What if Easter is not about a vicarious substitution that saves me from a wrathful God, but about a forgiving victim that exposes my capacity for being part of a vengeful, wrathful mob?
What if Easter lays bare my fear of being on the outside: unmasks my willingness to join any movement, club, church, campaign, crowd, that defines itself by being against every other group?
What if Easter is a shot to the heart that cracks me open, overthrows my habit of trying to fill my self-doubt, my lack of peace, my lack of self, though acquisition, self-elevation, discrimination?
What if Easter uncovers my sickness of soul, my refusal to grow beyond the ghetto of blame, cynicism and popular nihilism?
What if Easter is the reason racism, sexism, jingoism, finally fail?
What if Easter is an ongoing event where I, we, are continually being called into a forgiving and creative love?
To the forgiving victim
If I met eternity in your face,
picked it up on these lonely receptors,
brought it to you with cupped hands,
played it for you on this mandolin,
sang it back to you on the stoop,
while the dog slept,
and all the trees reclined in the yard,
would you laugh and dance
and lose yourself in light?
I see how you suffer
to watch love struggle
to happen in hearts,
hardened and blue.
I see how morning upon morning,
carrying your incense and lamp,
you come to sit at the gate,
and how like leaven you wait
to rise in the face of a passer
like me.
Stephen, I was driving in Upper Michigan yesterday to visit relatives for the holiday and happened to catch part of a Good Friday sermon on the radio that had a similar theme as your post. It caught my attention as it is such a different way of thinking of the Easter story.
Thanks as always for your words that make us look inward.
Thank you for your thoughts Diane, and have a lovely Easter with your relatives.
Provocative as always.
The Suffering Servant is a theme in the Easter story that’s too easily eclipsed ….
Thanks Sam, and I agree, triumphalism is more appealing to us.
A brilliant and soul scouring piece of writing Steve! As usual, your insights cause us to catch our breath.
That’s a lovely comment Carol. Thank you so much.
I have not had a very contemplative connection with Easter in many years now but this perspective, one that you’ve explored and communicated many times, is still revolutionary whenever I take the time to consider it. It makes Easter accessible again as a time for introspection.
Thank you Teryl. I really appreciate this. And yes, it is revolutionary. This understanding has long resonated with me, and is now the way I’m able to make sense of Easter.
I struggle to find words for the feelings in me after reading this…a lightening of my heart and the upward turn of my mouth are the physical expressions. Thanks for showing me what you see.
Thank you so much Wenda!
Tears. Thank you for writing this.
And thank you Doreen, for reading and responding.
O Stephen … Once again, you take my breath away only to give it back again in that way only love inspired by grace to give itself away can do. You have written a searing meditation on Easter, a calling to account ending finally (as Easter finally begins) with hope … followed by those perfect lines of poetry plucked from the Mystery. Thank you beyond all measure for your continuing answer to the call to be a channel for the holiness that is our birthright. Traveling from the comforts of Connecticut suburbia to what seem in my small provincial mind to be “the wilds” of Western Canada to meet you one day has been my only cause to contemplate creating what I have always felt to be a too confining “bucket list.” You inspire me to follow your faithfulness to what I hope is a similar call, and the deep river of gratitude your words set me on may get me there. Thanks. Thanks.
Thank you Elizabeth. I’m very humbled by your words.