Breath of life at Easter



Here we are on the other side of Good Friday. On the other side of death, celebrating life once more. It is easy to think that Easter fixes Good Friday – fixes Jesus humiliation and places Jesus where he belongs in glory in heaven. There is no fixing. Easter affirms Good Friday as the moment of Christ’s glorification. In Jesus death the ways of rivalry with the need to have more status, power, money, stuff, people; and the way of compliance are shown to be empty. Easter does not correct Good Friday, but declares that on Good Friday Christ was glorified and love won. All other ways are death. God’s way of compassion and generosity through the cross is life. And this way is to be lived out now.
Karoline Lewis[1] puts this another way. ‘(R)esurrection is not only the promise of life after death, which, after all, would be enough, but also the assurance that the life-giving love of God will always move the stones away. Tombs are just that -- containers for the dead. And while we seem rather content these days with such spaces -- those dead places that fuel corruption, deception, racism, sexism, suspicion, rejection, marginalization, misogyny, judgment, and fear -- God continues to roll those stones away that keep life at bay. And when the stale air of decay meets God’s breath that creates new life and the possibility of hope and peace, death truly is no more.”
[1] <http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=4571>

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