We have spent weeks doing Lent. Is it possible that we can spend even one week doing Easter? Can we remember that there is such a thing as the season of Easter, the Great Fifty Days that lead us all the way to Pentecost?
I’m going to try to focus on E-A-S-T-E-R, in various ways for as much of this season as I can effectively. Christians are supposed to be an Easter people—yet we tend to always circle back around to our unending Lent-like lives: the failures, bad habits, wounds, trials, sins, weaknesses, and on and on.
So, I begin our Easter Season with these questions. Would love to hear from you!
- What does being an “Easter” people, or person, mean to you?
- What aspects of the Easter event—the Resurrection—are most difficult for you to hold in your heart consistently?
- What aspects of the Easter event have entered your life and thoughts and dreams on a much more regular basis?
I too find it hard to be an “Easter” person. What does give me hope is that Jesus’ resurrection shows us that God can bring goodness out of evil.
Being Easter People means walking moment by moment with the Risen Christ, knowing His indwelling Presence empowering and enabling us, and forgiving and releasing us at every turn.It means remembering and living the truth that, just as he foretold Peter’s betrayal and yet never stopped loving, trusting and forgiving him and calling him to service, so that truth applies to me and to you and to us all.
Easter – a sign of hope. It’s daily rising and looking forward to rise again and again.
I read Matt Kelly’s Rediscover Jesus through Lent. I was struck by his great “What If” question. What if it’s all true, the story is real and Jesus/God really did die and rise for me? That’s what Easter people means to me. The awe and wonder, what if it’s all true. Do we as a people really, REALLY, believe it? If we did we’d be dancing in the streets. Wow Jesus, really, for me! Hallelujah!
Easter for me means new life, a new chance, a new beginning. A resurrection from the dead, a discarding of the old life and being made alive with Jesus by my side.
YES! We are an EASTER people. While Lent is valuable in reminding us that we are sinners and in building a contrite heart we need to remember more often that Jesus already died and rose to save us. We are already saved we should be filled with joy. I know many people who say they are more comfortable with Lent than Easter, it’s easier to wallow in self-pity than to be joyful. How many people spend more time complaining to others than sharing their joy. Lent is easy, Lent is human-made, Easter is hard, Easter is God-made.
Thank you Vinita for another beautiful post. I am very grateful my being raised in Franciscan Spirituality and emphasis on the God of love, mercy and forgiveness as an emphasis, instead of weakness, sinfulness and unworthiness in the human condition which seemed to put all the emphasis on each person trying to do all they could to be saved! Just this week Sr Chris Koellhoffer, IHM, a Living Faith writer had a face book post. Which said:
In the original Aramaic of Jesus ‘to be saved’ was ‘to be made alive’ Cynthia Bourgeault.
This is how I view the Joy of Easter and resurrection. We too are given New Life to life fully, forgive freely, sharing fully with others…going out in mission to others sharing what we have received.
A year or two ago you had a video which has stayed with me, “Are you brave enough for Resurrection?” I loved it and played it over and over! I think I played it so often I know I wrote the whole thing out and now cannot find it. Hopefully it will turn up…The message as I recall was are we going to live the freedom of the daughters and sons of God or remain in the bondage of what keeps us in our tombs or the unfreedoms in our life. To live Resurrection is to be an Easter person!
What does being an “Easter” people, or person, mean to you? Being an “Easter” people means we are truly alive, alive not just in a physical sense, but alive in an “Easter” sense to all the reality and possibilities of resurrected, eternal life in Christ. No longer are we chained down to a mere earthly existence. With the stone, there rolled away all that limited creation. No longer do we drag ourselves reluctantly forward, dreary day after dreary day towards an inevitable nothingness in death. Through, with and in Christ, life is abundant and joyous, to be cherished through our last breathing moment to our first immortal moment. It is this joy, this exuberance, this overwhelming radiance in the Risen Christ that makes us “Easter People.”
What aspects of the Easter event—the Resurrection—are most difficult for you to hold in your heart consistently? Just as I cannot live at the apex of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, basking in continual self-actualization, without being tumbled from my pedestal by a grumbling stomach, neither can I continually maintain outwardly exuberant joy in the face of the nightly news or the latest prayer request for cancer. Holding it in my heart is a achievement of incredible grace and self-surrender to the unfathomable yet unconditional love of God manifested in his ever-present indwelling and divine providence.
What aspects of the Easter event have entered your life and thoughts and dreams on a much more regular basis? Before the monstrance: “Notice that he is looking at you lovingly and humbly.” Saint Teresa of Avila