Alleluia!

Something truly unprecedented has happened.

God has become human: fully human and fully divine. I don’t know what that means, exactly. It’s unprecedented.

Then, this God-man died. Men—well, people of all genders, and also all living things—die all the time. But God? It’s unprecedented.

Now he’s back. And honestly? To me, the fact that he died is a bit more surprising. God incarnate? How is he mortal? The systems of empire and oppressive power managed to kill him. Yeah, of course he comes back! He’s God. And the villains can’t win, right?

We’ve been reading, rehearsing, and celebrating this story now for about 2,000 years, give or take. We’ve not only tamed it through familiarity, but we’ve watched 2,000 years of systems of empire and oppressive power continue to roll over the meek of the earth. The villains win, a lot.

So what does it matter that a couple millenia ago, some guy who was somehow both human and divine was killed, came back, and left the planet, when nothing really seems to have changed? Is it just a matter of faith to keep claiming things are different somehow, and clinging to the hope that real life will map onto the U-shaped plot of the story?

I recently watched a video by Mason Mennenga in which he asks the question, “Did Jesus literally resurrect?” Mennenga’s stated purpose on his YouTube channel is, “Exploring inspiring and liberating theologies that transform you and the world.” His primary audience, I think, is likely the deconstruction crowd. In this particular video, he negotiates that space deftly, leaving room for either a “yes” or “no” answer to that question. Instead, he turns it around to challenge us to consider whether we affirm Jesus’ resurrection or not:

So, do I deny the resurrection of Jesus?

I do.

I deny the resurrection of Jesus whenever I do not feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and visit the imprisoned.

And do I affirm the resurrection of Jesus?

I do!

I affirm the resurrection of Jesus whenever I do feed the hungry, clothe the poor, and visit the imprisoned.

We do not deny or affirm the resurrection by what we believe, but by how we live.

—Mason Mennenga

From the beginning, Christians have understood the Church to be the Body of Christ, made of many members called to continue the work he began when he declared, by reading from a scroll in his hometown synagogue,

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
   because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
   to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
   and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

—Isaiah 61:1-2 (NRSV)

As Jesus’ body—his resurrected body—we have work to do. I personally believe Jesus was literally resurrected; but whether you believe that or not, we, the Church, remain his body in this world. We were joined to him in his death and resurrection in our own baptism, and we partake of his Real Presence in the Eucharist, his mystical body. We are meant to be a living affirmation of Jesus’ resurrection, however understood.

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Yesterday, Holy Saturday, was April 19, 2025: the 250th anniversary of the start of the American Revolutionary War. Many people took to the streets to mark that anniversary with a protest against the current governing regime in the US. It strikes me that even prior to Jesus’ resurrection, so many people were showing up to keep doing the work (as I blogged about yesterday) whether they believe in Jesus at all, let alone in his resurrection. Doing that work can’t depend on the assurance that it will accomplish anything, because it definitely won’t if the work isn’t done.

At the Easter Vigil last night, the Rt. Rev. Bonnie Perry preached on the need for Christians to participate in that kind of struggle. Calling out as evil the actions of the current regime—such as arresting and detaining people without due process because of their political speech and defunding programs that save lives through vital healthcare research and practice—she proclaimed:

We are called to say “no” to evil and “yes” to love. We are called to say loudly, boldly, publicly, “no” to death and “yes” to life. We are called to speak out as people of faith, people of hope, and people of Christ.
—Bonnie A. Perry, Bishop of the Diocese of Michigan

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Bishop Perry’s sermon opened with the one of the liturgy’s earlier readings (from 1 Kings chapter 19) where Isaiah is despairing of life—and encounters God in the silence following a great wind, an earthquake, and a fire. Bishop Perry talks about our need to meet God in the silence, which is a perfectly good interpretation of that text. My own experience (which may be no more normal than I am) tells me that amid the wind, earthquake, and fire constantly sweeping through our lives, God shows up, bringing the still point. God is the still point, after all. The silence Elijah experiences is the steady ground on which he can stand. It will be his source of strength every bit as much as the food he had earlier been given by an angel during his dark night of the soul.

Could it be that the silent space of Jesus’ tomb has become that still point for us? The Gospel stories don’t describe the moment of his resurrection (as Mennenga notes in his video). I image it was not terribly good television. Something quiet, solemn, and powerful in exactly the way we would never imagine power.

The empire did its worst, and violently killed Jesus.

He didn’t burst out of the grave in vengeance to crush his enemies.

The power of God doesn’t work that way. The power of God is hidden in the silence, offering us a place to stand, to feed on divine strength, so that we may be the Body of Christ in this world: resurrected, and ready to bring love into places of hate and life into places of death.