Mar
20
Written by:
host
3/20/2009 7:00 AM
One week ago today, my family gathered in Wisconsin to celebrate the life of my grandmother, who died recently at the age of 93. She was a wonderful woman who leaves behind a legacy of love. Each of us wore one of her butterfly pins on our clothing, and she had many of them. As the pastor remarked at her funeral, in her apartment you could close your eyes, spin around, and wherever you looked next it was very likely you'd see a butterfly. In symbolic form, resurrection was all around us.
We of course are in the liturgical season of Lent right now, but the pastor is indeed right. Resurrection is all around us...
- when a homeless dad and his son get a painting gig, and then another, giving them hope that they can make it until summer...
- when a business that once was struggling to survive finds a new niche in this economy and gives new life to a community...
- when four male robins simultaneously land on the tree outside my window during a depressing March day, causing me to break out with a smile...
- when a church openly takes steps to embrace the GLBTQ persons in their community, declaring the doors to be wide open to all...
- when a politician votes to ban the impoverishing interest rates charged by the state's "check-to-cash" businesses...
- when a couple chooses to resolve their differences by seeing a counselor for the first time instead of letting the wounds fester...
- when a new youth group starts in a so-called "dying" church, or an existing one begins a new caring ministry in the congregation...
- when a person of faith becomes re-energized for ministry in her local church after eight years of inactivity...
- when a young college student finds affirmation and grace and open minds for the first time from the people he meets in a campus ministry.
As we grow closer to Easter, many inside and outside the church will say or think that resurrection is about the resuscitation of a corpse. But as Robin Meyers and many others have reminded us, "...the conviction of the followers of Jesus that he was still with them was itself the resurrection" (76). It is incumbent upon us, today's followers of Jesus, to remind the world that resurrection is about the many mysteries of our human existence, the hope we have for the redemption of the world, the continuation of an old faith rather than the start of a new one. Like the many butterflies which filled my grandmother's apartment, the sign and proof of resurrection is the many people who live as Easter people each and every day.
~ Tim Gossett