Many of us, no doubt, were at Easter services this past Sunday. We enjoyed the smell of flowers in our sanctuaries. We reveled in the Alleluia chorus sung by our choirs. We celebrated the hymns commemorating Christ’s resurrection, and we rehearsed once again the stories of the women at the empty tomb. As we worshipped together, we greeted each other with the faith-filled Easter affirmation, “Christ has risen! He has risen indeed!”
Yet in the wake of the violence of these past days and months, how are we to make sense of that affirmation of our faith? How are we to say that Christ has risen as we remember those lost in the shootings at the mosques in New Zealand? How do we make sense of the resurrection as we remember the members of Black churches in Louisiana that have been victims of arson because of racially motivated hatred? How are we to make sense of the risen Christ in light of the hundred’s dead in Sri Lanka due to the bombings at churches and high-end hotels on Easter morning? How are we to make sense of resurrection and new life when the whole world seems to be stuck in violence and death?
Isaiah 65: 17-25 was one of the lectionary passages for this past Sunday. In that passage, God’s prophet proclaimed a hoped-for new creation. In this new creation, Jerusalem would no longer be a city under siege. It instead would become a city of joy.
“For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind…for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight…no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime,” Isaiah 65: 17-20a.
The prophet imagined a city in which people would live long lives. Predator and prey would eat together, and God’s people would no longer hurt or destroy one another or God’s holy earth. The prophet instead imagined peace.
“The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain, says the Lord,” Isaiah 65: 25.
Friends, every time we say on Easter morning, “Christ has risen! He has risen indeed!” we affirm Isaiah’s hope and our hope for peace. We affirm the hope for a new creation in which division, violence and death no longer hold power over us. We affirm this in our words but also in our deeds when we live as Easter people—as a people who seek to bring about resurrection and hope by bridging differences that divide-- differences such as race, ethnicity, culture, sexuality, class, and religion. We live as Easter people when we celebrate our common humanity.
On Good Friday, I was in Houston, Texas to celebrate the life of a good friend of 25 years. I was asked to say some words of celebration of her life and to share with the congregation in the 23rd Psalm. My friend’s name was Iris, like some of the flowers that gave a sweet scent to the sanctuary where I worshipped on Easter morning.
Iris was Jewish. We were divided by differences of race, culture and religion. But our friendship was not based on any of these differences. Our friendship was based on our common humanity and a common hope. Iris hoped as I hope. She hoped for a world filled with love--for cities filled with joy. She hoped for the end of the sound of weeping and of the cry of distress in people’s lives. She hoped for peace.
May we all hope likewise. May we all work to realize our hopes by celebrating our common humanity and bridging the differences that divide. May we all pray and live in ways that bring peace.
May the peace of God rest upon the victims and families of the attacks in Sri Lanka. May the peace of God rest on those rebuilding their sanctuaries and their lives after fires. May the peace of God rest upon the victims of the New Zealand shootings. May God’s peace prevail this Easter Season.
Kennetha J. Bigham-Tsai
April 23, 2019
Originally published at umc.org. The version above has been updated.