He is Risen

I don’t usually celebrate Easter.  Oh, there’s church and then some chocolate and easter eggs and a dinner I put a little more effort into than other days, but that’s it.  Frankly, I don’t usually have the energy.  Our party season runs from October to mid-March, encompassing eight birthdays, 4 major holidays and various minor ones.  This year, however, I tried to recalibrate.

Easter, not Christmas, should be the focal point of the Christian year.  Christmas celebrates Christ’s birth, but Easter marks the culmination of what he was born for.  Without the atonement and resurrection, Christianity has no purpose (1 Corinthinans 15:1-22).  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that some traditions hold that Christ was actually born in the spring, a time of new beginnings and rebirth and hope since the earliest days of civilization.  It also makes sense to associate his birth with the midwinter solstice, when the world turns and the light begins to come back; the Roman feast of Sol Invictus, the unconquered sun, fits nicely with the message of Christ that was transplanted over it.

I digress.

This year I tried to center Easter around Christ. There were still eggs and baskets and chocolate, but I broadened my efforts.   After all, the observance of Easter is based in Passover, where one of the purposes is to remember what God has done for us.  So I focused on remembering.  I observed Lent. I walked my kids and seminary class through Holy Week, its roots in Passover, and its intense, deliberate symbolism.  I took one of my kids and we watched season 5 of The Chosen in theaters over three weeks, with good conversations after.  I’ve been rereading my scriptures and digging a little deeper.  Instead of ham and mashed potatoes I'm making a Seder-inspired dinner with lamb.  (Tangent: it’s interesting that we culturally celebrate a holiday based on Passover with a meat the Jews considered unclean I guess it's no more out of place than the eggs and rabbits based on Anglo-Saxon fertility rituals.)

As I was reading scriptures, two things stood out to me.  First, that the location of the Atonement is more meaningful than I remembered.  Gethsemane is a small garden on the Mount of Olives—a place named for the vast olive orchards that used to grow there.  The Mount of Olives itself has been a place of importance for the Jewish people as long as Israel has existed.  There has been a Jewish graveyard there for 3,000 years.  Olives themselves are important—their oil was a source of food, light, medicine, wealth, and used in blessings and anointings.  It is life-giving in every sense of the word.  Extracting the oil requires crushing the olives beneath vast weights.  Gethsemane means “oil press.”  There is not a more fitting place for the Savior of mankind to have suffered so that every single person who has or will live might be nourished, enlightened, healed, enriched, and blessed.

The second thing that I noticed was that Christ washed Judas’s feet.  He did this knowing that Judas had already betrayed him.  Instead of casting Judas out, of publicly shaming him, of denouncing him—he washed Judas’s feet.  He served and loved Judas just as he did his other disciples, offered him the same atonement, the same call to repentance--which brings me to the important point.

Christ didn’t die just for those who followed him faithfully.  His sacrifice wasn’t just for the obedient, the righteous, and the scripturally wise. It wasn’t just for the people who loved him, or who he loved.

He died for Judas, sinner and betrayer that he was, that he might be made whole in time.

He died for those who struggled to be faithful.

He died for the woman taken in adultery, and the doubting father who begged “Help thou my unbelief.”

He died for the Pharisees who knew the law so well and yet were ignorant of its true meaning, who loved the status quo more than the fulfillment of prophecy.

He died for the unclean, the unjust, the murderers and the thieves who were crucified with him.

He died for the betrayed and forgotten, the afflicted and broken-hearted.

He died for those who don't believe and those who never heard his name.

He died for the people you hate.

He died for you.

He died for us.

And because of the resurrection he lives for us.  Through him, we can be healed if we are willing to accept it—if we are willing to let it change us.  We can reflect his light in ourselves until it illuminates others.  We can be nourished and nourish those around us in turn, showing love as he showed it—to everyone without limit or justification.  We can be blessed by drawing closer to all that is holy.  Because he lives, so do we.

He is risen.

Blessed is the resurrection of Christ.

Artwork by Tom Nixon

He Is Risen! | The Tabernacle Choir