The Easter Challenge

Well, once again this past Sunday, we members of the Jesus community got to vocalize the greatest announcement in history: “Christ the Lord is risen today!” Yes, the story has been told before—but it never gets old to me: we get to worship a man who wouldn’t stay dead! This is vividly personal for me as it means that whatever is dead in my life doesn’t have to remain lifeless and empty: the darkness in my heart; the failures in my past and present; my father’s grave; my friends’ marriage; our world’s future… The list of places that cry out for resurrection’s hope is endless.

But I thought I’d focus this week on the challenge a friend of mine, Jesse Baker, presented recently: can the reality of Easter actually make a difference, actually be made visible, in the gathering of the people of God? His challenge is much richer than that line actually, so I invite you to read it on his blog of April 5, titled “Easter”: http://1ostinacloud.blogspot.com. The lines that continue to work on me are these: “I would argue that the congregation, not the preacher, bears the burden of stepping up to the plate on Easter Sunday. This is the time of year when the people on the ‘outside’ will come to us... the people who are disenfranchised by the machine that the church has become are walking through its doors, maybe for the only time this year, maybe for the only time in their lives. So what are we going to do? Leave the cheesy small-talk and your penny-loafers at home... be authentic. The church should look different on Easter Sunday... there should be a Joy and a thankfulness among the people that spills over the aisles from pew to pew, heart to heart.”

Now, these words resonate with me, not because it “lets me off the hook” as a preacher-type. Quite the opposite: it places the challenge on me (and the rest of us), simply by being members of a congregation of Christ-followers. So, it’s a simple question I will carry with me: will we proclaim the Easter message with our lives, in our gatherings, and in our going-about-in-the-world and not just with our mouths? That said, I certainly don’t want to diminish this simple but life-changing proclamation either. But for that, let me direct you again to Jesse’s blog entry “risen” on Monday, April 13.

Blessings in your life and journey this week!

“He is risen indeed!”