The old news about Easter is that it is about resurrection. The new news may be that it is not so much
about the resurrection of Jesus as it is about our own. Unfortunately, we so often miss it. Jesus, you
see, is already gone from the tomb. The question now is whether or not we are willing to abandon our
own, leave the old trappings behind and live in the light of Jesus, the Christ, whom the religious
establishment persecuted and politicians condemned. It is the greatest question of them all in a world
that practices religion as an act of private devotion and sees law and government as an arm of God.
It is at the tomb that we discover things about ourselves. It is at the tomb that we come to make sense
of the questions that have dogged us down the weeks of Lent.
Like the women at the tomb who until this moment have refused to imagine that life can be different,
we have looked for the fullness of life in the wrong places: in things, in systems, in social approval, in
money, in status. We have been blind.
Like the women who went to the tomb expecting to find the grave blocked, we have allowed our fear
of resistance to silence our hearts and color our sense of possibility.
Like the women who realized when they got there that the stone had been rolled away, we find
ourselves struggling between fear of reprisal and our faith in the truth that is the gospel.
Like the apostles who could not imagine any truth outside themselves, we have failed to hear the word
of God from strange quarters. We have lived through racism and sexism and prejudice and have taken it
all for granted. We have taken the half-truths of every system that preaches only itself. We have hugged
God to ourselves and made the Creator a prisoner of our smallness of mind and hardness of heart. We
have been closed to God in the world and did not hear what we would not hear.
We have made ourselves blind and deaf in the name of fidelity. Like Peter and John who run to the
tomb “to see for themselves” because they will not believe the women, we have failed to realize that
the voice of the church is one. We have missed the whole point of the tomb: that to cut anyone off
from the proclamation of the word of God is to shrink our own experience of God. We miss the
messages. We reject the messengers. We make ourselves the gauge of the height and breadth and
depth of God. We make ourselves the measure of our God and call it faith.
The resurrection to which Easter calls us—our own—requires that we prepare to find God where God is
by opening ourselves to the world around us with a listening ear and a seeing eye. That means that we
must be prepared to be surprised by God in strange places, in ways we never thought we’d see and
through the words of those we never thought we’d hear.
We must allow others—even those whom we have until now refused to consider—to open our hearts to
things we do not want to hear. We must release the voice of God in everyone, everywhere. It means
putting down the social phobias that protect us from one another. It requires that we clean our
vocabulary, our contempt for “liberals,” our frustration with “radicals” and our disdain for
“conservatives.” It presumes that we will reach out to the other—to gays and to immigrants, to
prisoners and the poor—in order to divine what visions to see with them and what stones to move from
the front of their graves.
That will, of course, involve listening to women, seeing angels where stranger are, emptying tombs,
contending with Pharisees and walking to Emmaus with strangers crying “Hosanna” all the way.
about the resurrection of Jesus as it is about our own. Unfortunately, we so often miss it. Jesus, you
see, is already gone from the tomb. The question now is whether or not we are willing to abandon our
own, leave the old trappings behind and live in the light of Jesus, the Christ, whom the religious
establishment persecuted and politicians condemned. It is the greatest question of them all in a world
that practices religion as an act of private devotion and sees law and government as an arm of God.
It is at the tomb that we discover things about ourselves. It is at the tomb that we come to make sense
of the questions that have dogged us down the weeks of Lent.
Like the women at the tomb who until this moment have refused to imagine that life can be different,
we have looked for the fullness of life in the wrong places: in things, in systems, in social approval, in
money, in status. We have been blind.
Like the women who went to the tomb expecting to find the grave blocked, we have allowed our fear
of resistance to silence our hearts and color our sense of possibility.
Like the women who realized when they got there that the stone had been rolled away, we find
ourselves struggling between fear of reprisal and our faith in the truth that is the gospel.
Like the apostles who could not imagine any truth outside themselves, we have failed to hear the word
of God from strange quarters. We have lived through racism and sexism and prejudice and have taken it
all for granted. We have taken the half-truths of every system that preaches only itself. We have hugged
God to ourselves and made the Creator a prisoner of our smallness of mind and hardness of heart. We
have been closed to God in the world and did not hear what we would not hear.
We have made ourselves blind and deaf in the name of fidelity. Like Peter and John who run to the
tomb “to see for themselves” because they will not believe the women, we have failed to realize that
the voice of the church is one. We have missed the whole point of the tomb: that to cut anyone off
from the proclamation of the word of God is to shrink our own experience of God. We miss the
messages. We reject the messengers. We make ourselves the gauge of the height and breadth and
depth of God. We make ourselves the measure of our God and call it faith.
The resurrection to which Easter calls us—our own—requires that we prepare to find God where God is
by opening ourselves to the world around us with a listening ear and a seeing eye. That means that we
must be prepared to be surprised by God in strange places, in ways we never thought we’d see and
through the words of those we never thought we’d hear.
We must allow others—even those whom we have until now refused to consider—to open our hearts to
things we do not want to hear. We must release the voice of God in everyone, everywhere. It means
putting down the social phobias that protect us from one another. It requires that we clean our
vocabulary, our contempt for “liberals,” our frustration with “radicals” and our disdain for
“conservatives.” It presumes that we will reach out to the other—to gays and to immigrants, to
prisoners and the poor—in order to divine what visions to see with them and what stones to move from
the front of their graves.
That will, of course, involve listening to women, seeing angels where stranger are, emptying tombs,
contending with Pharisees and walking to Emmaus with strangers crying “Hosanna” all the way.
EASTER MESSAGE 2008
 |  |  |  |  |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Home||Benedictine Sisters of Erie||Catalogue||Joan in the News||Contact Benetvision Fund for Prisoners||Retreats||About Benetvision||Ideas in Passing Benetvision • 355 East Ninth Street • Erie, PA 16503-1107 • Phone 814-459-5994 benetvision@benetvision.org • Fax 814-459-8066 Copyrighted © 2007 Benedictine Sisters of Erie, PA |