Resurrection thoughts

Each year, around Easter, the folks over at Patheos invite responses to a question about the Resurrection.  Last year's question was, "Why do you need the Resurrection?", and this year's question was the more elemental, "Is the Resurrection for Real?" (e.g., Is it physical or spiritual?)

Various folks answered these two questions, in 100 words or less. For some reason, 100 words or less is an odd format that works for me, and I found the exercise really intriguing and thought-provoking.  Last year, it helped me to shape my Easter sermon, and both times it has forced me to enter into the story, and my story, more fully.

Here are my answers with links to the other responses.

I need the Resurrection

because my sister is sick

and can’t afford insurance,

because I’ve told a weeping Haitian mom,

“No, I can’t take your son home with me.”

because I’ve been rushed off a Jerusalem street

so a robot could blow up a bag that could’ve blown up us.

because I’ve exploded

in rage

and watched their tiny faces cloud with hurt.

because evil is pervasive

and I participate.

I need the Resurrection

because it promises

that in the end

all wrongs are made right.

Death loses.

Hope triumphs.

And Life and Love

Prevail.

(From the collection, Why I Need the Resurrection)

It had better be real.

As real as the contractions that ripped new life from my body.

As real as the rattle that strangled life out of his.

I’ve no use for a spiritual resurrection.

If Hope

for the drowned, damaged, disfigured, disowned,

is emotional ease,

if the pain of flesh and bones

is answered with mystical comfort,

if Guns are stronger than god,

then count me out.

But tell me that Death Loses,

tell me that Life Prevails,

and not in the abstract,

but in pulsing blood, flowing tears, thumping heart,

then the Resurrection

is Hope

for us all.

(From the collection,  Is the Resurrection for Real?)


If you'd like a Holy Week spiritual discipline, a way to wrestle with the meaning of Easter in your own life in these next few days, I invite you to sit down for a few minutes (at a computer, with a "word count" tool!) and consider the first question, and your life laid open in front of you, and see what comes of it.  
And so I ask you, in 100 words or less, Why do YOU need the Resurrection?