Is the resurrection, as some of my atheist friends have told me, parochial?  Is it really so small and insignificant that it affects only a very small corner of an infinitely large universe?  Is one itinerant Jewish preacher's return from death really that important?
     The resurrection is only important if it actually happened.  And the resurrection could only have happened if this vast universe is the creation, in some way, of a personal being.  Only personal beings experience life and death.  If we look at the universe as the product of impersonal forces, well, we will indeed consider the resurrection to be irrelevant.  Why would life be expected to continue after it is over?  Deciding that the universe is the result of personal intelligence and creativity, however, changes the equation, profoundly.  A necessarily eternal creator inserts a potential into the fabric of the cosmos that would not be there otherwise, the potential to experience, somehow, some way, eternity.

     In this light, the resurrection becomes anything but parochial.  Indeed, it comprises the sum of existence.  The resurrection means that life is more than itself, that life as we know and love it is not all there is to experience.  There is more to life than meets the eye.  Or the ear.  Or the heart.  The resurrection means that this present is only the beginning of a far greater present still, a present that will never end.
    There is life again.

     If you have read any of the biblical narratives about the trial and death of Jesus, you are likely familiar with the pericope (story) of the thief on the cross.  As Luke tells it, both of the two men crucified with Jesus were hurling insults at him.  After a time, however, one of them comes to see things differently.
     "This man," he tells the other thief, "has done nothing wrong.  He is suffering unjustly.  But we are not.  We deserve our punishment."
     Turning to Jesus, this thief then says, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
     "Today," Jesus replies, "you shall be with me in Paradise."
     


     It's a glorious promise.  The thief's present pain, body as well as soul, will this day, this very day, be totally vanquished.  He can look forward to a profoundly marvelous future.
     Though the thief's destination is central to this passage, I want to think more about his faith.  He knew about Jesus, he knew about Jesus' deeds.  He knew that Jesus had told his audiences that he was bringing a kingdom to earth.  It was not until the thief hung on the cross, however, that he came to realize, fully, the nature of this kingdom.  He saw that Jesus' promised kingdom is not one of material gain, but one of spirit and soul.  He knew that he would therefore need to trust in what he could not see in order to grasp what he knew he most needed:  forgiveness and new life.  He knew he needed internal change.
     And that, as we today remember Good Friday, is the point.  We remember the darkness, we ponder the pain.  And we trust.  We trust that in the suffering we cannot fathom is the message to our hearts, that, tangled as they are in the vexations of humanness and sin, we need more than ourselves to be eternally whole.

     Today is Maundy Thursday.  As we enter into the final days of Lent, the climatic days of Holy Week, we think about service.  Throughot his earthly life, Jesus told people that he had come as a servant.  He had not come to judge, he had not come to condemn; he had come to serve.  Jesus had come to serve his creation.  At the Last Supper (the event which Maundy Thursday commemorates), Jesus made clear that he was readying himself to give himself, to give his body, heart, and soul for the good of those whom he had made.  Even as the final hours of his life loomed, Jesus emphasized that he had come to serve.  His welfare was the last thing on his mind.

     Whether we believe in Jesus or not, we can learn from his example.  The world hardly needs more arrogant leaders.  The planet will do just fine without its rulers constantly striving to dominate one another.  When we, literally or metaphorically, wash one another's feet, as Jesus did at the Last Supper, we affirm the value of our fellow human beings.  We tell our fellow travelers that we regard them as more important than ourselves.  We state to the world that working to sustain everyone is greater than working to sustain oneself only.
     We let go of what we want for the good of others.
     Consider what you have, ponder what you have been given.  And sacrifice.  Give up your wonder, let go of your grace in order to create more of them for your neighbor. Make him/her more important than you.
     And see how you--and the world--changes.

     This year, due to the rhythms of the Jewish calendar, Passover and Easter occur only a few days apart from each other.  As you may know, Passover remembers and commemorates how many centuries past God liberated the Hebrews from a four hundred year captivity in Egypt, delivering them, eventually, into the promised land.  It begins at sundown tonight. Around the world, millions of Jewish families will be gathering for the seder, the meal whose various components point to the elements of captivity and liberation.  The structure of the seder has not changed since Moses instituted it over three millennia ago.  Passover is central to the Jewish tradition.
     When Moses laid out the instructions for Passover, he specified that it begin with the sacrifice of a lamb, a lamb whose blood would be spread on the doorposts of every Hebrew home in Egypt.  When God subsequently executed his final judgment on Egypt and its enslavement of the Hebrews, he would "pass over" the homes on which a lamb's blood had been placed.
     Enter Easter.  Christianity makes Jesus the ultimate Passover lamb.  It sets Jesus and his sacrifice of himself at the center of its understanding of God's ways with humanity.  It takes what was once a tradition of one tribe and extends its effects to all of humankind.  In effect, Christianity "universalizes" Passover.

