First Morning

I am a child and it is the first day of summer holidays after a particularly bad school year with a teacher who seemed to despise herself and hate children. It is early morning and the sky is a mild blue. There’s a soft breeze and I am riding my bike down tranquil neighborhood streets that are not yet stirring with the busyness of a new day. I am reveling in amazing freedom. The fear is gone; the knots in my stomach are untied. The tension has dissipated and the relief is overwhelming. I am experiencing one of those rare golden moments of pure joy.

Whenever I think of Easter, my first images are not of disciples discovering an empty tomb or Mary encountering angels and the ‘gardener’. I don’t immediately think of the two men on the road to Emmaus being joined by the engaging stranger. I don’t think of words like, “He is not here but has risen” or “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?”  As wonderful as they are, the accounts of the disciples discovering that Jesus was not dead after all are not what excites and stirs my spirit.

Instead, I hear in my imagination an immense and intense CRACK!  It’s the sound of a sudden thunderclap overhead or the trunk of an ancient gargantuan tree suddenly fracturing in two in a strong wind or the report of a thousand rifles being shot simultaneously. It’s not a crash. It’s a sharp, immediate sound that’s over as suddenly as it began except for the reverberating echoes down through eternity. It is the crack of Resurrection. It is the power of death being snapped.

Then I see Jesus sit up. Even though it’s still dark, there is light around him. He begins to laugh. The pain and fear is gone, the knots in his stomach are untied, the relief is overwhelming and pure golden joy cascades over him. The world is not yet awake as he moves out of the tomb but along the horizon is another kind of crack – the crack of a dawn just beginning. I see Jesus walking through the gardens and all he wants to do is breathe. He takes in deep, marvelous and unobstructed breaths that are free of tension or care. If he had a bike, he would ride it. He would glide, carefree and excited down silent paths and through still olive groves. As it is, he walks, almost floats, without the heavy restraint of the worldly gravity of sorrow, pain and fear. He praises his Father but not with words. By breathing, he praises. By delighting, he praises. By allowing excitement and anticipation to well up inside, he praises. There are no words that can do justice to his praise.

He stops on the top of a high hill and gazes down on a sleeping Jerusalem. The heaviness of the people is visible to him. It’s like a miasma of fear, uncertainty, suffering, anger and anguish seeping through the hushed streets, too heavy to rise or dissipate. He knows where his disciples are hidden, unable to sleep in their confusion and pain. He knows because he can see all things clearly but he also knows because their terror has a seeping suffering color different to the rest of the unaware population. He is touched by their suffering and wishes he could hold them and let each one experience just how glorious this dawn really is.

But it’s all right. Soon they will know. Soon.

Then, on that hill of dawn stillness, the heavens break open and Jesus is immersed in a roaring cascade of all of heaven reciting his Names. Names like:

All in All, Almighty, Altogether Lovely One, The Great Amen, Anchor, Ancient of Days, Angel of the Lord, The Anointed One, Apostle, Arm of the Lord, Alpha; Omega, Author and Finisher of our Faith, Balm of Gilead, Beginning and the End, One and Only Begotten, Beloved, Blessed and only Potentate, Branch, Bread, Bridegroom, Bright and Morning Star, Brightness of God's glory, Captain of our salvation, Carpenter, Chief among ten thousand, Child, Chosen of God, the Christ, Comforter, Commander, Consolation of Israel, Cornerstone, Counselor, Creator of all things, Daysman, Dayspring from on High, Day Star, Deliverer, Desire of all nations, Door, Emmanuel, End of the Law, Express image of God's person, Faithful, True, Father of Eternity, First and the Last, First begotten of the dead, Firstborn, Firstfruits, Foundation, Fountain, Forerunner, Friend of sinners, Fullness of the Godhead, Gift of God, Glory of God, God, Good Master, Governor, Great High Priest, Guide, Head, Heir of all Things, Helper, Hiding Place, High Priest, Holy Child, the Just, Hope of Israel, Horn of salvation,

                                                                              I AM 

Intercessor, Judge, Just One, King, Kinsman, Lamb, Lawgiver, Life, Light, Lion of the tribe of Judah, Lord and Savior, Master, Mediator, Merciful High Priest, Mercy, Messiah, Mighty God, Minister of the Sanctuary, Offering, Root of David, Ointment Poured Forth, Our Passover, Our Peace, Physician, Plant of Renown, Potentate, Prophet, Propitiation, Power of God, Quickening Spirit, Ransom, Redeemer, Refuge, Resurrection the Life, Righteousness, Rock of Salvation, Rod, Sacrifice, The Same now and forever, Sanctification Savior, Servant, Shadow of a great Rock, Shepherd, Shiloh, Son, Sower, Star, Stone, Sun of Righteousness, Surety, Teacher, Tender Plant, Testator, True Bread, Truth, Vine, Way, Wisdom, Wonderful, Word…

His Names pour over him like a river of truth and grace and in answer, he begins to speak the names of all of his beloved, past, present and future. You’re not even born but he is naming you and calling you. He is calling you as an extension of himself, naming you as someone who will flow out of himself. Because his name, Jesus, is the Name above all names.

"Speak the Word and we shall be created."

Eventually the rest of the world that sleeps the sleep of death will know about the resurrection too but it won’t be as easy to identify as the sun rising in all its glare and heat. His resurrection will appear dawn-by-dawn, moment-by-moment, stillness-by-stillness, tomb-by-tomb. Each spiritual death will bring a sharp crack of death being broken and a soft crack of dawn breaking on the horizon and a name being called.

This is my imagination of Easter but it’s not an imagining based on pure fantasy. It’s based on the resurrections I have experienced in my life, the moments where I passed from heaviness and death into a gracious crack of new light. It is based on the knowledge that Jesus has sanctified all my tombs, and the tombs of all his people.  They are no longer graves of imprisonment but portals to the kingdom through which we can see the creeping light and hear the echo of our spiritual names. 

I pray for you a holy and blessed Easter. Slip through the crack of your tomb and join him on the silent hill. He is calling you and would love to see you.

"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self (the ego) was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin (of the ego) and alive to God in Christ Jesus." (Romans 6: 3-11. Easter Vigil Epistle)