It’s Easter morning. The sun is shining and the birds are performing. Right now thousands of people are getting dressed up and running to their cars. People who don’t believe in heaven are currently rushing like hell to get to church on time.
Meanwhile, the world spins on, unimpressed by our hustle and bustle.
I got a text last night from a friend I met at the New York City Rescue Mission a few weeks back: “J it’s Steve I can’t find a place to stay.”
Steve suffers from seizures and as a result has trouble maintaining a job that would enable him to pay the bills. Standing about six feet five, he gives the immediate impression of a gentle giant. He exhausted all of his guaranteed nights at both of the private missions in Manhattan and refuses to risk going into a public shelter because of the reputation they have.
On Friday he told me, “someone I know was raped in a city shelter last week. I’d rather sleep on the subway.” So what now? The night before Easter, my epileptic friend has no place to go.
I think it’s important to remember that resurrection is not a trite, theoretical platitude. We should celebrate Jesus rising from the dead. We should sing about the empty tomb. We should invite our friends to experience the good news that over two thousand years ago death died and as a result true life is possible.
But today, I’m reminded that resurrection doesn’t simply absolve the guilty, it inspires and activates the forgiven. The fact is that homeless folks aren’t the only ones struggling. Our churches are full of people in broken marriages, bad health, and with busted finances. How do we celebrate the rule of resurrection when it seems that death’s reign is still supreme?
I think that living a resurrected life is the best way to celebrate our resurrected King. But resurrection that’s confined to one day a year is no resurrection at all. If you celebrate Easter because you are convinced that Jesus rose from the dead, it’s time to transform an annual holiday into a daily discipline.
Dead people don’t typically un-die. If there’s one group of people who should cling to hope in the midst of hopelessness and love in the midst of hatred, it’s those of us who believe that Jesus is alive.
When Steve texted me it would have been completely understandable if I told him “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do.” But irrationally, I could do something. I reached out to a friend who works at one of the missions and it turned out that against all odds, an exception was made and Steve got a shower and a bed last night. Is his living situation solved? Not even close. But if we allow the inevitability of death to keep us from living, we will never experience resurrection.
He is risen.
He is risen indeed.
