The joy and hope known through the celebration of Easter linger in my thoughts. I have especially wondered about the Easter only people who came searching for something special this past week. Do they realize that they can know that Christianity celebrates the resurrection of Jesus each Sunday? Do they know Jesus in their everyday? Are they still looking for Jesus the Christ?
The faithful women went to the tomb to prepare Jesus’ body and to bury him properly, but found strangers appearing out of nowhere to tell them that Jesus was not there any longer. “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” Here is the real question. These men in white remind the women of Jesus’ own words to them, that he would rise on the third day. They were looking where he said he would not be. This seems to be the experience of many even today. We look where Jesus is not. We look for the living among the dead. We look to our own intellect and strength. We look to the comforts of this world for inspiration and comfort. Yet all we need is to remember, like the women at the tomb, what Jesus has told us.
We find Jesus where he told us to look: in the community of believers. Jesus has been raised and it is in this gathered community of the church where we will find him. In all living things the promise of renewal is found, and that is where we are called to service. We are called to look for Jesus among the living, among those who need to be served and in those who are serving them. We look for the Living One among all those to whom he has promised life. Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!
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For some of the First Church members, Easter has been happening everyday for the past 5 weeks and will continue to happen every day for the next 21 days. There are more than a handful of us that have rehearsed hours of emotional music and song and will perform it live for the next three weeks. We have been transported to a truly spiritual place in a very different time that has become a window onto the raw pain that was alive and able to influence a culture enough to let them crucify a tortured Savior. We have seen the power of Christ and the pathos of Judas.
Forget your preconceived vestigial notions from the early 1970's. Go to the Theater of the Republic in Conway, and see "Jesus Christ Superstar." There are no machine guns, no barbed wire and no extremes of blasphemy or sacrilege. If the world is ready to receive Led Zeppelin and Steppenwolfe as the new elevator music, then the world is ready to see an honest production that captures the human side of Christ that so many are hesitant to accept. Modern Christians have no problem accepting that CHRIST IS DIVINE. It is the fact that He was human that freaks us out. Modern mentality makes us wonder why , if a being is already divine, would they want to downgrade to human. First century Christians had just the opposite problem. They had no problem with the Messiah as a human, but had extreme difficulty accepting that He was divine.
Forgive a few anachronisms that result from Bible scholarship of the 70's. Forgive an all too human Herod who is the only moment of comic relief for an exhausting script. Embrace the idea that if the world were not even more wicked than this tame production shows, there would have been no need for a timely Savior. The sets are stunning. The talent level is off the chain, and sense of "you are there" is electrostatically charged.
For "one more Easter thought", think about Superstar. I dare say that for those of us who have memorized the music and the dialog, Easter will be eternally with us. Tom
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