Consider what Mohandas Gandhi said: “When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been murderers and tyrants, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Think of it, always!” The truth of the Resurrection is that God always leans toward hope, toward life and love, justice and goodness.
I can’t neatly tie up the loose ends of the Resurrection for you. But I can assure you that in small and profound ways I have seen and experienced new life coming out of death. I have seen and experienced resurrection. And I believe you have, too. And if we weren’t at such a loss for words, if we weren’t embarrassed about sharing our glimpses of mystery, the exquisite moments of tenderness we have known, the incredible courage we have witnessed, the tragedy we have seen redeemed, the filling of our hearts at some experience of beauty or awe, the peace there can be simply sitting with the dying, then we would have deep and shining stories to share.
What the resurrection asks of us this Easter morning is this….
To trust the Resurrection’s truth that in the end evil falls, and good prevails. That endings are always new beginnings, and the empty tomb portends an open future.
But of course, when our heart is breaking, or our faith parched and dry, this is difficult to believe. And that’s when all we can do is fall back on faith and memories of previous experiences of God’s mercy. It’s a little like the AA saying, “Fake it till you make it.” We may feel abandoned by God, we may see no hope in sight. But still we believe, and trust the Psalmist’s word to “be strong, and let your heart take courage” as you wait upon the Lord. We trust though we do not trust; we trust until once again God’s presence and grace are real to us. We fake it till we make it.
The second thing the Resurrection asks of us is this: to live our lives in such a way that they bear witness to God’s truth, and God’s dreams for our world. To live our lives on the truth of the resurrection is to grasp that virtue and conscience are not naïve even when they end up being shamed, as they were in Jesus’ death on a cross.
