The story is over two thousand years old. We know of it from the descriptions the Gospel writers recorded after the events that took place in approximately the year thirty of the current era—the events that make up the observance of Easter.
In part, the story goes something like this: Three women, whose names were Mary and Mary and Salome, were walking down an ancient road on the morning following the worst week of their lives.
They were on their way to the cave-like tomb where the body of their beloved teacher had been buried. With them they carried what was needed for one final act of love and devotion—the oils and ointments and cloth necessary to prepare the body for burial.
The man whose body they were going to prepare had just been executed as a dangerous criminal, charged with the crimes of sedition and treason. No doubt they were worried as they walked along together—They must have been concerned if they would have the strength to roll away the heavy rock that covered the entrance to the tomb.
But when they arrived the rock was rolled away from the entrance and the body they had come to prepare is gone.
As they stood together they are approached by a young man who tells them that their friend is gone, that he is walking along the road to Galilee, and they should hurry so they could meet up with him there.
However, the bewildered women run away and agree that they will tell no one what they have seen.
This is the story of what many around the view as one of the greatest miracles, one of the greatest mysteries, in all of human history—the story that began on a Friday and ended on a Sunday. This is the miracle of Jesus' resurrection from the dead. This is the story of Easter.
If we are true to our Unitarian roots we believe that God is one and that Jesus was as human as any other man. Indeed, he was a profound teacher and moral exemplar, and he stood apart from many ordinary men of his own time. However, for some Unitarian Universalists the story of Jesus' physical resurrection may be difficult to comprehend.
As Universalists we are faced with a slightly more difficult issue. Our Universalist ancestors were indeed Christian in their beliefs and for them Easter would have held the all the promises of the resurrection. Our Universalist ancestors would have argued that the death of Jesus as it is told in the Gospels did occur and the Easter story is the beginning of the universal salvation of all souls.
In dealing with these thorny matters, many contemporary Unitarian Universalists have turned Easter into little more than a neo-pagan rite to spring. We speak of the re-birth of the earth, the quickening of life, and the promise of the fullness of the new growing season.
But however we celebrate Easter; it seems to me that each year we are called upon to recognize this date on the calendar. Max Coots, the wonderful UU minister and author has written:
When love is felt or fear is known,
When holidays and holy days
And such times come,
When anniversaries arrive by calendar or consciousness,
When seasons come, as seasons do, old and known, but somehow new,
When lives are born or people die
When something sacred is sensed in soil or sky,
Mark the time.
Respond with thought or prayer or smile or grief,
Let nothing living slip between the fingers of the mind,
For all of these are holy things, we will not
Cannot, find again.
So, Easter Sunday has come round again and as such we should look to celebrate with thought or prayer or smile or grief.
"This year's Easter does not have to be new and improved, more dramatic and moving than last year's." writes Wayne Muller. "The perfection is in its repetition, the sheer ordinariness, the intimate familiarity of a place known because we have visited it again and again, in so many different moments."
This is part of the joy of our Easter observances. Whether we have donned our Easter best this morning or have come in more ordinary and comfortable clothes, we have come to church this morning out of a sense of familiarity with the place and the people we expect to see here. We have come hoping that something in this year's Easter service will move us, or inspire us, or comfort us, or bring us hope.
We have come here this morning because it is our custom and we have come here because this day is significant in the private memories and associations that this day holds for us.
For some the memories may be of egg hunts, special Easter baskets, a family meal or getting to wear special new clothes that somehow marked the transition from winter to spring.
For others, perhaps the memories of Easter are troubling. There may be memories of being in a church hearing a message that was dissonant from our own beliefs.
There may be memories of family gatherings that ended in anger and confrontation.
Perhaps our memories are of a profound loneliness and separateness when our experience with this day of rejoicing and celebration was at odds with our own experiences of the moment.
