April 2024
Click to read April Steeple
He Is Risen! He Is Risen Indeed!
These words we proclaim (and hopefully enthusiastically shout!) to one another on Easter morning, celebrating a reality that is joyous while also being a mystery. It is joyous because God has shown victory over death by resurrecting Christ. But it’s a mystery because it’s frankly hard for us to wrap our minds around. Miracles are like that. They catch us by surprise - Can it be true? Did God really do that? How is it possible?
When Mary first shared this news with the disciples she was breathless and overjoyed, and she was met with disbelief. But it didn’t keep her quiet, the joy was too great to subdue. “He is not here, he has risen!” - how would you have received those words in the middle of your mourning and grief? In Luke’s gospel, the women take these words back to the disciples, who didn’t believe them “because their words seemed to them like nonsense” (v. 11). It took time for many of them to digest this truth, some had to see the resurrected Christ in order to believe. What does it take for us to be overtaken with belief? What did Mary’s faith look like as she waited for the others to truly receive the good news?
It had to have been so unreal to hear that he was alive - wanting it to be true but also wondering if holding that hope was worth more possible pain and disappointment. I can’t imagine what it was like to watch the one who you believed to be the savior of the world, die before your eyes, and I don’t think any amount of Good Fridays will ever really get me there. All the prophetic words of Jesus had been seeds planted in their hearts and minds, they were only just starting to germinate when the miracle of resurrection was experienced.
In John 12:24-25, Jesus says to his disciples:
“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
After the empty tomb, we draw connections to the new life that is sewn in each person because of Christ’s death and resurrection. Paul establishes that we are a new creation in Christ! So this bears the question - what needs to die in me so that God can be working new life? I’m currently watching my seeds sprout in my makeshift greenhouse, and it is SO. EXCITING.
Planting seeds is the physical example of seeing what is possible to come from death. The soil is filled with nutrients from dead things - composted plants and the like. The seeds themselves are a last ditch effort of a dying plant to bring new life in another season. Even after the planting, there is the waiting - will something grow? Maybe it's all dead. But we water in hope, and persist in care. And a sprouting seed feels like a miracle.
Tuesday of Holy Week, our beloved Bill Wurl passed away. He holds a bright and strong legacy in our church, but also in the wider community of Quincy and really, the region. So much has been born out of his life, that even in his death the love, compassion, strength, and joy he carried in life lives on in each of the lives he has touched. Not to mention the stories and the jokes. May you open yourself this Eastertide to let the Spirit work new life out of death. May you let go of ideas, habits, patterns and practices that worked for a season, but God would like to compost so that new life might grow. Amen? Amen!
