B.C. and A.C. (461)

Resurrection isn’t resuscitation. It isn’t returning to life from death. It’s coming into a whole new life. That’s the promise of Easter. Jesus promises us new life through resurrection, but not through a reworking of the old life we now have. It’s not just our old lives made better. What an amazing promise that is, because I don’t need my old life reworked or made a little bit better with a nip here and a tuck there. There isn’t enough “spiritual plastic surgery” Jesus could possibly do on my old embodied life to fix it up perfect. And I’m not only referring to my old football knees when writing that. I’m talking about the whole enchilada of who I am. It would take Jesus an eternity to fix all that and he still might run out of time.

So, I don’t need improvement or enlightenment. I need resurrection. And so do you. What Jesus promises us is just that: Resurrection to a whole new life. That’s a promise worth contemplating right now as we shelter-in-place. While we don’t know exactly when, the time will come for us to resume our everyday lives once again. What part of our old life do we want resuscitated? There are probably some aspects of our lives B.C. (Before COVID-19) that we’re eager to resuscitate (and should) when the time comes. We all long to hug our friends and family, to gather for worship with our sisters & brothers in Christ, and to have the opportunity once again to serve, hands on, our neighbors in need.

There are, however, other aspects of our lives that probably aren’t worthy of resuscitation. Those things need to stay dead in our tombs. As we burst forth from our physical distancing graves, what will our resurrections look like? When we rise from the grave of COVID-19, will we simply be resuscitated back to those old patterns of anger and bitterness that trapped us? Or, might we envision ourselves resurrected to a new way of being in relationship with one another that leaves buried our old resentments and fears? In this very special, unusual Eastertide, what if we trusted Jesus to pull us out of our graves to new life and not merely to a resuscitation of the same old, same old?

God makes that same offer to us as the human family. B.C. we were, as a society, buried in the grave of extremes. We’d anxiously fly back and forth between panic and neglect. We’d panic about what was happening around us, and then racing to the other extreme, we’d neglect to do anything about what was happening. For example, when there was yet another mass shooting, remember how we’d bewail the tragedy, offer our thoughts and prayers for the victims and their families, and then promise to have a conversation about gun violence? We’d go into panic mode, but then when our attention spans were diverted by one thing or another, we’d neglect to change anything about that evil. As Pete Seeger sang: “When we will ever learn?”

Maybe A.C. (After COVID-19) we’ll embrace resurrection to the new life Jesus promises? Maybe we won’t settle for the mere resuscitation of our old selves? As my Mama used to say: “Wouldn’t that be somethin’?”

+Scott