biblical texts. We have come to four conclusions. First, whatever the Easter moment …