I have noticed, since becoming one, that Christians make a big deal out of Easter, and the 8 days leading up to it. I read in the Bible, in one of St. Paul’s letters, to some of those earliest Christians, he thought that if there were no resurrection, then they were the most miserable deluded bunch of suckers that had ever been born. So much for being focused only in the Now… and living in the present moment. Apparently, the empty tomb was the clincher for Paul, that there really was something quite compelling and extraordinary about this Jesus and his resurrection Gig, and our future one. Christians for centuries have called themselves Easter People. Is that because we dress up like giant smiling bunnies for little kids, and old people in nursing homes, and hunt for colored eggs and candy? I don’t think so. I think it is because we really do think that death is not the final state of existence for people. I think that Jesus is alive, really, after being falsely accused of crimes he never did, and put to death in a horrific way by the Roman authorities. And that he is alive, not in a flimsy white Casper the friendly ghost kind of way, but in a new kind of bodily eternal, exalted, supernatural, powerful existence, and that is why we don’t have his bones carefully guarded somewhere, like in a special room in the Vatican. His burial tomb is really empty. I think Jesus is alive in ways i can’t even imagine yet, in dimensions of Realities that we are only just beginning to explore and suggest and conceive. And his subversive triumph over death, busting a move like that, dancing “with the devil on his back”, the way we sing it in one of my favorite old old songs, Lord of the Dance, is just God’s warm up number, the opening act. One day, we are all going to be dancing on our graves. But I am not waiting for someday. I dance every day on mine already. Easter is the yearly reminder that I serve a living God, I am in love and in cahoots with a resurrected Man, and my death is not the end of my existence, either.
amen! You’ve got the hang of this, Melinda. I am inspired and speechless.
You may want to meet Jenn through her blog and Melanie through hers. I think you three are kindred spirits of a sort…
Melinda, that was awesome. I love the poetry and freedom you took with your message. Easter truly is a time to remember that the grave is something to dance “on” even now. I look forward to your future posts.
i look forward to dancing with you, too!
Melinda: I really appreciate how you bring out the tension we live with: the joy and yet the often unbearable pain of our lives. As we live out the good news in our own lives, holding the joy and pain lightly in tandem, what role does prayer have? I believe a life rich in centering prayer allows us to hold all of life gently so that we too, like Jesus, may dance with the devil on our backs. I’m so glad you’re in this class, I always learn so much from you!
Melanie
hey, thanks for the affirmation, and for your centering Soul. I like that you see the Joy in me… i work in the midst of so much pain, that the Jehu-Joy of my Desiring- is essential for the long Haul.