Happy Easter! Now Go and Practice Resurrection

Happy Easter! We celebrate this holiday in the Western world with ham dinners and joyful anthems. The nod-to-Godders dust off their Sunday best for their annual hour in the pew, and children brave the barely-spring temperatures to go in search of eggs filled witih slightly frozen jelly beans and marshmellow peeps.

If you travel in the “right circles,” sooner or later today you will hear the words, “Jesus is risen!” with an expectant air, after which you will be required to answer an enthusiastic, “He is risen, indeed!” Of all the traditions listed, this is the one that sits nearest the heart of the Easter holiday, for the day is a celebration of Jesus’s resurrection.

I wouldn’t expect to find a reference to resurrection in a poem titled “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” but there it is, right at the end: “Practice resurrection.” It comes as an appropriate summary to the poem’s laundry list of seemingly unrelated imperatives:

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.”

And in the last lines, after wily words about a fox’s ways: “

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction”

There it is…

Practice resurrection.”¹

What Does it Mean to “Practice Resurrection?”

Paul has given us some insight to the practice of resurrection that enables a year-round celebration of Easter:

 For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God.

2 Corinthians 13:4

This has very practical implications for us because we live by the same power that brought Jesus out of the tomb. Therefore…

In weakness, you may be fearful, but you can be at peace by the power of God.
In weakness, you may be lying or hiding dark secrets, but you can live in the light of truth by the power of God.
In weakness, you may be relying on substances to deal with your life, but by the power of God you can be free.
In weakness, you may be making imoral choices in lifestyle or entertainment, but by the power of God you can be pure.
In weakness, you may be impatient, but, by the power of God, you can take a long view of your circumstances.

How can we draw any conclusion about Easter other than the fact that it is life-changing?

Eugene Peterson asserts that “when we practice resurrection, we continuously enter into what is more than we are. When we practice resurrection, we keep company with Jesus, alive and present, who knows where we are going better than we do, which is always ‘from glory unto glory.'”²

“When we practice resurrection, we keep company with Jesus, alive and present, who knows where we are going better than we do, which is always ‘from glory unto glory.'” ~ #EugenePeterson

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Traveling on that glory path with you, I’m looking forward to a special breakfast and celebratory worship with my church family and then dinner here on the hill with some of my favorite people. And I know, too, that the resurrection of Jesus establishes the conditions that will enable me to grow and carry the message of truth to others. Jesus alive and present makes all the difference, not just today, but every day!

So, Happy Easter! Now go practice resurrection!

Holding You in the Light,

How can we draw any conclusion about #Easter other than the fact that it is life-changing? #practiceresurrection

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1. Wendell Berry, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.” in Collected Poems (San Francisco: North Point Press, 1985), pp. 151-152 ↩︎
2. Eugene Peterson, Practice Resurrection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), p. 8 ↩︎

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