I’ve never thought of Easter as a season so I’m a little unsure of what it means to intentionally celebrate resurrection for more than one Sunday… or Saturday for that matter.
I grew up with the idea that Easter was a date coming in the spring sometime and on that day I’d get out of bed and go downstairs and find a basket with a little bit of candy and some kind of Christian rock cassette or CD, most likely by Petra or Steven Curtis Chapman.
We didn’t spend much time with such non-holy things like easter-eggs, breakfast or conversation, we had a lot to do. Those “Sunday’s best” slate grey slacks weren’t going to wear themselves to say nothing of my new vest with the snappy jewel-toned paint brush strokes on it… Yes. We had church.
Easter at The Greeley Wesleyan Church meant that you would most likely see a “greatest-hits” medley of the latest Easter musical extravaganza. A passion play that had been performing for the last few nights in the sanctuary. Of course, the enormous handmade tomb was empty… well sort of empty, there was a bright stage light and fog machine inside to make it more dramatic. The crosses that were used in the play last night were now draped in a purple cloth and there were probably a few stray palm branches that had been missed by the janitor next to the piano.
The choir was the largest it would be all year and everyone looked really happy to sing. The music pastor was conducting a small orchestra on the floor as well as the choir in the loft. In between them were the cream-of-crop singers with microphones…and…solos! And Easter was all about the solos!
After the solos the pastor and his Easter tie would give a short message. (Short because everyone knew that the reason for the big turn out was because Easter was one of two holidays the “un-churched” came to church and we don’t want to scare them away with preaching…besides, we were the church with solos!) In so many words he would say, “Look! The tomb is empty! He is alive! So now you can have “victory” over your sin. Amen. Choir. Solo. Offering. Solo. Amen.
After the Christian Easter show, we’d drive to my grandparents house and gorge ourselves on all the pagan bunnies, Cadbury eggs and Peeps we could fit in our mouths. I don’t remember much about lunch or what we did while we were there (besides throw pennies at back porch step) but I remember that my brother and I never came home without a solid pound of chocolate in the shape of rabbit which usually stayed in our freezer most of the year.
Before long we were back in the car on our way back to Greeley. We went to bed soon after we got home because tomorrow was school or work. Tomorrow was not Easter and next Sunday was not Easter either, it was something like “God’s Play-book for your life” or “Unlikely heros of the Bible.” Not Easter.
To be honest, I’m glad that Easter was just a day and I’m not so sure I want to celebrate Easter… at least not this kind of Easter. Easter took to much work. Too much Spit and polish. This Easter says, “clean up and go to church. Act like you have “victory” over your addictions, your fear, your doubt, your pain.” This Easter takes a short-cut to Sunday and avoids the pathos of Friday and the despair of Saturday. Sure we liked to Honor “Good Friday” and “Maundy Thursday” but we didn’t want to re-live it. Besides, we didn’t know how so what would be the point? Easter the way we did it tried to mask the thirst we had for real resurrection but only succeeded in making us more thirsty.
I think real resurrection defies a holiday. Holidays only make static something that is actually dynamic and living. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t pause and celebrate these wonderful realties that have given us our faith, but to confuse them with an event that is only present once a year is to deny it’s power.
I think real resurrection is a rhythm. It’s a rhythm that involves both death and life, not just life. You have listen, you have to watch… and then you start to see the valleys and peaks and hear the crescendos and the sudden rests. You watch and listen but more importantly you feel it. You feel the death and feel the life. This is a rhythm you must feel… and when you feel it you can only surrender to it, you can never force it.
Not only is it a rhythm, but resurrection is a force. It is a force that does not eliminate death but transforms it and redeems it to be the essential ingredient for life! It’s active and unstoppable. It’s working in you right now… maybe death and life are even happening simultaneously. Do you know what I mean? Can you feel it?
I know you can’t always recognize it because of how poorly misrepresented it has been but it is there. Right now it only looks like death but listen for a bit to the rhythm and feel the pull of God’s gravity. Surrender might not be as hard as you think… Then who knows, you may never want another Easter Extravaganza for the rest of your life.
when you hear the words “church calendar” what do you think?
but i want to remind everyone, remind myself, that the refuge would have been perfectly fine without this space. you see, the church is always the people, not a building. and people committed to God & each other, no matter where they gather—houses, coffee shops, golf courses, apartment buildings, weird rented spaces—are what create the church, the beautiful, diverse, wild and wonderful body of Christ. the conversations that happen during the week, the phone calls, the emails, the prayers, the tangible help & hope that gets passed on in big & small ways, the neighbors that are loved, the scriptures that are shared, the words of encouragement, the serving, the giving, the learning, the growing, the falling down & getting back up, the grace, the truth, Christ’s love made real—that’s the church. .gif)
it was a great couple of days at the born again church tour in denver october 17th & 18th. thanks everyone who helped pull this off. here are some pictures capturing some of the moments shared together there. we hope that in the months to come that we continue to dream and experiment and live out some of our hopes for all the church can be.
NOTE: this is a re-post from 
this is the liturgy we wrote & have been using each week at our sunday gatherings focusing in on the beatitudes & the sermon the mount. as the final line says, may these words sink deeply into our hearts, our lives in ways we never dreamed: 
as you all know by now, i have a lot of issues with “church.” i love love love people gathered together in all kinds of ways to learn and practice loving God, our neighbors, ourselves. it’s the programs, the inauthenticity, the power b.s., the unnaturalness of it all that i can do without. i believe wholeheartedly, in every fabric of my being, that without community and deep connection with other people (whatever that may look like) we will never be able to live out the ways of Jesus and experience the fullness of relationship with God. i am fairly convinced typical church systems that feed inspiration addiction provide a false sense of spiritual maturity where learning “about” certain things becomes enough and we are never forced to actually be in meaningful intimate connection with the people we sit next to week after week. lives need to be rubbed up against other lives. that’s where the real action happens and we learn what it means to really love & be loved.
