A Post-Easter World

This Monday we took the day off and headed out to the beach for a day.  The weather is unseasonably warm for April, so we took the rare opportunity to go to the shore and be outside in the sun.

The desolation of the beach on Monday was hard to ignore.  Beaches, especially in areas with winter, are left to themselves for about six months out of the year, to do as they please and return to natural states.  The sandcastles and moats fade away.  The aluminum cans and sandwich bags drift out to the deep sea.  The beach is left to itself.  And it does well for itself.

Part of living in a post-Easter world is realizing that the world is indwelled with resurrection. The great cycles and ecosystems of our world renew themselves daily and yearly and on into decades and centuries.  They exist in the great pattern of life, the chaotic order of our cosmos that we barely understand.  Yet resurrection is there, in the DNA of our universe.

Our part in the post-Easter world is bringing this to humanity, to quicken the pace of resurrection, to make it real, whole, fulfilled, and complete.  To finish the work of Christ.  We should learn from the beaches and the forests, learn to not give up after fire or storm.  Renewal will always happen. Resurrection will happen.  We must learn to cultivate it.

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Posted by on Apr 7, 2010 in Easter | 3 comments

3 Comments

  1. Josh
    Apr 7, 2010

    I appreciate your comparison between the resurrection of Christ and nature; however, more important perhaps are the contrasts. Just as Hebrews teaches us Christ’s priesthood is better than the Aaronic priesthood because he entered the holy of holies once and for all, so is Christ’s resurrection better than the renewal of creation in that Christ’s resurrection is not a pattern, but a single event more powerful and significant than an eternity of nature’s “resurrection”.

    Also, I wonder if the “resurrection” found in nature is not really resurrection of the same form at all until the day God creates the new heavens and earth.

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    • Thomas
      Apr 7, 2010

      I don’t think it’s the same form, since it’s cyclical. I won’t venture to say what exactly I think the form will take, I just know it will be better than the shadows of resurrection we see now. What I wanted to convey was that the evidence of resurrection is all around us, if we just look for it.

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  2. Ann Voskamp@Holy Experience
    Apr 7, 2010

    This resonated deep with me…
    Wendell Berry says we are to “Practice Resurrection.”
    This is the theme of my next 40 days, from Easter to Ascension — Practice Resurrection.
    Your words helped to flesh out what that practically means…

    Thank you,
    All’s grace,
    Ann

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