A Light in the Window

A Light in the Window
Susan Hoyle, pastor Trinity UMC

The Lenten season is over and we are in the hallelujah time of Easter because Christ is risen, Christ is alive! We have traveled the journey from the ashes of Ash Wednesday to the celebration of Palm Sunday to the horror of Good Friday to the joy of Easter Sunday. Now what? Does this mean the hallelujahs are over for another year? How do we live our lives as Eater people?

We live knowing that Resurrection is real, authentic and beyond what we can really understand. So how do we make sense of it? We human beings want to make sense of everything. We try to figure things out so we know where to put it in our brains. You know, kind of like a computer. When we can’t figure something out and make sense of it and we don’t know where to put it in our brains, we may discount it or just throw it away, not giving it much thought. But as deeply thinking Christians, we don’t want to throw the Resurrection away because we can’t make sense of it.

So where do we begin? We begin by thinking about love. We can’t explain love for our spouses, children, parents and friends, but we know it’s real, don’t we? Just because we can’t explain something, doesn’t mean it isn’t true. We call that faith.

We are also given glimpses of resurrection right here on earth that help us begin to understand how Jesus really did leave that tomb. One glimpse is when a woman marries a man and he just doesn’t like her young children. No matter what she does nothing changes. Then they have a child. What should she do? Stay or go? Then years later, he changes, somehow, and he becomes friends with those grown children. Is that not a glimpse of resurrection and new life? A man has smoked cigarettes for nearly 50 years. He is physically and psychologically addicted to them. He quits smoking, is this not a glimpse of resurrection, a new life? A young woman is given a terminal diagnosis, no possibility of surgery. Then one year later, she can have the surgery and her prognosis is good. Is this not a glimpse of resurrection and new life?

You see God gives us glimpses of resurrection right here on earth to help us understand that new life is possible. God wants us to see with “new eyes” that resurrection happens all around us if we will just notice. No, we cannot understand all that there is to know about resurrection because we do not have the mind of God. But we can know that we don’t have to explain everything to make it true. We can believe and have faith and leave the rest to God.

Perhaps you might think of glimpses of resurrection in your own life and in the life of your family. Those times when you had no hope and new life came out of the ashes. That is resurrection right here on earth. And that, my friends, is only the beginning…