The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
April 8, 2007
Vol. 10 no. 14

Everything But...
           Easter and Christmas are the hardest holidays in the Christian year to talk about - precisely because we have already said too much. The Resurrection has become obvious to many of us; it is no longer “News.” Yet, nothing that is really about God is that obvious.
           Obvious means something that is built into the natural scheme of things, something plainly before our eyes that we can figure out with just a little effort. Resurrection was not obvious in the 1st century A. D. and if anything it has become even less obvious today. Our modern science and technology have made resurrection irrational, yet that hasn’t stopped many a scientist from attempting to extend human life beyond its normal bounds.
           So how do we read and hear the Story again, somehow ridding our minds of every obvious remembrance of Easter stories past? For most it is “just a story” of resurrection, an Easter story that gets mixed up with spring and new clothes and chocolate eggs. Whenever you do run into a resurrection it will neither be obvious, nor believable, nor natural. Don’t fret, resurrection will be more than real and even more it will change the nature of reality.
           By the way, resurrection is not a casual, random event. Nor is it magical, being initiated by someone who knows the correct incantation or spell. The people who are most upset by resurrection in the Gospels and in later Christian history are the power guys, the ones in control whose best weapon is the threat and occasional execution of death. Resurrection as a practice always has been counter-cultural, for we don’t raise our children to rise from the dead. It messes up the way it’s supposed to be.