Traveling in Place

The Unnatural Resurrection of Christ

Even though this year’s Easter was about as late as the church’s convoluted dating system allows, last Sunday didn’t exactly feel like spring.  Raw wind and cold rain persisted right through Holy Week.  Only in the last couple of days has spring truly sprung, bringing with it warm wind and heavy thunderstorms.

What is the relationship between Easter and spring, anyway?  That may sound like a silly question.  “Easter” is an Anglicized form of the name for a Germanic goddess of spring.  When Christianity moved into Northern Europe, the celebration of Christ’s resurrection was melded with local folk customs marking the coming of spring.  By leaving the tomb, Jesus brings new life, which – perhaps not coincidentally – is bursting out all around us.

Maybe the better question is, what is the relationship between Christ’s resurrection and spring?  Jesus was crucified in the spring of the year – during the Jewish Passover.  But does the connection go any further?  In past years, I have preached about how Christ’s resurrection is unnatural, and therefore finds no true parallel in nature.  Jesus did not sprout leaves, break out of a cocoon, hatch from an egg, or come out of hibernation.  God raised him from death.  Not the dead of winter.  DEATH.  So all the comparisons between Jesus and butterflies or Jesus and daffodils are misleading.  The life that springs forth after winter is natural.  The resurrection is wholly unnatural.  It is the creative work of God to overcome death with new life.

Living Memorials

Author’s note: I first wrote this reflection for Holy Week two years ago after I returned from my Holy Land pilgrimage. The pictures (top to bottom) are of the Church of Peter in Denial, the old Roman staircase from the Kidron Valley, and the site of Calvary inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

In the city of Jerusalem, Christian pilgrims flock to the Mount of Olives to walk the Palm Sunday Processional and visit the Garden of Gethsemane.  It is a short walk from there to the Old City of Jerusalem.  Just outside the city wall, the Church of Peter in Denial is perched on the side of the hill leading down into the Kidron Valley.  This three-story building contains the remains of the House of Caiaphas the High Priest, including a dungeon where Jesus may have spent the night awaiting trail before Pontius Pilate.  Just outside the church, the remains of a first-century staircase, likely the path up which Jesus was led following his arrest, give a chill to pilgrims retracing the final hours before Jesus’ crucifixion.

Holy Week: The Lenten Journey into Crowded Jerusalem

Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, astutely observed that disciplines of self-renunciation can easily deteriorate into spiritual self-absorption. Taking a swipe at yoga practitioners who sought to be liberated from all unhealthy desires, he observed that the pursuit of liberation could itself become an unhealthy desire. Severe spiritual practices designed to free us from the self only make us more obsessed with our personal spirituality.  Nothing is solved.

This is the danger of just about any spiritual discipline, including the Christian practice of “giving up something for Lent.”  However laudable such efforts may be, they can quickly devolve into pious naval-gazing.  We compete with ourselves to be more spiritual.   

But we avoid this pitfall if we follow the journey of Lent through to its destination, for our own journeys merge with those of our brothers and sisters in Christ. All our paths lead us to Jerusalem, where we crowd into the Holy City to experience the passion of Jesus.  On Palm Sunday, we observe Jesus entering Jerusalem to cries of “Hosanna!”  On Maundy Thursday, we sit together in the upper room and share the Last Supper.  On Good Friday, we weep at the foot of the cross.  On Holy Saturday, we grieve together in silence.

Multiplied Tragedy in Afghanistan

So this is war in the 21^st century.  An Air Force pilot sits in a comfortable, climate-controlled room with a joystick in his hand.  He’s operating a drone that’s flying 7,000 miles away in Afghanistan.  He, his cameraman, and an intelligence officer are watching a video feed from the drone.  They spot 18 passengers getting out of a vehicle and spreading a blanket on the ground.  An audio recording now released by the U.S. Air Force provides the transcript of their exchange as they watch this scene:

Camera Operator: They’re praying.  They are praying…This is definitely it; this is their force.  Praying? I mean, seriously, that’s what they do.

Intelligence Coordinator: They’re gonna do something nefarious.

Pilot (7 minutes later): All…are finishing up praying and rallying up near all three vehicles at this time.

Camera Operator: Oh, sweet target.

Then, they remotely drop a bomb, killing at least 15 people and injuring 12 others, including a woman and three children.  None of them are insurgents.  They are all innocent people, devout Muslims praying to God according to their faith tradition.

The Legacy of the Civil War

On April 12, 1861, Confederate cannons fired on Ft. Sumter, South Carolina, commencing the worst conflict in our nation’s history.  The Civil War appeared to be the early end to the Great Experiment.  Four years later, President Lincoln would call its conclusion a “new birth of freedom.”  It was also the inevitable result of our founders’ inability to resolve the issue of slavery, thus pitting a large sector of our nation’s economy squarely in conflict with the ideals of our founding documents.

I don’t believe it is possible to understand the United States of America apart from the Civil War.  No matter how far in the historical rearview mirror that conflict recedes, it will always be just behind us.  Rearview mirrors in our cars carry a message: “objects closer than they appear.”  The Civil War will always loom in the American consciousness.  You could even argue that the Civil War is more important to our self-understanding than the Revolutionary War.  This is why millions visit Gettysburg National Military Park every year while only thousands come to Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, or Yorktown, Virginia.

Getting Back to Lent

Yesterday, my church marked its 50^th birthday with a big celebration.  On the first Sunday of April 1961, fifty-seven people signed the charter membership roll.  To commemorate 50 years of ministry, a large, energetic crowd gathered yesterday for a worship service that was punctuated by several special moments.  The service was followed by a catered brunch.  We laughed a lot, cried a little, and our spirits soared.  We had a great time. 

Of course, celebrations like this are not exactly in keeping with the season of Lent.  On the other hand, I believe there is an old tradition of observing the mid-point of Lent (the fourth Sunday) by singing an “alleluia” before descending once again into the somber journey toward Holy Week.  So, we could say that our big day was a mid-Lenten pause.  Not that I feel a need to justify what we did.  I could sense God enjoying the day with us.  But now that our celebration is behind us, I’ve returned to more reflective spirituality. 

Here are some thoughts about Lent that I started working on last month, but didn’t have time to finish until today:

The American secular gospel promises that the “good life” is possible for everybody.  At least (and skeptics would say only) in theory, our political and economic freedoms guarantee all Americans the opportunity to advance themselves.  A free economy, we are told, yields infinite resources, so that it is possible for everyone to be materially wealthy.  Furthermore, material wealth is the path to peace.  If everyone’s standard of living is raised, no one will be jealous of his neighbor, everyone will be satisfied, and wars will cease.  All of society’s problems have their solution in the free market economy.