Easter Sunday

I should remember this prayer every Easter. It was written by a relative of a professor of mine, who is also a friend. My other friend, Indybikehiking John posted it on his blog and I now post it on mine:

RESURRECTION DAY

by Wilfred L. Winget

O Mighty, Holy Breath of God

On this glorious Day of Resurrection

Blow open all the shutters of our minds

bursting the barriers of

prejudice and pride

insensitivity and sloth

ignorance and fear

stretching wide our vision of

what you are doing

where you are working

in our fascinating

exasperating world.

Blow wide the doors of our hearts

impelling us outward to

the lonely and loveless

the angry and hopeless

the empty and faithless

as ready instruments

of your Grace.

Blow up our lungs to keep us shouting

Yes to Faith in the face of fear

Yes to Hope in defiance of despair

Yes to Love in spite of apathy

Yes to Life in the teeth of death

Through Christ, the Living One,

Our Lord.

Amen

My friend John is a darn good writer in his own right and he penned this in his email newsletter I received today. I read it in between services:

ATTITUDES OF EASTER

Is Easter taught or caught, celebrated stoically or raucously?

SOUL EXPRESSION. What should be our attitudes toward Easter Sunday and Resurrection? I wonder about this as I hear songs being rehearsed for the Easter Sunday worship services. One song is pompous and triumphant. Another is haunting and reflective. Still another soars high in its wondering amazement. Each seems appropriate. Yet not one song alone can capture the range of emotions or adequately express the soul that has greeted and embraced Easter from the heart.

CHICKEN OR EGG? It’s the chicken and the egg issue. Which comes first: comprehending the significance of Easter, or being seized by the incredible power and promise of this Resurrection Day? Is Easter taught or is it caught? Do we accept the table-turning, life-giving reality of the Resurrected Lord and the scope of its implications for our lives and the life of the world in calm, rational, creedal terms? Or, do we run blindly headlong into the most incredible surprise that has ever shocked the world and wonder (and wander!)--half-dazed--the rest of our lives in sheer amazement and gratitude?

DARE WE BELIEVE. Dare we believe that this “morning has broken like the first morning?” Dare we believe that God’s raising Jesus from the dead (not that he raised himself; this is a most important theological distinction) has, indeed, reversed the demising spin in which life had been headed? Dare we embrace Easter not just in theological terms, with a gut-level hunch and breath-taking leap that the event was pervasive—a cosmological eruption, an anthropological explosion with universal impacts which are just now beginning to be felt? Dare we believe that Jesus of Nazareth, who was dead, is alive and alive for evermore?

FAITH’S DAY. This is faith’s day. It belongs to the realm of trust. It does not belong to those who pander in refutable fables or epic-archetypal myth interpretation, speculative theology, or biblical and historical reductionism. Let every cynic and self-consumed philosophizer and obsessive-compulsive second-guesser be still for a moment, for an hour, for a day. Let those who have been surprised and interrupted by Resurrection pour out their hearts in wonder, in praise (stoic and still, exuberant and raucous), in gratitude. This is faith’s day. It belongs to the realm of trust. O, that every doubting mind, hurting heart, calloused soul might let its light shine in. He is risen! He is risen, indeed!

Please visit John at his blog Indy Bikehiker