"THE RESURRECTION IN THE MIDST OF CRISIS"

“THE RESURRECTION IN THE MIDST OF CRISIS”

            Wow, what does Resurrection mean in the middle of the disaster of coronavirus?  What does Resurrection mean with death, anxiety, and uncertainty all around us?  What dos Resurrection mean when the world seems so crazy?  Well, exactly what it meant on that first Easter morning.  The Resurrection is rooted in this kind of world – a world out of our control, a world filled with anxiety and death and uncertainty.  A small group of women and men caught a vision from a street preacher named Jesus of Nazareth. 

            That vision changed them so much that they began to stand up to the Roman Empire that had executed Jesus.  They began to believe that love and justice were the center of their lives, even when (and especially when) Rome told them that it was the center of all of life.  They began to change their lives. They began to invite those who were poor and sick to come into their homes.  They began to share their property.  They had women who were leaders.  They started living their lives as if God were present with them right then, in a way that they had not experienced before.  Indeed, they began to say that God was revealed in a new and exciting way in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.  They started calling him Jesus Christ to say that in his story, life had changed. 

            So, in the rawness and the anxiety and the reshaping of our lives in these coronavirus (c-v)days, we have a chance to touch the reality of those first disciples who followed Jesus.  Let us recall that on the day of Resurrection, the struggles of the disciples are made plain in the Bible.  The men are so scared and defeated that none of them venture to the tomb of Jesus.  The women who do come to the tomb have trouble recognizing the risen Jesus standing right in front of them.  In Mark’s account, the women are too terrified to tell anyone that Jesus is risen.  And when they finally do tell the story, the male disciples dismiss their story as an idle tale.  The story of the Resurrection is rooted in fear and disbelief, and yet, and yet, here he comes, the Risen Jesus coming for them – and for us.

            In that sense, this desolation of the c-v time gives us an opportunity to remember our context and to remember the context.  I’m not saying that c-v is God’s will, though as a Calvinist, I must wonder……I am saying that the depths to which c-v is forcing is to go in our lives offers us an opportunity to see the power of the Resurrection,  a power that is deeper and wider than our Western church’s view that the goal of life is to be middle class.  The c-v reminds us that for most of the world, what we are experiencing now is closer to the routine.

The c-v is beyond much of our control, and it takes us back to that “primitive” zone of the early church, where the early followers of Jesus were all too aware that their lives could be destroyed at the whim of Rome or a virus like c-v.  The life expectancy at the time of Jesus was 35, although if one made it to adulthood, the average age was closer to the early 50’s.   C-v will alter our lives forever – we do not yet know what life will look like once the pandemic calms down – it may never go away.  The c-v is a negative, destructive power which brings fear and death.  The health and economic damage will reach catastrophic levels.  We must face that with a clear sense of reality.  It is changing our lives forever – we won’t be able to go back to “normal.”

Yet, the promise of Resurrection is just as strong on the positive side – it has the potential to come to us in the midst of all the negative forces and offer us a new view of ourselves and of life.  Let us remember what “normal” was before c-v:  the growing gap between rich and poor, a health care system that rationed care but blamed those who were poor for the rationing, a tax system that heavily favored the wealthy, a prison-industrial complex that grinds up people of color and poor people.  Let us resolve in this kind of time we will find a new vision of what our lives can be. In the midst of death, the risen Jesus comes to us, just as he came to those first women and men disciples.  May we be like Mary Magdalene in John 20 – in the midst of the terror that is c-v and death, may we hear our names called: “Mary.”  And may we recognize the risen Jesus and begin to live in a whole new way, as she did.