#easter reflections

Introduction In writing this blog each week, sometimes I feel like God is poking and prodding me to write about something I’d rather keep to myself. This is one of those weeks. But I figure if I resist God’s prodding, He might have a whale swallow me up like Jonah, then have it barf me up on the shores of Nineveh, and I’ll end up writing about this eventually anyway. Significance I’ve written…

“Stations of the Risen Christ: Easter Reflections” offers Scriptural meditations on Jesus’ glorious Resurrection that complement praying the “Stations of the Cross” for Christ’s atoning death.   Gain a newfound understanding and renewed appreciation for the Resurrection faith. 

John 21:15-19

15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep

Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him. A detail we miss in our English translations is that on the first two occasions Jesus asks Peter if he agapas (unconditional, costly) loves him. Peter in response says, “Yes, Lord, you know that I philadelphoi (brotherly, familial) love you.” On the third occasion Jesus asks Simon Peter instead if he philadelphoi loves him and Peter affirms once more that he does indeed philadelphoi loves him. On this third occasion Jesus words hurt Peter. Is it possible that all along Jesus is trying to draw Peter into a greater kind of love only Peter is not quite able, at this time, to embody this kind of love yet? Is Peter saddened that he is not, in his heart of hearts, able to say he has agapē love for Jesus?

After the third exchange Jesus says to Peter,

18Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” 19(He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.” (John 21:18-19)

There will come a time when Peter will enter into a kind of love that will carry him beyond where he would choose to go, a love that involves a willingness to surrender everything. This is agapē love.

Jesus is always inviting us to love like this, to participate in the flow of divine self-giving love. Jesus is ever before us, inviting us to follow him into a greater kind of love, a love that can move beyond parochial self-interest, a risky love that embraces all no matter the cost. He asks us to love each other as if our lives depended on it. This is our vocation and destiny over the course of our lives. We are, borrowing Thomas Merton’s words, to blaze with the invisible light of heaven that will make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely.[1]

This is what we especially celebrate and pay attention to during this season of Easter. Easter is all about aliveness. These episodes from John’s gospel provide us with some beautiful stories of resurrection newness turning lives upside down – stories where see the broken pieces of shattered hope put back together again; stories of tired, dried-up, grieving, bewildered, fearful and sceptical human beings accessing new life and possibility. These stories tell us that this is what happens when Jesus meets us in our experience.

Resurrection is the most appropriate language for what takes place when we genuinely encounter divine love. Love and aliveness go hand in hand.

Resurrection is what takes place when Jesus calls us by name, when Jesus breathes new life into us, when we experience intimacy, compassion and forgiveness – especially in the places of our raw human experience – our fear, our doubt, our shame. Christ brings us peace. By his wounds we are healed. God’s costly love transforms us and draws us into a greater love. These are Easter stories. They’re the best of all stories. Go in peace.

For reflection and practice:

How has your love for Jesus grown or changed over time?

What does it mean for you at this time to surrender to love?

Which resurrection episode are you most drawn to? Why do you think?

What does it mean to you that love is your destiny?

Go and find some ways to feed and tend to Jesus’ lambs and sheep.

John 20:24-29

24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” 28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Thomas gets a raw deal in many circles for not being able to grasp earth-shattering realities on the spot. We call him Doubting Thomas. Why don’t we call him Honest Thomas for his willingness to acknowledge the edge of his understanding? Why don’t we call him Comforting Thomas? Do we not also doubt? Doubts about ourselves. Doubts about others, about humanity in general. Doubts we have about God. Doubts about beliefs. Doubts about doubt.

Doubts can be deeply unnerving, lonely even. We might imagine that our doubts are evidence of failure, weakness, ignorance or something even more malicious. But what if we’re not giving our doubts enough credit? What if our doubts are entry-points beckoning us into something sacred or beautiful?

Imagine you are in some kind of maze. You begin with basic capacities: you can turn left, turn right, go straight ahead. This carries you deep enough into the maze only eventually you realise that left and right and straight ahead are only going to take you so far. Doubt in left, right, and straight helps you to spot the ladder above: you’ve just added up and over, which is great, until you get to another part of the maze that requires through and so on.

In our own lives we begin with simple categories (right/wrong, good/bad etc) which carry us forward well enough until they struggle to deal with the complexities of life. Cruel doubt! We might feel like we’re betraying the important voices and traditions that held our hand as we learnt to walk. Only we must walk on ahead now, tuning into new voices and insights, uncovering surprising paths before us. Doubt guides us forward. Doubt leads us into growth.

And as we venture forth every win, every success, imprints upon us a lesson we can carve into our evolving manuals for life. Or at least that is until we discover teachers with even greater wisdom: failure, pain, uncertainty, and crisis. These become for us doorways into fresh doubt once more. We’ll see the shortcomings of the world, the shortcomings of systems and institutions. We’ll see our own hypocrisy. Our failures and our vulnerabilities will stare us in the face. We will question. We will break dependent ties and face uncomfortable truths. We might even reckon with our uncomfortable doubts.

This reckoning is no picnic. It is more like a thousand forms of dying – to arrogance and ignorance, to superiority and separateness, to self-interest, cynicism, and delusion and so on – various means by which our doubts allow us to let go, to surrender to love, to become given to a greater mystery. Which is where we might discover the surprising gifts of resurrection that await on the other side: the ways we learn to be curious, flexible and humble in our widening appreciation of our own unknowing. The ways we discover new sources for meaning and integrity opening up before us. The ways we embrace responsibility for the changes we can make and acceptance of the things we cannot. The ways we come to appreciate that we are part of a greater whole with gifts to offer as part of our own legacy and vocation that go beyond self and family. But not without doubt. Doubt guides us forward, questions what we thought we knew, draws us into something even larger, leads us into newness, brings us face to face with the wounded and resurrected One who says, “Peace be with you.”

