Resurrection Hope

I’ve talked a lot about the cross this month. On the other side of this is the resurrection. 

If you think about it, it is a pretty bold claim. It is a claim that most likely will never be proven. It is not easily explained… It is, at its heart a mystery that deals in love, and in what lies beyond. It makes the faith claim that there is more to this world than we can see and even know; recognizing that to say the opposite, to say that there is nothing beyond, is also a faith claim.

Many years ago, my friend Herb Meza preached a beautiful Easter sermon. In it, he reflected on how in life there are all kinds of hints that point to something more beyond us. He wrote about how science has discovered that there is a tremendous range of colors beyond what the eye can see; there are scales of octaves way above and below what the ear can hear. And there are hints from the field of physics that stretch the imaginations of even the greatest scientists. He spoke also about how his mother, on the very day he was wounded in battle during World War II went into a deep depression – even though she had no way of knowing what had happened to her son.

He went on to write: “Everywhere we turn there are hints that there is more. Hints of life and power and energy. But even if there were no hints, there is that instinct within humans that points to more…. Pascal once said that God had planted this instinct in our very souls and no matter how much we try to disbelieve it, it keeps creeping up and out when we come face-to-face with the mystery of death…” 

The resurrection is the triumphant affirmation of something we have never proved but instinctively know…. that our little world of time and space is but a small fragment of something much larger than we can perceive with our eyes, or hear with our ears, or touch with our senses…

Herb ended with this: “I believe that one day every bruise, every cancer cell, every blind eye, every limp and every lump will be set right. One day every embarrassment and every rejection and every hurt we have suffered will give way to glory. I do not know how God will deal with all the shabbiness, failures, and betrayal. It surely must hurt God, but I know God is loving and forgiving. One day, every moment of hoping against hope will be rewarded.”

Let us pray: We thank you, Loving God, for your promise to hold us even into eternity. Help us to believe even when we have not yet seen. We claim the promise today that in life and in death, we belong to you. Amen.