Easter Let Loose

Easter has come once again! The creation has been bursting forth with evidence of the resurrection for weeks now: Green the grass, ripe the bud, pink the flower, blue the sky, beautiful the butterfly, risen the Lord! Easter has come, but it is not gone!

In the drama, The Trial of Jesus, John Masefield has the centurion Longinus report to Pilate after the crucifixion of Jesus. Longinus had been the officer in charge of the execution, and after his official report, Procula, Pilate’s wife calls the centurion to come and tell her how the prisoner had died. This was important to her because she had dreamed about Jesus the night before his death and tried to warn Pilate to let him go.

After the centurion gives her the account of Jesus’ death, she asks, “Do you think he is dead?” Longinus answers, “No, lady, I don’t.” “Then where is he?” asks Procula. Longinus replies, “Let loose in the world, lady, where neither Roman nor Jew can stop his truth.”

Indeed, Jesus is let loose in the world. His truth continues to change hearts and lives. It is such a profound truth that we cannot let it be forgotten or misinterpreted. It is the One Truth that can set us free.

One Sunday late in Lent, a Sunday School teacher decided to ask her class what they knew about Easter. The first little fellow suggested, “Easter is when all the family comes to the house and we eat a big turkey and watch football.” The teacher suggested that perhaps he was thinking about Thanksgiving, not Easter. Next, a pretty little girl said, “Easter is when you come down stairs in the morning and you see all the beautiful presents under the tree.”

At this point, the teacher was quite disappointed. After explaining that the girl was probably thinking about Christmas, she called on a boy with his hand tentatively raised in the air. Her spirits perked up as the boy said, “Easter is the time when Jesus was crucified and buried.” She felt she had gotten through to at least one child, until he added, “And then He comes out of the grave, and if He sees His shadow we have six more weeks of winter.”

What do you believe about Easter’s truth? Is it accurate? In what way is Jesus alive in your world, your life? Ponder anew the mighty truth of Easter. Let its truth loose in every corner of your thoughts. Jesus is alive!

Passion Week and the Emergency Room

Ten Plagues? Lately it feels like it. If I counted back to Cindy's mother's death 18 months ago it seems like we've been through plenty. If frogs start falling from the sky I know we're in trouble. Cindy's mother died suddenly in August 2009 but we're still settling up her estate and personal belongings. Narcie found out less than a year ago that she has a brain tumor. Cindy has had three surgeries since January, including one more last week. What I thought would be enough money in my Medical Reimbursement Account to last a year hasn't lasted 3 months. My brother died suddenly on his birthday last August. In the last 3 weeks 2 grandchildren and 2 children have had strep throat. Now I have pneumonia, and I'm sure that I'm leaving something out.

Sure, there's been plenty of good stuff, too. Cindy and I had our 35th wedding anniversary last December. Josh and Karen had their first child last week: Kaela Lynn McClendon. Being a District Superintendent is still a pleasure. Working with friends to help the UMC be a stronger church globally and locally has been a blessing, too. Teaching UM History at Lutheran Seminary has been a joy. Good with bad, bad with good - C'est la vie, right? Life is this tension between good news and bad. I guess I'm a little gun-shy right now, but what I've been lately calling "a prolonged anxiety" is real. The scary thing is that I've been so blessed. There are some people who go through this kind of stuff their entire lives, so why should I be different?

So why should I think that I'm too special to get caught in life's cross-hairs? Jesus' Holy Week was utterly awful and he was/is Special with a capital "S." How easy it is for us Christians to think that we should be exempt from life's junk. How easy it is to think that people get what they deserve. Jesus' suffering during Holy Week clears up that falsehood because thinking people get what they deserve is a lie! Premillenialists may hope for a "Beam-Me-Up, Scottie!" rapture, but the early church's view of the rapture with one woman left at a handmill and the other taken sounds more like Roman soldiers capturing one and leaving one behind to me. It's not about an easy escape route! Look at early church history's facts. On average, the early church had 5,000 martyrs a day for 300 straight years. Doesn't sound like an easy life, not even close, and certainly doesn't jive with my utopian "God will protect me and reward me" selfcenteredness.

Truth be told, none us get what we truly deserve. We deserve every bad thing imaginable. Go to your local Emergency Rooms and you'll find the proof. Being in an ER is not a great experience unless you really have a penchant for studying people or might be a masochist. Cindy and I were there for 9 hours before it was decided that she needed to be admitted. Without sounding too much like a doubter concerning how much of the imago dei is left in people, I have to say that there were times in Cindy's ordeal that I pondered whether if I were somehow able to die for the sins of the whole world, would I - in the context of who and what I saw in the ER? Frankly, Cindy was the only person there who would have been worth it from my vantage point. I was tired, frustrated, bothered by the drama taking place around me, and wasn't in any mood for the sheer raunchiness and apparent lack of any manners in the people around us in the waiting room. There wasn't enough security for the menagerie including me. It was a human zoo and I was one of the animals.

