Out of the agonizing events of Good Friday, Easter blossoms from the tomb, not like a bursting flare of fireworks but slowly, awakening minds and hearts to the shocking revelation that Jesus, having died, is now ALIVE.
“We ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead,” Peter says. “I have seen the Lord,” says Mary.
Everything in Christianity is anchored in recognition of the resurrected Jesus, the Christ of faith.
When Mary first encounters Jesus in the garden she is still traumatized by the events surrounding his execution the day before. She is in shock, disoriented in her grief, and searching for his body which she believes to have been stolen. Her attention is focused in the past, in the scenes of his humiliation and death, in the memories of his life and her experiences with him. It’s what we all do in the face of loss as we struggle to get our bearings, wrestle with despair and collapse in the anguish of wrenched hearts, minds and lives. But when Jesus says her name, she turns from the past to the present moment and recognizes the one she has been so urgently seeking. He is standing right there before her. As the cloud of grief vanishes, in that instant she can SEE him. Her eyes are opened and she is open to what he says next: “go to my brothers and sisters and tell them I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” His words echo those of Ruth to Naomi: “Wherever you go I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge, your people will be my people, and your God my God.”
But now his rising from the dead adds a new, critical dimension to that Scriptural reference as if he were to say: “And as I rise, so you will rise, for death is not the end, as you can see. You are my siblings and OUR Home is God. When the physical body is destroyed and physical circumstances end, LIFE goes on! LIFE in God is never-ending.”
The events of this past week, beginning with Jesus’ triumphant journey into the city of Jerusalem and ending with his Passion and crucifixion is a story told and re-told. It is also lived and re-lived in large and small ways in our own lives and in every generation throughout time.
Richard Rohr, the Franciscan contemplative, says “the life that God offers us is death transformed.” And this “transformative pattern that is in all things St. Augustine called the Paschal mystery.”
“Death and life are two sides of one coin, and you can’t have one without the other,” says Rohr. “This is the perennial, eternal, constant transformative pattern. You cannot get away from it. It’s like a spiral: each time you make the surrender, each time you trust the dying, your faith is led to a deeper level. The ONLY pattern we see in the physical universe is the pattern of death and resurrection. The Jesus story is the whole pattern revealed. It is the story of the universe.” 1
A few days ago Robin Young of NPR interviewed Jeffrey Bauman on her show “Here and Now.” Jeff is the young man who lost both legs last year at the Boston Marathon when a bomb went off right beside him. After talking about everything he had to endure, the amputation of his legs above the knees, the long healing process, learning to balance then walk on his artificial legs, being thrust into the limelight as a symbol of survival and of Boston’s own healing and strength, he goes on to say this: “I think everything that has come from this is just pure awesome and amazing. I’m just glad I’m still here. I’m living a totally different life. I’m getting married next year. I see my family every day and I’m starting my own family. There’s nothing but positivity and love in my life. And I’m very thankful and grateful.” 2
This is an example of resurrection. Researchers are studying how some people respond to crises such as this by going deeper, remaking their lives and finding meaning in their experience. Professor Lawrence Calhoun who teaches psychology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte calls this phenomenon “post-traumatic growth” (PTG) and says it isn’t about being resilient, not about bouncing back when life has knocked you down. It’s about allowing yourself to be transformed. Calhoun says one consistent finding about people who experience post-traumatic growth is their attitude that “this must have happened for some reason. It makes no sense to me, but I need to try to wrestle with it to find some meaning.”
Barbara Fredrickson, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says: “A tragedy can be looked at from multiple angles. The way to unearth positive emotions and emerge a better person is to be able to find those angles that allow you to see a thread of good.” 3
Seeing that “thread of good” can mean recognizing that everything that happens in our lives follows the universal pattern of death and rebirth, and that the sole purpose of this pattern is growth and transformation. It is, perhaps, the deepest way God works to bring the grace of GOD’s own Life into our lives.
So the “crucifixion” happens over and over in a multitude of ways, but our cooperation is needed if we are to experience “resurrection.” Resurrection, as opposed to mere survival, requires that we turn around, as Mary did, and allow ourselves to SEE deep into the reality of God’s presence here and now, whatever the circumstances, and often through tears.
As Paul tells us, we need to throw out the old yeast that has leavened our anger, sadness, vindictiveness and pride—all our small ego responses—and become God’s unleavened, fresh batch of dough, God’s lump of clay. In that simple, humble and open state, the deep work of transformation can be accomplished as the Divine takes over when the controlling ego lets go.
This is the message of the Paschal Mystery we have just celebrated throughout this past week. We are invited into the resurrection story as brothers and sisters of Jesus—as members of a family that knows life goes on beyond death, because we, too, have seen the risen Christ alive in the pattern of our lives, the pattern of other lives, and the pattern of all that is.
1 Richard Rohr, “Transformative Dying,” Daily Meditation. Adapted from “Dying: We Need It for Life” and “The Spirituality of Imperfection” (Richard Rohr on Transformation) (available through Franciscan Media)
2 Marathon Bombing Survivor Loses Limbs But Finds New Life, Robin Young’s interview with Jeffrey Bauman on Here and Now: hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/04/14/jeff-bauman-stronger
3 “Surviving the Jolt,” by Mark Miller, AARP Magazine, April/May 2014, pg 58 & 59.
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