Weekly Compendium

And an Easter essay

Sierra Valley, CA - Peony Hill at Sunset

From earlier in the week…

The day I strangled a man in a coffee shop (in my head)

Because I’m going to school to become an ordained minister in the Christian church, people assume that I have a never-ending stream of pure, flaccid, stained-glass, decaf thoughts effortlessly floating through my head all day. Like I sing “Jesus loves me, yes he does,” to myself on repeat. I can’t blame people for thinking this, but I have to reveal the actual truth... There was this time just last week when I wanted to strangle this dude in a coffee shop where I was writing a sermon... [Click to continue reading.]

To Forgive is to Release (Not to turn wrong into right)

The word “release” may be a better word to use than “forgive”. Or, at least it helps us with the proper framing of the word. I know that the word “forgive” won’t be going away soon. And that’s okay. But it’s easy to think that “forgive” means to “be okay with all the ways that you’ve been wronged.” Like it’s up to you to give your aggressor a high-five and a butt-bump. That’s not forgiveness… [Click to continue reading…]

Trading in our idols for everything

Here’s the thing about idols… Idols stand in opposition to everything else in your life. If money is my idol, I’ll love money above all else. If social status is my idol, the yearning for it supersedes everything in my life. If my spouse is my idol, s/he comes before anything else. If fitness is my idol, getting #swoll is my core identity and overshadows everything else. I could go waaaaay on… Idolatry is an endless endeavor… [Click to continue reading…]

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Resurrection Sunday

Luke 24:1-11 MSG

1-3 At the crack of dawn on Sunday, the women came to the tomb carrying the burial spices they had prepared. They found the entrance stone rolled back from the tomb, so they walked in. But once inside, they couldn’t find the body of their teacher Jesus.

4-8 They were puzzled, wondering what to make of this. Then, out of nowhere it seemed, two men, light cascading over them, stood there. The women were awestruck and bowed down in worship. The men said, “Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery? He is not here, but raised up. Remember how he told you when you were still back in Galilee that he had to be handed over, killed on a cross, and in three days rise up?” Then they remembered Jesus’ words.

9-11 They left the tomb and broke the news of all this to the Eleven and the rest. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them kept telling these things to the apostles, but the apostles didn’t believe a word of it. They thought they were making it all up.

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As other-worldly as resurrection sounds, it’s not a supernatural concept. In a lot of the world, during the autumn, leaves fall from trees and plants turn brown, shrivel up, and die. And they remain this way for months - dormant, dead, lifeless. And then, upon the arrival of spring, they burst to life again. 

For there to be a spring, there has to be an autumn and a winter. For there to be a resurrection, there has to be a death. A seed must be buried in the darkness of the soil. It must be laid into its little earthy tomb before it rises into the fullness of a tree. 

Think of what you had to eat today... It was alive. And then, it had to be killed in order to be consumed... By you. And the death of IT is creating new life in you right now. 

Death.
And resurrection.

This is the pattern of life. It isn’t that things are born and stay alive forever and get bigger and bigger and better and better. For some reason, this is what we humans expect out of life. But it behooves us to see that our expectations are merely an illusion. 

This mystery of death-and-life is a process or a mechanism that is built into everything. The cells in your body right now are dying at a speed of millions per second. The skin on your body is dying and flaking off while making way for entirely new skin every week or so. 

This death-and-life pattern also applies relationally. Think of firefighters or soldiers who give their lives for the well-being of others. Think of healthcare workers during the height of the pandemic who showed up every day to work knowing that they might get infected with this death-dealing disease. Think of the people who move back in with their aging parents to care for them during their final days giving up their freedoms for the well-being of those who cared so long for them. 

In the solar system, planets explode and stars collide to make way for new planets and stars. None of that energy is wasted or deleted from the sum of the universe. All of it is used to create where nothing seems to be there. 

Life. For death. For life.
Resurrection. 

So when the writers of the Bible write about resurrection, it isn’t a new concept. They’re talking about something that’s true. Something that is and has always been in motion. Although we turned the cross into a tribal religious icon, you can also say that it ultimately represents something that is and has always been true about the way that God or Life or The Universe or whatever you want to call it... Works. It represents a primordial reality that we experience

every time
we swallow
our food.

So who cares, right? Then why is this story such a big deal if it’s so common?

Well, as humans, we all live by stories. Even us hyper-rational people do. And for them, for the ancient Hebrew writers who wrote the poems and stories that turned out to be included in The Bible, THIS story changed everything. Death no longer had the last word. 

See, we humans create progressively. We take what’s already here and we make more. We use the potential that’s already in things. We focus on the good and strive to make it better. 

But when life becomes too much. When the pulse flatlines. When the headlights fade from sight... That’s where our skillset ends. We’re quick to deem things Dead On Arrival.

But in this ancient Hebrew story... This God creates ex nihilo, or out of nothing. Creates life where there is death. Creates beauty out of ugliness. Creates something out of nothing.

This God works with blank slates, not bolstered resumes. 

And according to their story, this happened in Jesus: the one who had let them down just days before. They thought he was going to be their messiah. And messiahs don’t die as common criminals on crosses like this one did. In their minds, he was supposed to overthrow the Roman Empire and restore the kingdom to Israel.

But he kept talking about one thing that made them very nervous... He kept talking about

dying

as his goal.

Which he aptly did. He died. Dead as a doornail.
But then, as the story goes: he left the tomb. 

[<Side-rant> I want to point something out here... This is probably the most important passage in the entire New Testament for Christians. This witnessing to the resurrection of Jesus. Well, who were the first to witness it? Yes, the women. And what do the men do when the women tell them that Jesus’s body isn’t there anymore? They don’t believe them! Typical. I’m calling myself out here as a dude. If you say we shouldn’t have women leaders in the church, I just don’t know... Anyhow... Where was I? <endrant>]

If you look at your life, you might see this pattern of creation ex nihilo - out of nothing. Maybe you’ve had a season or two where you were dead sure your life was over.

You lost that person to a terminal disease.
You struggled with that addiction.
You were left with nothing after that business deal went bad.

Whatever it is, you have your own resurrection stories. 

But here’s what’s interesting…

We don’t have to wait until we croak to live as if resurrection is real.

We can either live with this pattern or against it. We can fall into our tendencies of hopelessness and on counting things dead-on-arrival when they appear to be so. Or we can trust that this is exactly what God uses as God’s raw material. In the face of death, we can embrace life, open our arms to it, and take it all in. 

Right now, spring is springing. In matters of the soul - just as in matters of nature - there can’t be a spring if our hearts are trying to keep autumn at bay. 

In this story, death is never the end. 

Lose your life and find it, he says.

That’s how this universe functions. 

It’s how our soul works. 

It’s how life works when you’re dying to live.

Happy Resurrection Sunday