If We Believe in Resurrection…

If We Believe in Resurrection…
We celebrate Easter with great joy, pomp and circumstance. Every year, we shout our Hallelujahs after having them silenced for seven weeks. And we give thanks for the promise of new life with deep lungfuls of springtime air. And then every week thereafter, we declare ourselves to be people of the resurrection, people who believe in a Christ who conquered death.

So, if we say we believe those things, then what? What does our faith require of us if we say we believe in this resurrection stuff?

It is commonly accepted now that we are in a time of reformation in the church. This means several things. One, that we are moving from one thing to another; to reform means to be undone and redone. Second, a recognition that things are changing means we need to take a moment for lament. The church many of us have known, loved, and grown up in does not look the way it once did. Consequently, grieving becomes an important step in this process, but it would be terrible if that’s where we stopped. Third, we need genuine discernment; during reformation, there is the possibility of being pulled in many different directions, so it is necessary to constantly keep praying, and listening to determine which next step is correct. You don’t get from A to Z without several letters in between. Similarly, you don’t get from formed to reformed without intermediary steps, each of which requires faithful discernment. For we are not reforming ‘for the fun of it’, but out of a true need to re-become Christ’s church. Next, patience is required; just as it takes a large ship time to turn, it takes a long time for an institution to change. Hopefully, this allows the change to happen in a way that can ease as much anxiety as is possible.

Finally, I think the most important thing we need is faith. The good news is that our faith is given to us as a gift of the Spirit, so we don’t need to create it, just to stay in touch with it. I strongly suspect that if we were to step back a bit and observe, beyond our grief, that we would see God at work in our reformation. God in the midst of our undoing and the Spirit leading us toward our new manifestation. And if we do see God in it, then we can take a big sigh of relief, for if God is in it, then all will be well. As Dame Julian of Norwich said, “and all things shall be well.”

On Easter morning, your pastor says with a joyful shout “Christ is Risen!,” to which you respond, with even more gusto “He is risen indeed! Hallelujah!” We believe in a God who can look death in the face and say, ‘you don’t win.’ Our God is a God of life, Jesus is alive! The church of Christ will continue for generations to come, because Jesus lives. I don’t know what it will look like, but I believe in its future because I believe in the resurrection.

May we all look to the Risen Christ and know our future is secure.

Happy Easter! Christ is Risen!

                                                                                    Pastor Joanna +