For reflection and practice:

In what way have you experienced your doubts as unwelcome?

How has doubt guided you forward and lead you into growth?

John 20:21-23

21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

In a stunningly private and intimate scene that occurs behind locked doors among dear friends, Jesus greets his disciples and shows them his wounds. He then goes on to do something odd with his disciples that translators tend to be a little awkward about: he breathed in them. Jesus doesn’t just breathe on the disciples, he breathes into them. Author Jack Levison says,

‘The Greek verb for breathe in is used first in the Bible of God’s breathing in Adam at the birth of the human race (Genesis 2:7). It is used again when the prophet Elijah lies sprawled out on a dead widow’s son, face to face, and breathes life back into him (1 Kings 17:17–24). It is used still again when the prophet Ezekiel… describes the inbreathing of the dead and dried bones that rattle back to life when the Spirit enters them (Ezekiel 37:9–10).

In each case, Spirit-breath enters into a body to bring it to life. Adam, once dust, now pulses with life. The widow’s son, once dead, comes alive, turning a mother’s bereavement to delight and praise. Israel, once a hopeless heap of bleached bones, turns into a nation looking to its future.

And finally, in a private upper room, it occurs again. This time, Jesus gives to his friends the newfound authority of the Spirit, to forgive or not—but not from arm’s length. The very personal act of inbreathing turns into a fresh call for his frightened and timid friends.

Breathing into someone is more intimate, more intense, more indiscreet than breathing on could ever be. Why? Because breathing in looks very much like a kiss. Not a kiss on the cheek, like Judas’s kiss, but a kiss square on the mouth. Jesus’s relationship with his dearest friends runs deep, and his final gift to them, the Spirit, is deeply intimate, sealed, as it is, with a kiss.’[1]

In our home there are two dilemmas with only one solution. One is Kiss-monster. Kiss-monster approaches little sons and daughters trying to smother them with kisses. You have to get in first. One swift kiss on Kiss-monster will stall his advances. The other issue is that dad can fall asleep at any moment, instantly snoring in the middle of play. There’s only one way to bring him back: a kiss on the lips.

Intimacy brings us back to life. Intimacy can be embarrassing, but it can also be enthralling. Intimacy transforms your life. 

And that’s what we have with Jesus, who calls us by name, who knows us personally and embraces us with a kiss, lavish with life, with the gift of the Holy Spirit. And it’s this Holy Spirit that is God’s personal presence that remains not outside of ourselves but rather dwells within us. We are entangled in intimacy; love has been poured out in us. God is in us – so close that we can’t step away!

For reflection and practice:

How have you experienced intimacy with God?

What the Spirit touches the Spirit transforms, transcending and transforming human inability. How has the Holy Spirit taken you beyond the locked doors of your own fear and inability?

Spend time focusing on your breath. You might like to choose some prayer words or words from scripture that you can say inwardly as you breath in and out again.

Take any chance you get to interact or play with a child this week. Be as silly and as playful as you can be, as if you are playing with Christ personally, albeit in smaller form.

After eighteen years of Catholic education, I do not consider myself religious although so much of my large Italian family is fairly devout.  Despite being arguably the holiest celebration in the liturgical calendar and the reason Christmas is even a thought, Easter is still probably my favorite holiday.

Easter is light; it is easy, free-flowing, bright.  The pastel colors of spring emerge on painted eggs, weave themselves in wreaths pinned with flowers, and make their demure appearance in the young blossoms blushing on trees.  Easter feels like rich, moist soil in my hands, that excited anticipation of positive change, that trust in the fertility of growth.  Easter smells like the warm, damp grass a day after an April shower.  Easter feels like the sunshine on your skin between the too-cool breezes passing through.

Easter is a time for tradition.  And while I cannot fully support the religious aspects of it, the cultural aspects of it are so important to me.  My nonna’s cuzzupe and nepiti, ricotta lattice pies, my aunt’s pizza rustica (and anyone else who dares try their hand at the recipe for their own versions), and plenty of other sweet bread configurations fill both my belly and my soul.  These baked goods crafted by the nimble hands trained long ago in another country before this one was merely another dot on a map, nevertheless “home.”  Sweet bread is the heart of Easter, representing the delicate balance between sustenance and celebration.  It is not so sweet as to be decadent or indulgent, but just sweet enough to tickle the sides of your tongue and remind you to seek the light pleasures in life.  

Easter is a hopeful time, an emergence of lifted spirits, the slow revealing of more skin and soul as the sun shines for longer hours.  It is a rebirth in many ways, a resurrection that may have nothing to do with the concept of heaven but everything to do with the soul nonetheless. 

While this year’s Easter has been affected amidst a pandemic, tradition still lives.  Porch-pick-ups of hardboiled eggs braided into sweet bread, drive-by drop-offs of meat baked into cheesy crusts, and contact-less hand-offs of nut-and-jam-filled delights still happened.  Although we could not enjoy such treats together cushioned by laughter, hugs, and kisses, we did the best we could.  We broke bread virtually, seeing the insides of familiar kitchens peering out from small squares on a computer screen, wishing we could all be at the same table.  We celebrated apart but in unison.

Now, perhaps more than ever, we need to look for the light and brightness the spring Easter season offers, religious or not. 

As we celebrate Easter especially in the most unusual of ways (indoors) due to the COVID-19 pandemic, It is a good time to reflect on why the celebration albeit a quiet one is important.

Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from death some 2000 years ago. Jesus Christ is the core of Christianity – as the name implies. We celebrate his resurrection for different…