Easter Dawn

"On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, 'They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they put Him.'  So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. The other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there. Then the other disciples also went in, and he saw and believed." -[John 20: 1-9].

"Easter" is a word that refers to, or means The Dawn.

The discovery of Jesus absent from the tomb is made at dawn. Easter is quite literally, the dawning of a new age, when early Christians saw and believed that there is a whole lot more beyond our limited sight, than what we can perceive in the natural world.

Easter is THE demarcation between early inklings of who Jesus was, as He himself prophesied, and a time when the disciples came to understand proof of Jesus as Divine.

It is not as if Jesus did not warn His disciples. In Mark, the earliest Gospel account, Jesus tells His followers, "the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and teachers of the law, . . He must be killed and after three days rise against." -[Mark 8: 31-33].

Jesus also tells his disciples: "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill Him, and after three days, He will rise." -[Matthew 17: 22-23].

And in John 2:12-22, when Jesus overturns the tables of the greedy money changers at the temple, He says, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." His listeners said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?" But Jesus was talking about the destruction of His body, and his rising from the dead to new life.

Jesus' disciples and His listeners had varying degrees of disbelief and unbelief. Easter is an unfolding, of layers of meaning and revelation for the disciples - AND for all of us. I used to feel foolish for not really understanding the full meaning of Easter.

But now I am beginning to realize that the unfolding of Easter is all part of our growth as Christians.

When I was a child, I used to hear the priest in my church say that "Jesus died for us." I thought that was horrible. Who wants to hear about the aftermath of a grisly death, on a day so full of the life of spring and promise? How can the violent end of one man save lowly ME? It made no sense. It was just too awful, especially since that one Man was God's only Son!

I still cannot watch any reenactment of the Passion. It wounds ME. But I am starting to understand that the Crucifixion is "supposed" to wound me! Jesus is a part of me, I share in His Passion. Whatever Sin I commit, crucifies Him a little bit more. Any Sin against me, is a crucifixion of Jesus. Each time I receive the Eucharist, I receive a tiny bit of His body and blood, like a healing balm for my human weakness and temptation.

It took the deaths of my best friend, my father, my mother, my mother-in-law and a dear family friend, all in a span of two years, for me to finally live out the simple Truth, that Jesus went to Heaven before us, so that we can follow Him. He established the way: literally the Way, the Truth and the Life. I don't have to live in despair that this Life of sweat and violence and evil is all that there is. Beyond our human capacity, lies a supernatural world that possesses far more than we could ever imagine in this Life.

I understood from a young age, that doing Evil in exchange for Evil, only hurts myself, AND Jesus. I have always tried to be part of the cadre of humans who offer compassion and peace.

But, it has taken me a lifetime to understand that in this Life we all suffer. It took me getting to this Easter to finally see - perhaps to accept - that there is no escaping the trials and suffering of our human existence. Whatever it is we humans all suffer is merely a matter of degree- some suffering horribly, others less so.

I used to spend a good part of my day, reciting the litany of every bad thing that has ever happened to me.  My litany was a chorus of grief, a lament over the trauma of my life. I believed that all these bad things should not happen to me, or to ANYONE. I was capable of getting depressed simply that these bad things ever occurred.

I don't know what I was expecting? Christians are meant to carry their own crosses. My dear mother-in-law used to say all the time, "We all have our crosses to bear." I used to see that as a platitude. A nice saying that you would discover on a wall plaque. It seemed hollow of meaning. This Easter, I see the profound Truth in it.

Every human on this planet has the experience of feeling deep Joy, but also awful despair. But we Christians do not carry our crosses alone. We have each other. And we have Jesus, who suffered the greatest agony ever. He understands our agonies, more than anyone. He walks with us.

Each Easter, I encounter a new Dawn of revelation, of what Jesus meant to us over history, and of how today, I can live with Him in my daily experience. Each Easter, I am a new creation, as I rediscover Jesus in a new way.

Each Easter, I encounter the Dawn that conquers the darkness.

[Related Postings: "Easter Joy!", 4/23/11; "Easter Redemption", 4/7/12; "Roll Away the Stone", 4/17/14; "Crucifixion Redux", 3/20/16; "The Triumph of Easter", 4/15/17; "Killing Him Softly", 3/27/18.]

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