Something Worth Saving

Watch the recording HERE.

Last week the kids hesitated when we asked them if they knew what Easter was about.  We got shrugs.  Wide eyes.  We, too, might have had wide eyes and avoided looking at one another.  How do we even put it into words?  How do we explain Good Friday and Easter to kids?  How do we explain it to grown ups?  

Maybe that was why, I too, felt without words this week.  My prep notes say this: “so much to say and nothing to say”.  

Maybe it’s impossible to truly explain.  It’s something we grow up into and we certainly don’t want to initiate our children too early (if we can help it) to the experiences of Good Friday and even Easter.  

Friday seems to be the hardest, but is almost the easiest to believe.  It’s easy to believe the bad stuff.  Death and torture.  The meanness of this world.  The big experience of Jesus on the Cross.  

The older we get, the more we understand Friday in our own small ways.  Grief.  Loss.  Despair.  Loneliness.  Pain. Suffering.  Unraveling.  Betrayal.  Brutality.  Weariness.  Unfairness.  Meanness.  Terrible and terrifying.  Isolation.  Worry.  The list goes on….

Jesus doesn’t say, follow me and you’ll leave behind the worries and weights of the world.  He says pick up your cross and follow me.  Pick it up and carry the terrible, heavy weight of it. 

Ouch.  That’s a big ask.  

When we truly experience life and open ourselves to life, we start to pick up our own crosses.  The key is to be accountable for our own crosses.  To carry them…all the way.  To not hide them in corners or shove them onto someone else.  

And when we carry our crosses, having faith does help lighten the load.  

It gets more complicated as we come to the other side of the cross.  But, in some ways, even this unrecognizable makes sense to us.  The messy. The gooey.  The shadow.  The composting muck.  The dark tomb.  The place between death and life, life and death.  The place of change.  The middle ground of transformation.  This is why the butterfly image…the caterpillar breaks down into something completely unrecognizable before becoming a new living form (even smart science-y people have no idea how that “goo” comes back together into a new living form).  

We understand the unrecognizable chaos.  We don’t like it, but we “get it” and it’s sometimes the scary we know that we think is better than continuing to move forward toward the brand new and completely different.  

Easter morning. The brightness of the dawn that starts out so bright it is unrecognizable.  Rebirth.  Renewal.  New beginnings.  Blooming.  Unfolding.  Rising.  Found.  Salvation.  Change.  Resurrection.  

We love Easter morning and the resurrection.  We also fear it.  It’s quite unfamiliar and often unrecognizable.  

Sometimes, it’s easier to keep carrying the cross of pain and grief than to move through this part to the other side where everything is completely different.  We don’t always trust it.  We don’t trust that after the destruction, loss, suffering, scary, terrible and terrifying…that something new will come out of it.  Something beautiful.  Something incredibly Mysterious and unknowable and unrecognizable, but marvelous.  

We’re really comfortable in the “bad”.  We’re bad.  Other people are bad.  The world is bad.  Everything is bad.  

Resurrection asks us to trust in the Good.  We’re good.  Other people are good. The world is good.  Everything is good.  

We cannot stay at the Cross.  There is nothing magical about the letting it die.  The magic is in the resurrection…the coming back.  

Let’s pause for a moment to ask ourselves…why does Jesus come back?  PAUSE.  Humans have shown their worst and most terrible sides and yet…Jesus comes back.  PAUSE.  Why?  PAUSE.  Because there is something worth saving.  

There is something worth saving.  If he doesn’t love and forgive and come back…there is nothing but death and destruction.  That’s not a new story.  That’s not something to believe in.  The new story is that he comes back.  That’s life. That’s resurrection.  That’s something to believe in.  

It’s incredibly powerful what happens between Friday and Easter morning.  Terrible.  Gooey.  Transformative.  It’s hard to believe.  

And yet…our own lives show us this possibility.  Those things we had no idea how we would survive…we did.  PAUSE.  Spring always arrives after the winter…no matter how “bad” the winter is.  PAUSE.  The flowers always bloom…and they always amaze us.  PAUSE.  We’ve seen daffodils bloom every spring for our entire lives…and yet…it is incredible to watch.  It has the power to transform us.  

Yes, truly, we come out of our winter cocoons and suddenly are alight with possibility and alive with new beginnings.  

We are witness to miracles today…and every day.  We have a faith that believes in miracles.  We believe in a story that tells us to have courage when all seems lost and to have faith that love and hope will rise again.  

We will be saved and renewed.  All of us.  

We believe in miracles all around us.  Easter morning is the pinnacle of miracles…call it Mystery.  

We also believe in work. Jesus doesn’t say, follow me and everything will be hunky dory.  No, he says, take up your cross and follow me.  Your sins are forgiven, but also this is the way to be.  Trust me and follow me…but you too must love.  I will help you, but you must also work. You must carry your own cross.  This is the path of learning and growth.  

The way through teaches us to be calm in our center, to carry peace and joy in our hearts and minds, and to have strength in our spirits.  To carry these things in us, not just when it is easy, but when it is incredibly challenging.  

The Way of Love is not an easy path, but as we follow, we learn.  We continue to practice goodness and to trust.  To give.  To hear.  To serve.  To eat.  To drink. To live.  

Come…follow me.  

Come…be refreshed and renewed.