How Big is Easter?

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight [Isaiah 65:17-18].

Sorry to start my Holy Week meditation on a downer, but as I began to write this week’s piece on Tuesday evening, I heard—through the magic of my Phonak hearing aids—snippets of an evening news story regarding the Brooklyn subway incident, in which 10 or more people were shot by an assailant, posing as a workman.

During Palm Sunday weekend in Chicago, five people were killed and 21 others wounded, including an 11-year-old girl, in various shootings. Chicago—it’s not my kind of town.

Last week marked the sad passage of one year since two of Jane’s Erskine College classmates, as well as two of their grandchildren, and two workers who just happened to be at the Lesslie home in Rock Hill, SC, were gunned down by an angry young man for no apparent reason. The loss of Robert and Barbara—and their grandchildren—has been particularly painful for two of our dearest friends, also from Rock Hill—members of that same Erskine College class of ’73, who very close to the Lesslies. Their hearts ache; our own hearts ache for them.

Oh, and did I mention that we’ve all had to endure COVID-19, either literally or at some distance for what now seems like forever? During the height of the pandemic, for a period of almost two years, young mothers in East Durham (and elsewhere), whose jobs couldn’t be performed from home, had to grasp onto some sort of “remote” hope that their children might be able to maneuver online lesson plans and homework without much supervision.

And if these mentioned tragedies and calamities aren’t enough, there’s the situation in Ukraine ….

“Christ is Risen! … Christ is Risen indeed!” I believe that with all my heart, but my heart also screams out that in spite of the reality of Easter morning, the world is still a mess. It’s enough to make us sigh. It’s enough to make us turn to the Old Testament reading appointed for Easter Sunday, Isaiah 65:17-25 (RCL, Year C), the first verse of which I include below:

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind (Isaiah 65:17].

I think I speak for many of you when I say that this Easter, perhaps more than at any Easter of my past, I need the sort of hope that is offered by Yahweh through the mouth of His prophet, Isaiah. I need the sort of hope that assures—and reassures—us that Yahweh’s continuing, creative force is alive and well, that it’s not content with the values of a world that would nail an innocent man to a cross, or cause harm or death to innocent folks.

I need the sort of hope that promises that joy will be restored to Jerusalem and the tenuous territory called Palestine. I want that sort of joy to rein in Kyiv, Brooklyn, Chicago, and Durham. I bet you join me in longing for “new heavens and a new earth,” where Yahweh’s inclusive love is the rule, where wolves and lambs eat together [Isaiah 65:25]. I long for a time in which the prophet’s words are fulfilled, a time within which Yahweh creates Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight [Isaiah 65:18].

And, as I read the prophet’s words, inspired through Holy Spirit, Isaiah gives me more than just a glimmer of that hope, for he proclaims to us all that Yahweh has begun that important work. I think I see it within and through the resurrection story that we read each Easter morning.

When I say “begun the important work,” I hope you don’t misunderstand me. I’m not, of course, saying that there is anything missing from Jesus’ sacrificial and salvific death on the Cross. I’m not saying that Christ’s actions during his life and in his death were in any way inadequate. I’m specifically not saying that the Atonement that was accomplished through His faithfulness needs any help from us. What I am saying is that Easter occurs on the third day, the day of His resurrection, and not on Good Friday, the lowly day of His death. And so, as important as Jesus’ willing death on the Cross was/is, it is the resurrection from the dead that Easter is all about.

The issue of resurrection, as well as its importance as a central core—indeed, perhaps, the central core of Christianity—was at issue in Christ’s Holy Church as it became to be manifested in the congregation at Corinth. Paul had already taught that it is Christ’s resurrection that is the earth shattering event of all humankind. To be sure, for Paul, the death of Christ on the Cross was an important part of Holy Week; it was, however, Christ’s resurrection from the dead on the third day that made all the difference for the cosmos.

Paul had this in mind as he wrote what we refer to as his first letter to the Corinthian church. A portion of that letter is the Epistle lesson for Easter Sunday [see 1 Corinthians 15:19-26, RCL, Year C].

For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power [1 Corinthians 15:21-24].

Some scholars have argued that in his first Corinthian letter, Paul takes his time getting there, but he lays out a convincing argument to his fledgling congregation—and, therefore, to us—that they (and we) live “between the times.” That is to say that they (and we) live in the time frame that extends from, on the one hand, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ to, on the other hand, the point of Christ’s parousia, i.e., his second coming/return. As a friend has written, “We live between two Advents.”

Paul also stresses that while Christ was/is the first fruit of this new Creation, the first to be resurrected from the dead, His resurrection was/is not an end in and of itself. Instead, His resurrection puts into play a complete reordering of all the cosmos. According to Paul, Yahweh’s goal was not just the resurrection of His only begotten Son, but rather the resurrection as well of the brothers and sisters who belong to Christ.

And so, we who must live our lives in these “between times” moments, must live in the assurance that behind the scenes—and sometimes in plain view—Yahweh is working His eternal Will, creating new heavens and a new earth. During this same time that lingers between the two Advents, our Lord, Jesus Christ, reigns. And as Paul assures us, Christ will continue to reign until He “has put all his enemies under his feet” [1 Corinthians 15:25]. Then He will return and we who sleep will be resurrected as He was.

Paul reminds us of one more thing, and this one’s important, given the stresses, strains, and vicissitudes of our current lives:

The last enemy to be destroyed is death” [1 Corinthians 15:25].

In and with the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Yahweh has begun this final process of re-Creation, this final culmination of Christ’s magnanimous activity, Christ’s ultimate victory over all the forces that would oppose Him. That process continues under and by virtue of the Will of God; it cannot and will not be stopped.

A preacher friend of mine has sometimes said, “Easter is much bigger than Easter.” On that first Holy Easter, Yahweh established the course toward which He is drawing all reality. On that first “third day,” Yahweh didn’t just take a Jesus who had died and make him alive again. Jesus himself had already done that with Jairus’ daughter, with Lazarus, and with several others. All those persons whom Jesus brought back to life lived to die again, just on another day. Instead, Yahweh changed the actual trajectory of the cosmos in the first fruit defeat of Death by resurrecting Christ from the dead in a way completely unlike that of Lazarus and the others.

That is the ultimate hope toward which Isaiah pointed: the ultimate obliteration of Yahweh’s ultimate enemy, coupled with our bodily resurrection into eternal life, to live in Communion with the Holy Trinity. That, my friends, is certainly Good News. Thanks be to God!