Remember That You Are Dust: Easter Sunday
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Death always accompanies resurrection. Consider the story of Mary and Martha and Lazarus and Jesus. In the eleventh chapter of John, we are swept up in the story of the death of Lazarus. We are told that he was ill and that he died. Jesus himself is overcome with sadness and he weeps.
This story is perhaps the most helpful story in all of the New Testament when it comes to depicting death and grief. Martha plainly states that she knows her brother will rise again. She makes clear that she has faith in the resurrection. And, yet, she grieves. She grieves because even with the promise of the resurrection, death is still real.
Death always accompanies resurrection; that is why even Jesus cried. He was certainly aware that this wasn’t the end of the story, but he still cried. He cried because the death was still real. I think that some of us long to hear this message on Easter Sunday. If you are grieving a death of any kind — from physical death to the death of a dream to the death of a relationship — the promise of the resurrection does not mean that you will not grieve. Death always accompanies the resurrection.
But as surely as death accompanies the resurrection, resurrection always accompanies death. This is the good news for which our long. If the first statement validates the reality of death, this second proclaims the power and promise of the resurrection. God is always working on the project of new life. When we are in the deeps of winter, literal or metaphorical, we cannot imagine that we will ever be surrounded by green again. However, God is always working on the project of new life.
I suppose our problem is this: when we are surrounded by death, we have a very hard time seeing anything other than death. Our vision becomes very small. But on Easter Sunday, with the empty tomb, we are reassured that God’s vision is always bigger than ours, always focused on new life, and always moving beyond our expectations.