Easter Sunday Reflection: The Resurrection Of The Lord
Franciscan Reflections From The Hermitage – Easter Sunday – The Resurrection Of The Lord
To listen to this reflection: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/53400178
The evidence is before us… The resurrection of Jesus from the dead… 2000 years of witnesses… saints and martyrs… holy men and women… pointing to the Way beyond fear and death as the final curtain… reflecting the Light of Love that transcends mortality to spend itself for others. This is the great treasure of Faith that is our hope, making joy and peace the evidence of God’s Kingdom here with us in the family of the Beloved Community.
Yet, this same free will that makes True Love possible, also means that the choice is ours… to follow the Way prepared by and through the Jesus event… or to go it alone… the Pharisees witnessed miracles, the dead being raised, the blind being given their sight, and the deaf being given their hearing… but they reject this evidence… WHY?
Even the disciples, those devoted to Jesus, are unable to see, unable to recognise Jesus. He appeared to Mary and she thought He was a gardener. He appeared, walked and talked with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and they did not realise it was Him. He yelled to the disciples in the boat fishing and they did not recognise Him. Why did they not recognise Him?
Did their grief blind them? Human pain and suffering can do that. It can give the illusion that we’re all alone and we do not recognize those around us, even our closest friends. Could it have been their lack of expectations? Jesus had died. They ‘knew’ death was the final curtain, so they did not expect to see Jesus again. Even if this man looked like Jesus, it could not be Him. He was dead. Sometimes we also have our own agendas, putting God in our corner and our box.
Could it be that they were kept from recognising Him? Could it be that they were being taught a new horizon, a new way of seeing Jesus? Perhaps this new way of seeing Jesus must begin in the darkness of the tomb, the darkness of the Cloud of unknowing, that humble acknowledgement that this cannot be my doing, cannot come about through my righteousness … or any form of worthiness.
Remember the pious and righteous Pharisee in the temple… was his problem pride?… perhaps it was his judgement of the tax collector… a collaborator with the Roman oppressors of the Chosen people of God? When we grapple with this question, we start to see why the Pharisees rejected the evidence, rejected Jesus and wanted to kill Him. They were chosen, set apart to be holy… yet Jesus turns the nature of religion upside down… the least, the sinners, the prostitutes, the tax collectors, are entering the Kingdom of God… and to top it off, the Kingdom, the blessedness that they have been promised, that they deserve is being taken from them to give to others, the unworthy.
Much like the Pharisee in the Temple, we also assume that some people are worth more than others, and are more worthy or unworthy than others to receive and hold particular things. Living in such a competitive and compulsive world we demand appreciation and rewards if we do well. We compete for recognition or promotion and higher salaries or other material rewards or status.
It is unnerving and painful if we don’t get what we want or expect, in our comparisons to other people… leading to grief, anger and ultimately, violence. Humility challenges these assumptions about rewards, status and worth. This is the alternative Way laid out by Jesus… admitting the breath of God, the Holy Spirit in another and our connectedness to each other.
This rejection of our connectedness is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit of God who is Love and cannot be the subject of forgiveness, because it requires healing. Rejecting the Way in and through Jesus, the Christ, has consequences and ends in another interim temporal place of wounded souls and spirits. A place outside of the hell we create on this earth through greed and selfishness… clutching baggage that cannot pass back into the Light of Peace and Joy that is unitive Love.
This is a place of desolation, a cold, sad and grey existence, whether we call this purgatory or Sheol … awaiting release into the Light from those very same souls that we stripped of dignity, those we considered worthless, those we dominated and bullied… those whose names we wrote in water… those we trampled on in search of personal prestige, domination, wealth and honour… those who lost hope because of our indifference… which is the act of failing to Love. It is indifference and not hate that opposes Love.
Let us do the necessary shadow work:
- Whenever I judge, criticise or blame another… pause… what am I avoiding within myself by focusing externally?
- Whenever I feel jealousy, anger or self-pity… pause… what is the core belief held beneath the feeling?
- Practice seeing God in the other… and in myself!
- Practice radical responsibility for my emotions and reactions rather than blaming others!Let us choose wisely…
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