Peter and John famously raced each other to Jesus’ empty tomb 2000 years ago, so I scrambled over Jenny Knob this Easter morning 2023 as quickly as I could to reach the Easter service at Level Green Christian Church in rural southwestern Virginia. I always look forward to Easter because it celebrates an incredible miracle: a resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus defies logic but serves as the basis of hope for billions, including me. We gather on Easter to reflect on the meaning of this resurrection: victory over death itself, a sacrifice made on our behalf, the promise of love and a responsibility to love. We gather to celebrate, full of joy.
I think Easter celebrations are intended to feel incongruous amidst the imperfection of everyday life. Amidst the late winter chill, the spring not yet arrived. While hiking, attending an Easter service is especially incongruous. I attended the sort of church where everyone knows everyone else, yet I entered as a rare visitor. Worse, everyone looked nice in pastel colors and smelled of perfume. I wore my nicest-smelling-but-grimy gray jacket and hiking pants. I had unkempt hair I’m sure. Clearly an outsider.
Despite our differences, I connected with these strangers to sing The Old Rugged Cross, a hymn my grandfather used to sing while walking around the house. The pastor’s fingers bounced around the piano keys, the congregants and myself smiling as we sang the lyrics from memory. Serving as both primary musician and preacher, the pastor then delivered a familiar sermon, with a passionate Southern twang. He reminded us of some of the surprising observations from the first Easter: that no one believed Jesus would rise from the dead after he was killed. The movement ended. Yet the earliest Christians staked everything, including their own lives, on the varacity of the resurrection after seeing him again.
My life, on a vastly different trajectory than those others gathered in that whitewashed building, intersected briefly with that community. Of course I felt like an outsider, from a different part of the country, from a community where people tend to think differently, from the trail (quite a foreign culture even to many of the communities alongside it), from more contemporary and expressive churches. It was easy to notice the difference, the self-consciousness, the insecurity being in that space. Yet if nothing else, aligned in pews together with men and women of every age, I felt a gladness at our unlikely gathering.
I often, through situation and personality, bridge different worlds and people. As a Christian who spent many years studying climate change, I bridge a divide. As someone coastally educated from an inland state, I bridge a divide. As someone who believes that what we have in common as people always matters more than the myriad ways we differ, I’m often pitted against a pervasive and popular cynicism. It’s not cynical to recognize that our distinct cultures and groups will always differ and disagree. What’s cynical is to think these differences will continue further separate and prevent working toward common goals. This Easter, I felt a sense of commonality with a community I could not fully understand and who could not fully understand me.
Two related observations about the resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus died and rose on behalf of everyone, then Easter celebration ought to be a time of radical inclusion. If Jesus rose from the dead end is worshipped today by people from every race and region of the world, then Christians in particular have reason to extend welcome to others, even those who might seem different in every way.
This is a great post. I especially appreciate your two concluding observations. Widespread implementation of those would change our world.