But for whatever reasons we do come together each year on Easter Sunday. Muller tells us, "Over the course of a lifetime there will be the sad Easter and the joyous Easter and the hopeful Easter, the transformative Easter and even the boring Easter. This is not about progress, it is about circles, cycles, and seasons, and the way time moves, and the things we must remember, because with ever-faster turnings of the wheel it can be easy to forget."
Coming to church on Easter is one of those habits—one of those rituals if you will—that brings us back to our center. It brings us back to our inner core, the center of our being—and permits us to say "yes" to life.
I thank you God for this
Amazing
Day: for the leaping greenly spirits
of trees
and a true blue dream of sky; and
for everything
which is natural which is infinite
which is yes
(I who have died am alive again
today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this
is the birth
of life and of love and wings:
and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth.)
"I who have died am alive again today," writes the poet. This may be the great gift of this Easter season. This time of periodic rebirth allows us to pause and give thanks for the majesty of creation and to thank God (even when God is spelled with a small cas 'g') for this most amazing day.
Easter gives us the time and opportunity to look with renewed vision at the world of nature: at the leaping greenly spirits of trees at the blue true dream of sky, and in fact at everything which is natural and is infinite and to say a prayer of gratitude by simply saying "yes."
Not only does Easter give us an opportunity to observe the passing seasons in nature, Easter also affords us a time to pause and give thanks to the seasons of our lives.
For many of our children Easter is a time for dying eggs totally unnatural shades of pink and green and purple. It is a time for searching for baskets that have plastic grass a color of green that even Scott's fertilizer couldn't replicate and for munching on the ears of chocolate bunnies.
For many Easter is a time to celebrate family traditions old and new and to establish new traditions with their own children.
And as our years grow many, Easter becomes a season for thinking about what comes next. Easter is a season for asking questions. Easter is a season for asking questions about death and for asking questions about life. It is a season for asking questions about life after death, and questions about immortality. It is a time for me to consider that some day I will take my last breath.
This for me is the significance of Easter. It is a time when I feel compelled to ask questions concerning my own immortality. It is a time for me to consider that some day I will take a last breath.
And the answers I seem most comfortable with are these. After the sting of death has passed, after the grieving has lessened, each of us will indeed live on in the hearts and memories of all those lives we have touched.
Our lives, our existence, will live on in the memories of others.
In the recollection of the smell of a flower, a particular slant of the sun or walking down the frozen food aisle at the grocery store we will be reminded of those who have gone before us and we will smile that such ordinary things can keep the image of another so near to us.
So near, in fact, that they seem to be walking along the road with us. In the most unexpected ways these little miracles of ordinary life turn us gradually away from grief over death and toward life. They make us say "yes" to living.
And perhaps this was as it was two thousand years ago when the Disciples believed they encountered the risen Jesus. Perhaps the light in the cool of the day, a comment from another, or a familiar scent or feeling brought back into their consciousness the person they loved so dearly. Perhaps Jesus was born again in a way that is open to each of us.
Lynn Unger writes, "A miracle, contrary to popular understanding, is not something supernatural, something outside the world that breaks in a burst of glory. A miracle is something that connects us back to the world...A miracle is something that, in spite of all odds, in spite of all betrayals and terrors...allows us to live."
So on this day of all days, let us give thanks for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a true blue dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes.
And let each of us remember that in spite of all the darkness, the evil, the fear that darkens our world, let us remember that not only are we who have died all the little deaths that life forces us to encounter alive again today; but let us also rejoice that this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth of life and of love.
And, finally, let us be open to the possibility of our own resurrection. Let us be open to all the possibilities life holds. Let us be open to the possibility that we will indeed live on long after our bodies have ceased to be. Let us be open to the possibility that we are given the opportunity to be reborn every day.
This, I believe, is why we celebrate Easter every year. Every year it is good to be reminded that there is hope in this world. It is good to be reminded that even after the darkest night there will be a new dawn.
It is good to be reminded that spring follows winter, that despair can give way to hope, and that our love will live on long after we have turned to dust.
I wish one and all a joyful Easter.
Amen