Prayer for Resurrection

Easter 2020 was different. For those of you who celebrate Easter I’m sure you feel the same. The obvious reason was that we didn’t (couldn’t) attend church this year. However, now that I’ve had a couple of days to reflect on it I am convinced there was much more that was different about this year for me. This year our traditions were peeled away. The absence of those traditions let me experience an unfettered time to really consider what we as Christians claim celebrate. This year I wasn’t worried about what I was wearing or where we were going or who was coming over or why people weren’t getting ready in time. This year I missed the community but I also wasn’t distracted by the community. This year I woke up and didn’t have to do anything other than sit quietly with my coffee and think about how Christ’s resurrection affects my life. I thought about much of my childhood and early adulthood where I thought Christianity was mostly just a standard my parents set for me to be a “good” person. Then I thought about the time early in my college career when I decided that I didn’t want to live a life pretending to worship a God who was perhaps just a fairytale. I remembered a time of wrestling with the reality of my Christian faith and wanting my life to have real and meaningful purpose. I thought about how I had heard for so much of my life that Jesus had claimed to be God incarnate and then offered proof by doing what no other man has ever done - die a dramatically brutal death then come back to life 3 days later just like he said he would. I remember weighing out what I’d heard about all the eyewitnesses and historical evidence of his resurrection. I considered that with thousands of years of critics against Christianity I’ve heard a lot of compelling arguments against organized religion and against people who claim to be Christians (but misrepresent Christ). However, I’ve never heard a compelling argument that Jesus, as crazy as it sounds, didn’t actually come back from the dead. It would seem an easy thing for a critic to prove. Yet by contrast the people who say they saw him alive again were willing to die themselves rather than change their story. It seems like they were completely convinced. So I wondered why wasn’t I convinced. I remember thinking that if only I could have a personal experience like those people had then maybe it would change my mind. I figured that if Jesus was actually alive and God actually existed then it should be easy enough. So, feeling like an idiot, I announced to the God I wasn’t sure I believed in and told him that if He was real I wanted to have a personal experience with Him. Then I waited. That night He showed up in a personal, completely ridiculous, unexpected and yet undeniable way. Maybe I’ll share that experience in detail in another post, but for now I’ll just say that evening I saw the greatness of His glory and I recognized it far exceeded anything I could either conceive or accomplish. I also saw how the most insignificant details of my life that frustrate me deeply when I can’t control them can, in God’s hands, become amazing and life altering miracles. My life from that point has been a journey and a struggle to relinquish control and in so doing I have consistently seen Him show up. So this Easter I thought about how even though I haven’t actually seen Jesus show up in the flesh the Easter story is way more than a fairy tale to me. I can say that confidently because He has shown up in other completely miraculous ways repeatedly over and over and over again. This Easter I was able to rejoice not in the Easter traditions which I love so much but actually in resurrected presence of God in my life which I love even more. My Christian faith isn’t a blind faith based on fairytale stories my parents told me. My faith, even though it’s placed in something I can’t physically see, is based not only on historical evidence but more importantly on mountains of personal experience. My life feels like a journey of discovery as I try to fix my eyes on what I don’t see and lean into a purpose defined by Grace. In that journey I continually find Thanksgiving; I find Peace that doesn’t make sense given my circumstances; I find Hope for the future; and, I find Love for my family, my friends, and my community. Thanks for reading this and letting me share why I believe what I believe and why Easter, when I really reflect on it, means so much to me. Maybe Easter to you seems like just a tradition based on fairytales. Maybe you’re highly suspect of the unlikely scenario that an historical figure would claim to be God and then come back to life. I certainly wouldn’t blame you for feeling that way. I also totally understand the need for first hand experience. If you’re reading this I’m praying that maybe you’d be willing to invite Jesus to make himself known to you in a personal way and in so doing perhaps you too will experience abundant new life. Happy Easter! Amen and Amen.