An Easter celebration
This past month has been full of tiny delights. Over and over, I have been reminded how glad I am that we moved last summer. It hasn’t been the big or flashy moments. We took the boys to see the high school production of Mary Poppins. It was magical. We can walk down the road to an ice cream shop that sells dairy-free ice cream. There’s a small Mexican restaurant round the corner from the soccer fields that is phenomenal. There are tiny plants coming up in our garden. We have friends that we see every day. I can walk on a trail in the woods to school pickup. I jetted downtown for lunch with a friend on a Thursday and we ate at the cutest little diner.
These things are precious. And right now, they feel fragile. They are fragile. I keep thinking about the Ukrainian people who also enjoyed small delights of literature and food and family and plays and sunshine and now their country is decimated by bombs and shelling and people they love are dead. It’s not just there either. There’s war in other countries. People are hungry in my own. The tiny delights splayed across my own life make the horror monstrous in contrast.
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I’ve been thinking a lot about church. How do we do church well? What is church supposed to be? Why are we so bad at church? I’ve tackled this a few different ways (a story for another time) and I keep coming back to bearing witness to the resurrection. We are here, as followers of Jesus, to bear witness to Jesus’ resurrection and to live as though we believe in our own.
Resurrection affirms the goodness of this world. We aren’t floating off to a disembodied future in the sky. We are going to be resurrected into new bodies because bodies are good. Creation is good. God is going to make the whole world new, not do away with it. Humans are made to inhabit the earth, except we’re supposed to do it in God’s presence.
Resurrection confirms the brokenness of this world. There is no need for a resurrection unless there has been death. Jesus rose again because He hung on a cross and died. The world must be made new because it is broken. We will get new bodies because these bodies will fail. Bearing witness to the resurrection doesn’t mean ignoring the reality of the world. It enables us to look it in the face.
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It’s Easter today. Maybe you feel triumphant. Maybe you aren’t sure that resurrection matters when what’s in front of you seems so bleak. But resurrection is what holds the two of these together. Resurrection is the meeting of despair and hope. It’s an outrageous claim, and we are staking our entire lives on it.
Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
Always,
Lisa
Links I Love:
Andrew Peterson made my favorite Easter album.
Slowly planning to make our yard feel magical.