Resurrection and Easter

Easter is about resurrection, and no matter what your "evangecube" tells you, the central moment in all of Christianity occurred on Sunday, not Friday. Most Christians believe that the only reason Jesus rose from the dead was to prove that He was not a wimp. Because you know, "You can't keep a good man down!" They make no real connection between the resurrection of Christ and their own postmortem fate. The real issue, they think, is that "He died for my personal sins."

It's high time that Easter become a little less "personal" and a little more "public." Jesus' resurrection means "life after, life after death" for everyone, no exceptions. There is only one who currently exists in a resurrected state... Jesus. Even Lazarus, who also was raised from the dead, died a second time and now awaits the resurrection just like all the saints.

Modern western Christianity has for some time depicted the "the dead in Christ" as somehow already having arrived at a "final destination." The idea is that Grandma is in heaven and that her journey has ended. The only thing she has to look forward to is being reunited with family and friends through their own deaths.

Believing in resurrection means living in hope. But not a dualistic false hope that welcomes death because of the prospect of seeing Grandma again. The hope of resurrection is not found in the personalized moment of each individual's death. The hope of resurrection is placed in a future moment awaited by all, the living and the dead, a moment that every Easter ever celebrated has anticipated.