“On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb… she ran and went to Simon Peter and another disciple.” ”Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.” Peter did not see Jesus’ body in the tomb but did see “the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head. Then the other disciple also went in… and he saw and believed.” Jesus “had to rise from the dead.”
What do rulers do when the people they persecute, torture, and kill will not stay dead? What do they do when they rise again? What do they do when after we who have loved them mourn our loss, will not stay dead either, and rise again with them? We have been exercising our spiritual, intellectual, physical, social, emotional, and moral abilities in the face of this era’s same deadly rulers. Our exercises can carry us during the pain, and through the pain, so that we too resurrect. We continue our loved one’s same witness. We expand the courage of those who have gone before us. We do not succumb to the rulers’ supremacist cult – to the pain it causes by demanding our obedience to the dictates of the ruler class – and we instead live the joy of communion. We do not succumb to belief in their abusive creeds – to the pain they cause by their doctrines of disinformation that claim our sins caused our loved one’s death – and we instead live the joy of loving one and all as salt and light. We do not succumb to the ruler’s violent code – the pain they cause by coercing us to conform to their murderous behavioral expectations – and we instead act as a creative healing power in this world. We shift from a religion of pain to a spirituality of joy – of communion, of love, of creative healing power. Into a world that claims the right to persecute, torture and kill, we bring forth a better world, a gentler world, a kinder world. We witness intimacy, delight, joy.
“Let all the strains of joy mingle in my last song — the joy that makes the earth flow over in the riotous excess of grass,… the joy that sweeps in with the tempest, shaking and waking, all life with laughter, the joy that sits still with its tears on the open red lotus of pain, and the joy that throws everything it has upon the dust.” (All That is Joy – Rabindranath Tagore)
Prayer: Rising Christ, we live in a Spirit of Joy
Question: How do I exercise joy?
March 31, 2024 Gospel John 20:1-9 Easter Sunday