And Passion Week kept smacking my brain. Sitting in the ER with Cindy writhing in pain put some perspective on the incarnation and upcoming Passion Week for me. Theoretically I knew that Jesus died for every one of the people gathered in the ER and would have done it even if it had been just one, and not just Cindy, but how much Jesus loves us has never hit me this profoundly before. Humanity is fickle, sinful, and yet God loves us! He became incarnate in Jesus and took our sins upon himself. Thinking about all this I have to admit that I'm still more than a little jaded by the whole ordeal, but I think it got my attention in good ways. If God loves us so much in spite of who we are and how we act, then I better start seeing our human commonality more than spending my time dividing the sheep from the goats.We're all made in God's image, however marred we all are.

Before I start judging the idiocy of the Palm Sunday crowd and preach about how they turned on Jesus by Good Friday, I can look in the mirror and see the same fickleness. By God's grace and love I can look in the same mirror and see the faces of every person from that ER. Everyone is included in Jesus' passion. Lord, help me to open my eyes and see that your Passion is for all of us, not one soul left out.

Remember, You Must Die!

There is a novel by Muriel Spark titled Memento Mori. It tells about a group of friends, all over sixty-five, who one by one receive anonymous phone calls telling them, “Remember, you must die!” The novel, partly serious, partly humorous, tells how different individuals come to terms with the telephone message. Though reactions vary, a common reaction is fright.

Still, the anonymous caller often causes characters to think back over their lives and assess how they have lived – about the good they have done as well as the not-so-good. In a way, the message they receive about death forces them to come to terms with the meaning of the life they have lived. Somehow death leads them back into life.

Lenten season is a reminder that we too must die, especially to sin. By dying to sin, we are led back into a fuller life of grace and good works. We put our faith into action through loving deeds. As someone has said, “We are judged by our actions, not our intentions. We may have a heart of gold – but so does a hard-boiled egg.” I proved that actions are more significant than intentions with last week’s bulletin cover. As an unthinking hard-boiled egg, my lack of sensitivity in using humor about gender roles proved that faith is either undergirded or weakened by our actions. I am sorry.

Jesus said, “By this shall all people know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.” Educator Jeffrey Holland tells about a pre-school teacher who faced what she thought was “burn-out.” She had begun to despair about some of the children in her class. She wasn’t sure if there was something wrong with her or the current crop of pre-schoolers. Then her mother died.

She took a week off from her teaching duties to handle the funeral and have some time alone to deal with her feelings. She loved her mother very much. Her frustrations at the pre-school seemed like an even heavier burden at this point in her life. When she went back to her classroom she felt more like a soldier going into battle than a teacher.

The first day back was what she expected. Her hurt and despair produced resentment that she kept carefully hidden. She went through the paces like a professional, smiling at the right times, and was fairly patient considering the environment and her raw feelings. But then it happened. She had come around the corner to discover Rachel picking the last chrysanthemum from the pot in the hall. Rachel was the most distant and disruptive child in the class. In a stern, trembling voice the teacher demanded, “Rachel, what are you doing?” Rachel held out the flowers she had already picked. “Mrs. Terrell,” she said, “You used to be like a mother. Would these flowers help you to be like a mother again? I know you are fussed in your mind. Wouldn’t you like some flowers?”

Mrs. Terrell thought, fussed in my mind? You mean it shows? To a five-year-old? She spoke: “Rachel, what is a mother like?” “A mother is like you used to be,” Rachel said. “A mother likes being with children.” “But Rachel,” said Mrs. Terrell, “I like being with children. I’ve just… well, I’ve been… well, Rachel, my mother… passed away, and…” Rachel meekly interrupted, “You mean she died?” “Yes, Rachel,” said her teacher sadly, “She died.”

Rachel looked up at her teacher and asked, “Did she live until she died?” Mrs. Terrell thought, what kind of question is that? “Well, honey, of course,” she said, “All people live until they die; they…” Rachel interrupted her again. “Oh. No they don’t, Mrs. Terrell. Some people seem to die while they are still walking around. They stop being what they used to be. Mrs. Terrell, don’t die just because your mother did. Be alive while you are alive.”

Out of the mouths of babes. How do we witness to the world that Christ is alive? We do it by loving one another – dying to self and living for others. If I can do this then Lent will have been a worthwhile spiritual journey and Passion Week all the more meaningful!