Happy Easter

Very, very early in the morning, while it was still dark outside, Mary, a woman from Magdala, and one of the closest of those who followed Jesus around for three years, went to the his grave and found that the tomb had been opened. There had been a large stone placed over the opening, but the stone had been lifted off. So, finding this somewhat upsetting, she ran back to where Peter and John were. She told them of her findings.

She said that someone had taken the master. Peter and John immediately ran, John running a little faster than the older Peter, to where the tomb was and saw the stone had been removed. John looked inside, but Peter wasted no time and went right on in. John then followed and they found the tomb empty. Over in one corner, the body wrappings lay on the floor and in the other corner was the cloth that covered Jesus’ head. No doubt scratching their heads, the two went home, but Mary stayed at the tomb and just wept.

And as she looked up from weeping, she saw two forms, one standing at where Jesus’ head was, and one where his feet were. This startled her somewhat, not knowing who or what these forms were and she turned and saw a man whom she supposed to be the gardener. He asked her why she was crying and she says because the body of her teacher seems to be missing and that she doesn’t know where it is, and then he says Mary, and then she suddenly recognizes the man to be Jesus and she holds on to him. He tells her to go to his friends and tell them to wait for him because he has a few words for them.

So Mary runs back to the disciples and tells them that Jesus isn’t dead and sure enough, Jesus shows up later that night. He shows them the wounds from the nails and the spear and wishes them peace. And then he says as the Father has sent him, so he sends all of them. Go on out into the world and tell what they have seen.

This is the story of Easter, of resurrection. It is a message of life. In spite of the death and the suffering, it is a message of life. Jesus walks out of that tomb and he brings that message of life. And as any other spring holiday that celebrates life and rebirth, Easter reminds us that the tomb is empty. Jesus was there. Now he is not. And the biggest mistake any of us could make would be to get hung up in the whole cult of death and suffering. Because Easter isn’t about death, it is about life. It is about leaving the burial cloth behind and turning our backs on death because death just doesn’t matter. It isn’t important. Or, at least, it isn’t any more important than any other part of living.

We are so trapped in our way of thinking. We see life as a straight line. You’ve heard it a million times. Life is a road. Life is a journey. Life is a river. Well, life isn’t any of those things. Life is life. Roads, journeys, rivers, they’re all nouns. They are all things. Life is a verb. To live is a verb. It is something you do. And there is no straight line about it.

The Romans couldn’t understand the Christians because they thought that they hated life. But it wasn’t that they hated life; they just didn’t fear death. It was just another part of the cycle. Consider the river. It seems like a line. It starts in the mountains and ends in the ocean. But it doesn’t begin in the mountains at all, and it doesn’t end in the ocean. It’s all part of a water cycle. Water in the ocean and lakes and all over the world evaporates and rises into the heavens until the temperature is right and it has condensed enough and then it falls to the earth as rain and flows in streams to rivers and from rivers into the oceans and where does it begin, the ocean, the sky, the mountains? And where does it end, the ocean, the sky, the mountains? And does the stream end when it connects up with the river any more than the river ceases when it reaches the sea? And at what point is the river now the sea? So death is a part of life, but it is not an end to life, any more than the ocean is an end to the river.

And just as the rain may fall and nourish a dry and thirsty earth, it may also fall and destroy what it falls upon, just like our lives. We can nourish and help grow the earth, or we can destroy it. Jesus brought with him the message of life and healing. He called on us to give love and charity. He called on us to quit our senseless worry about life and consider the birds and the flowers and the beasts of the field. Do they not survive? Do they not have all that they need? Will this world not give us all we need to live and be happy? All that brings us unhappiness is this never ending want of more, more things, more money, more security. But Jesus kept telling us the secret to happiness was in giving and deep down, all of us know this is true. We know the joyful feeling we have when we give, when we help, when we support and encourage and build up.

We know this is true. But Jesus also understood all the parts of life. He said we would each take up our cross and suffer, just as he did, because it is part of living. It is the way. It is the Tao. Life is joy and suffering, rejoicing and weeping, embracing and pushing away, because life is. Life is. It is all of these things and you can’t have one without the other. And so the message is to give. Giving is the way of life. Life is giving.

Mothers, the most holy among us, give the gift of life. For nine months they give of their bodies, their very beings to create this little collection of cells and synapses within their wombs. Mothers give all they have and all they are. And after giving birth, they continue to give and to weep and embrace and support. Women are the model of God on earth. They are the creation, in their very being. And Jesus gave the ultimate example of giving in the gift of his own life. Greater love has no one but to lay down his or her life for a friend. And this gift is life. And this gift is given every day and has been given every day by people everywhere.

It was given by the Polish priest who offered his life in place of the Jew the SS had set apart to execute as an example. It was given by the brave fire fighters and police officers who ran into the twin towers on 9-11. And, even as I am opposed to the war in Iraq, it is given every day by our sons and daughters, mothers, fathers, husbands and wives, and friends half a world away in Iraq and Afghanistan. These sons and daughters of God give their lives every day so that we can live, just as Jesus did.

And not to embrace the lives we have and live them to the fullest, to enjoy every moment and make the most of them is to cheapen the gift they have all given us. We honor them, and each other, when we continue to give and to encourage and strengthen and build up. I have said this before and I will say it again. Your life is so important. Every life is so important. That is the message of Easter, of the empty tomb. Because Jesus didn’t say, Hey everybody! Look at what a great thing I did. Now everything is cool. You can all go to heaven now. He said, Just as my father as sent me, so I send you.

He didn’t come and deliver a message and then go back to some throne in heaven. He gave the message to us and said now take the message out there and live the message. Because the message isn’t something put in words, although a helluva lot of words have been written about it, (1,443 right here up to this point), you are the message. Life is the message. We are all connected. We are all together in this and none of us are getting out alive. So we live and we love and we take love and we pass it around and we create and we sing and dance and enjoy this amazing creation that God or Krisna or Allah, or whatever you want to call this power gave us. We are all connected to God. We were never NOT connected to God. We’re just too busy being distracted by shit to notice. That is the message of the empty tomb. That is the message of Easter.