I have to
admit that sometimes I don’t quite know what to do with Easter. The story of
Jesus’ resurrection is central to Christianity, but it is also the story of
something completely unique: a man, dead and buried, rising up from his grave,
alive again as more than a resuscitated corpse, but with this ability to show
up here and there almost miraculously. What relevance does the story of
something so unique have to the lives we live?
This past fall, as the elections
were going on and life seemed to be filled with a sort of politics that I found
to be offensive, I discovered our subscription to Netflix, and joined the trend
of binge watching television programming, especially British detective series.
Recently, I have been watching Broadchurch,
a series set in a fictional English seaside town where a teenage boy has been
murdered. The first season deals with finding the boy’s murderer, while the
second season deals with that man’s trial—a man who was a neighbor and a family
friend of the murdered boy. When the murderer is discovered, the mother of the
murdered boy feels a great deal of anger towards the wife of the murderer,
rupturing the friendship they once had, but as the second season progresses,
you see the boy’s mother change, not suddenly, not dramatically, not with some
big forgiveness scene. It’s a gradual thing, but by the end of the second
season, you can tell that she forgives the other woman, and their relationship
is restored.
There is a resurrection, of
sorts—not in the bold way that happened that first Easter, but more as a sign,
a reminder that, even when there seems to be no hope, with God loose in the
world, there always, always is, at least, hope for the possibility of new life.
--Pastor Don
Steele
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