Saying Something New About Easter

I'm one of those cradle Christians; I've been going to church much of my whole life, and even when I wasn't attending faithfully, I'd still be in church for the high holy days, since I was usually visiting family members who went to church and wanted us all to go.  I've been hearing variations of the Easter story on both a weekly basis and a high holy day basis for 48 years now.

I'm always interested in how we make the story new.  Here are some snippets I've found this week.

From this post:

"As for myself, I cannot escape these lines lately:

I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep,

but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk
or a snooze in the sunshine.

I don’t want enough of God to make me love a black man
or pick beets with a migrant.

I want ecstasy, not transformation.

I want warmth of the womb, not a new birth.

I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack.

I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.
 
— Wilbur Rees

 
"I think it is asking for $3 worth of God to view Easter as assurance of heavenly retirement. Resurrection means more, is more, does more. What does the priceless nature of Forgiveness standing near us, still dusty from the grave, calling us by name- what does that mean for us today? For how we treat others? For how we act in the world? For what we think of our own worth?"




From this post:

“Christ is not alive now because he rose from the dead two thousand years ago,“ writes poet Christian Wiman. “He rose from the dead two thousand years ago because he is alive right now.”

"This past weekend a friend related that, in a recent speech, the writer Anne Lamott offered this to-the-point, memorable one-liner: 'It’s not take and figure it out, it’s take and eat.' Similarly, the Church uses the phrase 'Easter Proclamation,' not 'Easter Explanation.'”

"[Richard] Lischer says that 'the purpose of the Gospels was never to provide an exhaustive history but to make Polaroids of Jesus the church could hold up in a hospital, prison, ghetto, or cemetery, so that we would know him when we meet him.'”

“In the last analysis, you cannot pontificate but only point. A Christian [and a preacher?] is one who points at Christ and says, ‘I can’t prove a thing, but there’s something about his eyes and his voice. There’s something about the way he carries his head, his hands. The way he carries his cross. The way he carries me.’” Frederick Buechner