A Reflection On Easter

A Reflection on Easter Sunday
for the
Discovery Class
Dr. Colin Morris - Mercer University
My Sunday School Teacher

April 12, 2009

(This is a slightly modified version of a reflection piece that some of us looked at three years ago at Eastertime. Maybe it can serve as a lesson preview for this Sunday as we focus on what it means to be an “Easter people. Please take advantage also of the Holy Week Meditations that are available at the church’s website www.smokerisebaptist.org)

In modern time, the journey from Christmas to Easter is not a very long one – somewhere between three and four months, depending on the calendar and the spring equinox. By the time we have put away the decorations and returned the gifts that need exchanging, Ash Wednesday arrives and the count-down to Easter, known as Lent, begins.

Even in the historical perspective, the journey is relatively brief – thirty three years or so, depending on how we read the hints in the gospels that help us measure the time. One lifetime, albeit a short one, from a birth heralded as the focal point of history, to a gruesome death and mysterious resurrection that drew and held together that small band of followers who started that journey of Easter faith that we still share – not a very long period in the scope of history.

Our seasonal celebrations of both these events – Christmas and Easter – abbreviate a lot. After all, there are other holidays to attend to; and they do come around once a year. We don’t have to worry about shortchanging them, because we will celebrate them again soon. Even our view of the historical events they represent is somewhat limited by the meager information we have about them both. Christmas is Jesus’ birth, and Easter is his resurrection from the dead – that’s the beginning and end of the story – what else is there to say?

I have begun to wonder if we do in fact shortchange a reality like Easter by thinking of it as a holiday, or even as an historical event. To be sure, it is a highly significant celebration in the life of the church; and it is often presented as the central affirmation of the Christian faith: “He is risen!” And, its roots in concrete history remind us that the God we worship is a God who acts in history on behalf of God’s people and the rest of creation. To remove the covenant faith of the Bible from the arena of history into some metaphysical spiritual realm is to miss one of clearest emphases: “... and he shall be called Immanuel – God with us” “... and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us ...” ... the Kingdom of God is within (or among) you ...” “ ... he is risen! and you will see him in Galilee” “Behold, the dwelling of God is with humankind.” Our faith is an historical faith, because we live in history; and it is in history that God has promised to be with us.

But, even though our faith is rooted in history, it also looks beyond the windows of history to eternity, where the mystery of God and of life has a timeless quality. Today, when all of Western Christendom celebrates the event of Easter (the Eastern Orthodox tradition will celebrate it next Sunday), I wonder if it might be a helpful thing to do to consider the resurrection of our Lord beyond the level of an historical remembrance and think of it as a spiritual reality that points beyond the event itself to an eternal truth that we can embrace and share with the world as truly good news.

Maybe it would be best to consider this thought in terms of a question:

Is the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ a series of events that signal a change in the way God deals with the world; or are they a series of disclosures (revelations) of who God is and how God has always and will always deal with the world?

To be Easter-specific: is the resurrection of Christ a unique event that represents a turning point in God’s relation to history and the world; or is it a profound revelation of the eternal dimensions of the mystery of life in all times and places?


If it is the latter half of each of these questions, then the resurrection we celebrate at Easter changes from a picture to look at to a lens to look through; and the world and everyone and everything in it is seen through this powerful affirmation that what we know of life is not all there is to life.

In this way of thinking, Jesus – his life, death and resurrection – becomes the incarnation of a truth that lies beyond him: the mystery of eternal life; and we look with his help to a God whose nature is creative, redemptive, and eternal. Easter does not represent a change in God’s character or God’s relation to the world – it reveals what God’s character has been all along, and the way God has and will deal with the world.

But herein lies the problem: if we allow ourselves to focus too much of our attention on the specific details of the event or the pointer, we may not see the truth it is pointing to. There is more to this truth than the volume of our claims that Christ is the savior who “makes us right with God.” In him God invites us not only to see his special birth, but to see in every birth an incarnation; not only to see his agony on the cross, but to see in every death God’s participation in suffering; and not only to behold the empty tomb on Easter morning, but to embrace a God of history and eternity, with whom all tombs are empty.

“He is risen!” Indeed – and with him so is all of life. Alleluia – thanks be to God!