What else could I say about Easter?

​April 14, 2022

Dearly Beloved,

There has been a thought rolling around my mind the past week or so: "I have nothing left to say about Easter. We covered the resurrection of Christ last Easter, the Easter before that, and the Easter before that... What could I possibly say that hasn't been heard a million times before?"

I shared this thought with my clergy group last week and one of my friends joked, "I think this is finally the Sunday for a 15-minute 'Litany of Silence' in place of the sermon! I'm just going to tell people to 'sit and ponder the wonder of resurrection for 15 minutes' and then call it." We all laughed.

But truly, how could a sermon ever encapsulate the wonder of the resurrection anyway? Shouldn't we just stand at the tomb in awe? Human language attempts to point toward the Divine, but it can only approximate in metaphors; it will forever miss the mark. After all, the Holy is, by its very definition, "the Ineffable One;" God's name in the Hebrew Scriptures (YHWH) is a word that cannot even be pronounced! It can only be described as "the sound of breathing."

And in our Christian tradition, we believe that the characteristic action of the Ineffable One is something akin to loving/forgiving/saving/resurrecting -- all at the same time! It's something as fresh as white Easter lilies and as resounding as a chorus of trumpets. It's something that illuminates your life like a sunrise and joyfully surprises like a duckling breaking forth from her egg. It's something that warms the heart like the softest baby bunny and transforms you like a caterpillar transforms to a butterfly. Most of all, this grace is something that happens again and again and again, just like the return of Spring.

And so yes, beloved, my humble words could never adequately proclaim the Resurrected One, but these things point in its direction.

Much heart,
Rev. Anna