An Easter Withdrawal

I am going through Easter withdrawal.  Easter is all about life; it is in the spring season for good reason.  Winter is over, new life has begun.  And the best news yet for Christians: there has been a resurrection!  Jesus is alive!  Hope springs eternal, sin is conquered.  “Death,” we cry out mocklingly, “where is your sting?”

Alas, all this jovial well-being lasts only a day.  I wish Jesus would stay resurrected longer; I wish all of the days after Easter would feel alive.  Unfortunately, it’s too easy to slip back into doldrums.  Decay.  Resurrection is great for Sunday, but the rest of the week?  Death rules the day.  To paraphrase Calvin Miller, a single hour of God-talk is not long enough to negate the world-weariness gathered in the other 167 hours of the week.  We walk through life as if it were a giant tomb.

We are incredibly fascinated with death.  It is a greater mystery to us than all the planets in space.  It is more intriguing than exploring the great depths of the oceans.  What does death feel like?  What happens to us , our memory banks, our rapid thoughts, our feelings when we die?  Where do we go?

The finality of death has been useful in romantic movies.  Example:  boy falls in love with girl.  Boy loses girl.  Boy gets girl back.  But girl loses boy because he dies.  Heart wrenches.  Curtain closes.  Repeat in next summer blockbuster.

Eventually, when the story is repeated over and over again, the death scene loses its power.  We know it’s going to happen, and we get bored with what we know.  The solution then is to titillate death with suffering.  Death is inevitable, but suffering gives us the chills and draws our attention.

One of my sons, much to my chagrin, mentioned that he saw a youtube clip called “1000 ways to die.”  The emphasis is on the ways.  He also introduced me to an internet cartoon entitled, Tree house friends, a cartoon that is shocking on so many levels.  Each episode shows cute little animated creatures maiming themselves in horrific ways.  It’s pornography for kids –and adults:  titillation without relationship.  And we’re addicted to it.

The addiction does mature with age.  President Obama is presently dealing with the proper way in which America should use nuclear weapons.  One argument is that they wouldn’t use nukes if there was a biological or chemical attack, unless these attacks were significant.  This begs the question: what would make a biological or chemical attack NOT significant?  Also written into the argument is the underlying theme of an eye for an eye: “you kill me? I’ll kill you. “ Humankind is mesmerized by the discussion.  Mesmerized because we’re all involved.

All this death-by-suffering talk pulls us out of the humdrum of our lives.  Numbed by the rat race, by being a number, being a consumer, we forget how to bleed.  A focus on suffering and death awakens our fear, at least for a little bit.  This gets our heart pumping, which in turn reminds us that we’re alive.  Unfortunately, this too fades all too quickly.  Why fear death when many of us already feel non-existent, faceless in a crowd?

Hence the Easter withdrawal.  I long for resurrection.  This world needs resurrection.  Resurrection is a surprise that rattles our senses.  It reminds us that life is a mystery, and like any great mystery, there is meaning in every detail, a clue in every event, interaction, and thought.  Resurrection also puts its focus on living.  Our church’s motto is, “There is more to life.”  You might ask, “What do you mean?  There is more to life than what?” in which we would reply, there’s more to life than just existing.  There is joy, and hope, and love, and peace.  There is seeing beyond ourselves, living for a greater purpose, and reveling in the rhythms of the gift of existence. 

Resurrection takes away the power of death.  “Why look for the living among the dead?” the angels asked the women gathered at the empty tomb of Jesus.  Resurrection reminds us that our place isn’t amongst the dead; we were made for more than dead ends.

But we so easily forget.  We forget the mystery and focus and power of Easter.  What we need, of course, is the will to live the resurrection beyond Easter, towards whatever time we’ve each been given; to seek life, real life, now and more abundantly.  Death, where is your sting?