Scratching Beneath the Surface of Easter

Every year when Easter rolls around, I get this little itch. Call it a pastoral itch, if you will. And I'm not the only one. I've read the thoughts of other pastors and I have colleagues with whom I regularly commiserate and they get a similar itch. We clergy-people itch to say something new and creative in the Easter Day sermon. But it's a little like Christmas: how can you improve on the original? Each year Easter rolls around and I realize that I can't really do anything better than proclaim the Resurrection. More than any other component of Christian belief, that's the center of it all, so I end up telling the same story. Couple that with some great music and that usually scratches my itch.

But something else itches at Easter. It reminds me of a story I read some years ago about a Cherokee chief who was given a copy of the Gospel of Matthew. After he'd read it a white clergyman asked what he thought of it. The chief commented, "It's a very nice book. It's a wonder that the white man isn't any better after having had it for so long."

I have a similar sentiment regarding Easter. We call it the center of our faith. Nothing is more central to our belief than the Resurrection. The Resurrection validated everything Jesus stood for. This we say. Why, then, is there such a giant disconnect between the way Jesus characterized the Kingdom of God and the way we construct our world socially, the priorities we constantly choose individually, and the policies we pursue politically? In other words, why aren't we any better after having had this story for so long?

Now, sure, the Resurrection fuses our souls with hope. Death is not the end. Easter proclaims that Life, not death, sockets the Universe. But did Jesus spend three years of ministry just babbling? Was all that teaching just a device to get the authorities mad enough to execute him? Or, did the Resurrection also validate everything Jesus taught -- his ethics, his lifestyle, his world view? If so, and I believe that the Resurrection does just that, then when Jesus said, "Love your enemies," he meant it. When he said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive," he meant it. When he said, "Don't amass wealth on earth," he actually meant it. Have we fashioned our lives according to these notions, or have we found a way to avoid concrete applications here by casting Kingdom ethics into some future after the Second Coming? As one songwriter has opined about some Christians:

"They say if you're like them/ you'll be counted in/

when God evacuates the globe;

They wanna leave the world behind/ but in the meantime/

they're raking in silver and gold."

Has God retreated from the field, or is the Earth still the Lord's "and the fullness thereof?" Might Jesus' vision of the Kingdom of God be for all time, including now?

Maybe you're not like me and you've flawlessly applied the Resurrection to every aspect of your sphere of living. When I start to let the Resurrection seep into my whole life, though, immediately I see things that need to change -- significantly. I have a hunch this might be true of you, too. Maybe we need to do more than scratch this itch: maybe we need to go from scratching the surface to digging to the foundation.

An introduction

Blogs clog the web. Why have another? Well, this will be a way to interact. "Rayford's Ramblings" was the title of my articles in the newsletters of the churches I've served as pastor, including Walnut Grove. Frequently, people wanted to respond but it took a while to get the correspondence. The beauty in blogs lies in interactivity. Also, this blog can serve as a sort of "ask the pastor anything you've ever wanted to ask about matters of faith" and we can dialogue about it. Why not try it?

As for the picture to the right: that's Salzburg, Austria. It's a picture I took in May of 1978 and still ranks as one of my favorites. It doesn't really have anything to do with this blog.