Come On Up for the Rising

Rev. Jeffrey Symynkywicz, Easter, April 12, 2009

             “All dressed up and nowhere to go.” That was the way one more traditional observer some decades ago said that we Unitarian Universalists celebrate Easter.

            I don’t think that’s quite fair. I don’t think we’re that confused, really. Perhaps Easter really does mean more to us than that, and that there are very good reasons for us to be dressed up, here in church on this Easter morning.  

            Unlike our more traditional Christian neighbors, we may not be able to focus like a laser beam on the risen Christ and the life everlasting. But the Easter miracle still can make its way into our hearts. It can speak to us deeply there. The only difference is, for us, is that it speaks a slightly different word in each of us. We find different meanings in Easter, or different combinations of meanings.

            Words often mean different things; they have different connotations; they say different things, depending on the situation and the context, and what we want them to say.

            When Bruce Springsteen (who else? yes, even in Easter Sunday) first appeared in Barcelona in October of 2002, on the European leg of the tour promoting his post-9/11 epic, The Rising, there were, apparently, intense discussions over the translation of the album’s title song from English to Spanish. There are, it seems, at least three suitable words in Spanish that may be rendered as “rising”: One is simply subida, used to denote a trek, a journey, a steep climb. Then there is the more politicized term levantamiento, which is usually rendered as an insurrection, a political uprising. Finally, of course, there is the more explicitly religious term, resurreccion, which can be translated, of course, as “resurrection”—as in the “rising” of Jesus on Easter morning, or the “rising” of Lazarus from his tomb. Interestingly, those responsible for those early translations decided to split the difference, as it were, and inserted all three Spanish terms in the song at various points.

            So it is for us, as we contemplate this Rising, this Easter morn, and we ask, “What does it mean to us?”

            For some of us, the story of Jesus still speaks within us. We may or may not believe in a physical resurrection, but for many of us, the spiritual rising of Jesus is undeniable. As Clinton Lee Scott reminds us: “the majesty of that carpenter-prophet bearing his cross to the hill will always remain to rebuke the ways of violence and despair.”

            Jesus may have died on that cross in ancient Palestine more than two thousand years ago; but he lives still in the hearts of all of those who seek to live out the eternal lessons of the life he lived.

            That lesson reverberates to the examples of all great souls; all men and women of goodwill and sacrificial spirit; all of those whom we have loved and held close, whose lives have blessed ours, but who are no longer with us. Even though they’re gone, their lessons live on in our hearts, as much as when they were alive.

            That is one of the great miracles of Easter: that the deeper meanings inherent in our human living transcend our physical existence on this planet.

            Another is the miracle of nature. “Lo, the earth awakes again,” we sing—and isn’t it wonderful? And isn’t it about time? Such a miracle from nowhere that this earth, which such a short time ago seemed locked in the grip of winter—which seemed all but dead—is now about to burgeon forth with the refulgence of life. And just wait for the refulgence to come as this spring finally finds its feet and bursts forth all around us!

That we are there to witness that miracle each and every year—what a blessing that is!

“Why it was wonderful,” wrote Archibald MacLeish. “Why, all at once there were leaves, Leaves at the end of a dry stick, small, alive… Leaves out of wood.  It was wonderful, you can’t imagine…  the earth loosened, the earth relaxed, [and] there were flowers--  Out of the earth! Think of it! … Well, it was like a dream. It happened so quickly, all of a sudden. It happened.”

—and who can bust rejoice at this Easter miracle of springtime come again?

Then there is also the springtime of our souls, which abides as well. That springtime is hope—which we sense most clearly at the Eastertide.

This hope is not always an easy thing. Sometimes, it is a tough hope, a defiant hope, which spits in the face of these badlands which this world puts forth. Like Jesus our brother, kind and good, we, too, have our own crucifixions to face, our own sacrifices to make. “If one tries to break new ground, or to walk in a new path, one walks straight to Calvary ,” Teilhard de Chardin reminds us. But then, he continues: “Those who spread their sails in the right way to the winds of the earth will find themselves borne by a current towards the open seas.”

Hope is not easy. It can be hard to hope. But hope is that sacred wind which lifts us from the dreariness of the world as it is, toward the resurrection of our spirits and the new life that can be. Hope is the doorway toward the rising that lies in wait, the resurrection in our souls, which yearns to usher forth at Eastertime.

            Resurrection is hard work sometimes, and seldom in human history is the Rising an easy one. There is no resurrection without their being first the death of the old ways, and the confusion and dislocation and pain that that brings. There is no quick sugar fix, microwavable, five minute, instant, pre-packaged, pre-digested resurrection; there can be no by-pass around Good Friday on the road to Easter.

So our own Easter Rising, this day and every day, is also, ultimately, about both resurrection and insurrection. It is about the hope of insurrection and rebellion: the hope of men and women willing at last to spurn the ways of death and the failures, follies, tragedies, and prejudices of the past. It is about the hope of resurrection, too: the hope of an eternal, immortal Spirit of Life, ever full of wonder and surprise, ever making all things new. But all of our risings will also have about them a bit of the subida, as well—the steep and arduous climb-- the real work of human hands, doing what’s necessary to heal the earth and heal one another—human hands, like angel hands, fully engaged in rolling away the stone, so we can come out of the tomb and live at last in the light of God’s new day.

Come on up for the Rising, my friends. Come on up this day, and every day, in the light of the eternal Easter of your souls.

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