At Easter 2025

Resurrection and Resistance

At the beginning of Lent, I was concerned and worried and angry, as many of us are, at the blatant cruelty, violence, and crass ambition unleashed upon all of us, but especially on the most vulnerable. With a mode of counterintuitive irony – hardly original to me – I urged us to take to heart day by day 15 commandments of steadfast love set forth by Jesus in the Sermon on the Plain (in Luke 6) on the Sundays just before Lent began. It was helpful for me to realize that the resistance needed today is already there, voices in the words of Jesus. You can see that blog here.

Most of us are still concerned, more worried, more angry, now that Lent is over and as Easter dawns. The world and our country seem worse and not better — and cries of Easter joy may appear wishful thinking in the face of evils too strong for us. So now what?

Same as before: Jesus, his life, death, resurrection. This (perhaps obvious) point came to me at the Holy Thursday liturgy, hearing again the readings from Exodus 12, I Corinthians 11, and John 13. God’s power works in an always imperfect, sinful, dangerous world. The Passover meal, yes — even as the people must be ready to flee, homeless again after 430 years in Egypt, even as the Angel of Death is striking down the first born of every creature in the land. Paul appeals to the Corinthians to remember how the night before he died, Jesus gave his disciples the bread and wine, his body and blood, as a lasting memorial (like the Passover meal) — but this reverent reminder comes immediately after he scolds the community for turning the Lord’s supper in a spectacle of drunkenness and gluttony where factions vie for power at the community’s expense. Stay home, Paul says, if you cannot take the meal seriously!

And then there is John 13. Jesus recognizes the solemnity of this night before his death, as he fulfills his mission and returns to the Father. But at the same moment he also knew that Judas was there at the table, breaking bread with him, and about to betray him. Yet he washes his feet. And Jesus knew too that Peter, who was with him from the beginning, would deny him three times. Still, Jesus washes his feet. Knowing how less than ideal his table companions were, still Jesus kneels down and washes their feet. Precisely because of who they were, who we are, humble love is all the more urgent.

And then there is Easter morning. Peter appears again at the key moment, but in a most inconclusive scene:

“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes." (John 20:1-10)

Peter is the first to enter the tomb. He is also signally confused and clueless, unable to understand what he does not see before him. So he and his companion — the beloved, John — simply go home. Had they stayed with Mary, the ever loving, faithful first preacher of the Resurrection, they would have seen Jesus face to face. But they left, since they did not understand what is offered to those who can wait, even in the emptiness.

Apostles who do not understand, believers through the ages who are timid and tepid, deniers and betrayers, all of us put off by what we do not see — the tomb is empty — we are unable just to wait for the risen Christ to come and find us. He will show us where to find the truth — the love and life and justice we seek.

No world, no year, be it 33 or 2025, is ever bad enough to immobilize us in the face of cruelty and violence, to be dragged down by the tawdry, rather than lifted up by Jesus’ new life. From the beginning until now, the world has always been dangerous, we have always been sinners, enemies are always approaching — and again and again, God loves, serves, saves those who keep the faith as best we can, undistracted, awaiting the word. This is the sober realism of faith that defeats those who would turn Gospel truth into easy lies.

Easter 2025 is, can be, a most potent moment for all wiling to be patient, waiting, watching for new life even amid death and its minions.