“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.”
Jesus is every human being who challenged the system. The system is Militarism. It is the world’s Religion. It grooms us as subordinates to live in Godly obedience to ranked supremacists. It grooms us as worth-less, to believe in the Godly devaluing of common people for capital gain. It grooms us to treat killers of subordinated worth-less people as Godly heroes. The Religion’s supremacy, capitalism and violence builds a world of graveyards. Its mission is to put people into tombs. It forces the rest of us to go to the tombs, linger there – in body, mind, heart – grieving our dead. But Jesus will not live in the graveyard. He refuses to obey supremacists because he is gathering people in communion. He refuses to use devalued people for capital gain because he is loving them instead. He refuses to kill anyone because it is just too absurd given his healing power that he shares with all. What do the Militarist do with such a person. They do to him what they do to everyone – they abuse him and they murder him – but in a more public manner, as example to anyone else thinking about challenging them. Are we an asylum seeker, civil servant, college student or educator, environmentalist, immigrant, journalist, lawyer, trans person, whistleblower, or simply a critical thinker? Then we are threatened with the tomb and are being forced to live in the graveyard. What does Jesus do to such a Religion and its ruling members? He does to them what we can all do – we refuse to die. We rise again. We will not allow our loved ones to linger – body, mind heart – in the graveyard, grieving our death. We will live. We will practice resurrection together and we will give birth to a world of communion, love, and healing.
Our present darkness is shifting from being a tomb in which we are to die to being a womb from which we are to be born.
Prayer: Dear Spirit, help us practice resurrection.
Question: What are the Spirit and I up to in this season of life?
April 20, 2025 Gospel John 20:1-9 Easter Sunday