Easter 2007
April 8, 2007
Jim Burklo, Sausalito Presbyterian
At the level of flesh and blood, Easter is old news. Resurrection happens all the time, and will happen much more often in the future. We keep this on the wall downstairs: the Heart Start Defibrillator. A resurrection machine. High tech in its day, but this will be old-school in no time. If you kidneys die, they’ll just grow you another set with stem cell technology. Same with your other organs. As medical science advances rapidly, it will be less and less impressive when Christianity makes a big fuss about Jesus physically rising from the dead.
But Easter is about something deeper than physical resurrection. Yes, Jesus cared about people’s physical well-being – he charged his disciples to go out and heal the sick as their first priority. But as Jesus said, he came that we not only might have life, but have it abundantly. (John 10:10) The Heart Start machine can resurrect your physical heart, but it can’t do much for your spiritual heart. Breathing is one thing, but really living, and living abundantly, is quite another. As St. Paul put it, we are planted on earth as physical bodies, but raised into spiritual bodies. There really is more to us than warm flesh and blood.
So Easter is here to wake us up to that something more. Easter is here to jolt us into abundance. Into a life with juice. A life with zip. Easter is here to zap to life that gift, that talent, that un-manifested proclivity that you left for dead inside of you. Easter is here to holler into the tomb where you left your dreams to rot, and wake them into reality. Easter is here to roll away the stone in front of the hole where you dumped your passions when you despaired of ever fulfilling them.
Resurrection is coming your way, ready or not! It is chipping away at that stone in front of the tomb where you buried the unfinished business of your life. Easter has arrived and it’s not just bunnies and candy and colored eggs. It’s intense; it can be scary to be resurrected. Easter here and it is a question that won’t leave you alone. It’s asking: are you really living, or are you just breathing? What creative work do you need to do, in order to feel fully alive? How do you need to heal, in order to feel the love that you need and that you need to share? How can you get out of the dull groove in which you are spinning away your days? What relationships do you need to resolve, so that you can really start living? What happened to your love affair with God, who is waiting for your embrace? What intense emotions have you wrapped up and hidden underground, leaving you without passion, without feeling? The Heart Start of Easter is hooked up to you now, and wham! It’s jolting you into action, so that you can not only have life, but have it abundantly. Easter is here and it’s time to wake up! Wake up, feelings! Wake up, visions! Wake up, ambitions! Wake up, hope! Wake up, soul!
In the legend of Easter in the book of John, Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection and said to them, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20: 21-22) Even though they were already breathing, Jesus resuscitated them. He breathed a new and different kind of life into them, not just hot air, but Holy Spirit. Not just life, but abundant life. Not just going through the motions, running on autopilot, but burning with passion and energy. Jesus is here right now, in the form of that Holy Spirit, doing CPR on your soul as we speak. He is not content to let you fester in your tomb of habit and complacency and leave-well-enough-alone.
If you wish, close your eyes for a moment and breathe. Breathe in the Holy Spirit that Jesus breathed on his disciples. Breathe out the stale air that stifles your energy and your soul. Breathe, and let Easter ask its question of you, the question you need to hear even if it isn’t comfortable to hear – let the Christ ask you the specific things that hold you down in the tomb. In silence, breathing the Holy Spirit, answer the Christ with what it is that you want and need to release and heal and resolve, what needs to change.
Let us pray for the courage we need to rise from the dead-beat, dead-end, deadened, dead-weight dark holes in our selves. Let us pray for the energy we get when we breathe not just air, but Holy Spirit. Let us pray for the inspiration we need in order not just to live, but to be enlivened. Let us pray for the verve we need to change what needs to change, to open the parts of our hearts that have been closed, to rise to the occasions of our lives that we can’t ignore anymore. Let us pray not just to show up for Easter, but to do Easter, not just to live, but to live abundantly. Amen!