      Remember our Jewish brethren tonight.  Remember their remembering of God's love for them.  And in a few days hence, remember Jesus, the Jew whose love for the world compelled him to die, and rise, for the liberation of all peoples.
     Remember the glory, the weight of glory, the glory of life, the glory of memory:  the glory of the love of God.

     Living in the American Midwest, I am only now beginning to see the first signs of Spring.  A flower here, a flower there, a few buds on the trees, birds, robins and sparrows in particular, emerging.  And the sun, rising ever farther in the northern horizon, proclaiming the new day.  It's all very glorious, glorious, indeed.
     Beyond the reverie, as we all know, suffering reigns.  And it's not just the pandemic.  Even amidst the deaths it is unleashing, every moment, people are, quite apart from the virus's effects, sadly, dying, taking their last breaths, leaving the world forever.
     Yet every moment, people are being born, too:  life continues.  And this we have hope.
     A few days ago, many people remembered the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.  It's a tragedy supernally difficult to undo.  To remember it, however, is to hope.  And to believe.  To believe in the human species, the fundamental point of the human being:  what wonder we are!  For justice we long, with love we long for it.
     And for this we are grateful there is a God.

     It's Holy Week.  Holy Week is about suffering, helplessness, and pain.  It's also about joy, pure and holy joy.  Holy Week takes us into the deepest of darknesses, yes, but it also  takes us into the most profound of all light.
     As our planet continues to reel from Covid-19, pain and disaster seem, more than ever, integral, inextricably integral to our lives.  Holy Week tells us that, yes, suffering is a part, an essential and unavoidable part of human existence.  Yet it also tells us that this is only the beginning of the story.  There's much more to the narrative, much more to the tale.
     Holy Week tells us that the end of the story is that on which we must focus most.  Indeed, pain is part and parcel of our lives.  But only part.  In Jesus' suffering, we see ourselves.  And he us.  But it is in Jesus' resurrection that we ought to see ourselves even more.  It is in that pivotal moment, that epochal moment in which God conquered death that we must look.  For it is in it that we see our future.
     For some, Holy Week is silly and parochial, a foolish invocation of presences and forces that do not exist.  Perhaps.  More broadly speaking, however, definitely not.  Consider the 

Modern Museum of Art's description of this painting:  "The Disaster Paintings eternalize the real-life modern events we are faced with daily in contemporary society yet quickly forget when the next catastrophe occurs."
     We crave security; we crave control.  We weep when we see our fellow humans in pain. We weep over the suffering, we weep over the events that led to it.  We weep over our fallen world.
     Yet in Holy Week we see that death is but the prelude to life.  It's not the end.  God is here, God is there.  Jesus' death presents a God who is bigger than disaster, a God who is bigger than the very darkest of pain.  Jesus died, yes, the Messiah slain, but God lives.  And Jesus rose.
     And God is God.  Though disaster fills this world, God's power fills it even more.

     Of course today is April 1:  April Fools Day.  It's also the the birthday of one of the greatest of the Romantic pianists:  Sergei Rachmaninoff.  Born in Russia, eventually emigrating to America and, shortly before his death in 1943, becoming an American citizen, Rachmaninoff (my wife's favorite musician) composed some of the richest music ever written for the piano. His work blends intense and mournful melody with powerful and intricate chords and keyboard movements, beautifully capturing the deepest spirit of the Romantics.  Rachmaninoff's musician gives us a window, a poignant window into our perennial struggle with the vast and unyielding import of sentient existence.  It shows us that however intellectual we may suppose ourselves to be, we are, in the end, creatures of heart and imagination.  We live as sensual beings.
     Rachmaninoff helps us realize that although reason is an essential part of who we are, we make our biggest decisions with our heart.  To put this in theological terms, although we may believe, as a matter of intellectual assent, that Jesus died and rose again (or any other religious tenet), we can only trust its truth for our lives with our heart.  Trust is the wellspring of rational belief.
     As much of Rachmaninoff's music tells us, though we live for the moment, we flourish in the eternal, however we conceive it to be.  We trust our spiritual visions with our heart.