Easter Monday

 

On Easter Sunday, God’s first testament of Creation joined in witnessing to the power, promise, and possibility of Resurrection.  We heard this both through the metaphor of a butterfly and how Mary encounters the risen Christ in the garden.  The gospel of John’s Easter narrative echoes Genesis.  John did this in the beginning too.  In John’s poem/prayer of chapter 1.  John starts his gospel with a riff on the Genesis Creation narrative with the same three words of the first book of the bible, “In the beginning…”.  Then, John sets out in another direction by saying, “Was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”  Throughout John’s gospel, Creation has a starring role.  Night and light are important metaphors.  Nicodemus comes at night and doesn’t get what Jesus is saying.  The Beloved Woman at the Well comes at noon and is the first disciple turned apostle to share the Good News.  Judas tips over his chair, leaves the room after Jesus washed his feet with his mind chattering chaotically away at night.  Jesus is arrested at night.  Peter denies knowing Jesus at night.  Mary, initially, goes to the tomb before the first light when it was still dark out.  She goes outside where the cool night wind can be felt on her face and perhaps causes her to tremble or shutter and wrap her cloak tighter around her.  She goes to the tomb, a cave catacomb with a stone sealed in front.  Creation plays a staring role here.  She sees the tomb empty, goes, and tells the disciples, as they all race and run back, Mary lingers.  Mary tarries.  Mary stays trying to process all that is happening just as the sun is rising.  Creation is playing a starring role here.  In the garden where the morning dew glistens with the first, sometimes blinding rays of sun, Mary weeps.  She supposes Jesus to be the gardener, just as Adam and Eve were the first gardeners.  Still today, Jesus wants to tend the garden of our souls and our whole lives in this season of Easter.  “Don’t hold onto me,” Jesus says.  Just as I cannot capture the wind; just as I cannot control the weather; just as I cannot cling to many things but am called to be caught up in the rhythm of creation, Easter and Creation are in cahoots to show us the way to life. 

This Easter week pay attention prayerfully to creation.  Let us be honest about how the world continues to groan under the demands we have for more.  Let us grief a culture that “throws away” and where we are unsure how we can live differently – and because of that too often don’t try new ways of living in harmony with Creation.  Let us recommit to the fullness of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world.”  Not just humanity.  Not just First Congregational UCC.  Not just me or you as isolated individuals.  The world!  From ants and atoms to stars twinkling to every living being in-between, all reflect God’s image.  May this truth of Easter guide us as we prepare to celebrate Earth Day and our church’s Covenant to be the stewards of creation.  I pray every day this week you and I will see our connection to the earth part of the Easter mystery we are called to live. 

Prayer: Help me, O God, live in harmony with the world around me.  Help me see that all the earth, every being, is caught in a web of inter-connectivity.  Help me love all that is seen and unseen in new Easter-ing ways every day.  Amen.