Images of Easter

“…that men may rise on stepping stones of their dead selves to higher things.”
Tennyson, In Memoriam

The Imagery of Easter…in what ways is the pageantry understood, how do we wrap our arms around it, understand its message, its power? Can we, with finite minds and feeble hands, grasp the reality of resurrection? We each have our own instincts, our sixth sense of spiritual esoterica. What’s yours?

Perhaps it’s a child, smiling with a basket filled with Easter eggs, hidden by the Easter Bunny. Or maybe it’s ladies in brightly-colored hats and pastel dresses in church. Perhaps it’s family gatherings, dinners with biscuits and ham and deviled eggs, or sunrise services, or choirs singing Christ the Lord is Risen Today. Perhaps all of these.

My images of Easter changed with age. Easter eggs were replaced by other things. But they remain vivid in my mind. Tuesday, in the Baptist Church service, I sat beneath an Easter lily. It brought to remembrance a dear friend, Paul Rogers, who died at 49, whose expression of Easter was with white lilies. On the steps of our home would always be an Easter lily, or at Christmas a Poinsettia.

The cross, draped with purple linen, is a powerful symbol of Easter. In Atlanta, our Methodist Church erected on the front lawn a 14 foot cross of rough-hewn beams. On Easter Sunday it is transformed by thousands of multi-colored flowers placed by the congregation. It was a stunning symbol of new birth that Easter epitomizes.

Jesus knew our limitations, and on several occasions demonstrated in real-time life the fact of resurrection. The awaking of Lazarus is one such event (John 11). Jesus delayed his arrival. Lazarus died, was entombed for four days. Martha, Lazarus’ sister, couldn’t grasp the meaning of Jesus’ words, “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?” She did, but like us, needed something more solid than words.

At the tomb Jesus said, “Take the stone away.” He prayed as a hush fell upon the expectant crowd. Then he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth, and he that was dead came forth…” Place yourself among the crowd. What would have been your thoughts? What images would you have taken away from that empty tomb that day?

Recently I walked among the oaks at Epworth, a Methodist religious retreat dating to the days of James Oglethorpe and John and Charles Wesley, founders of Methodism. I found myself in the Joe Harvey Memorial Garden beneath the white marble statue of a resurrected Jesus Christ with outstretched arms. The garden gave testimony to a man, Joe Harvey, who lived a life of faith until his recent death.

Both Joe Harvey and Paul Rogers were infused with the spirit of an inextinguishable life. They realized that resurrection was a possibility every day, and that while God may not grant to us overcoming life, He does grant to us life as we overcome. These two men overcame the worst that this life could do to them--death--and left for us in their own ways images of the resurrected life. In their statements of faith, they joined Abel, of whom it is said “…and by it (his sacrifice in faith), he, being dead, yet speaketh.”

John Donne penned his image of Easter in these words from the poem, "Death Be Not Proud" saying, “Death be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so, for those whom thou thinkest thou dost overthrow die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me…” He believed that death was swallowed up in victory.

The scars of Christ are stark, visible images of death. While we all bare the scars of life, Christ has shown us how to transcend their power by faith. That is the reality of the recurring resurrection. Death’s cold sneer, as hard as stone, makes a cruel mockery of the frailty of faith. Many have stood beside the raw, red earth of a new grave, trying to grasp the reality of their faith, and doubting. It’s the human condition.

“Lazarus, come forth,” is the clarion call to each of us. It’s a call to leave our dark worlds of doubt and allow the rebirth of life to raise us to higher things. May the empty tomb revitalize your Image of Easter this week, as we move from the gloom of Good Friday to the Sunrise of Easter Resurrection. And may you experience in a profound way the reality of the resurrection.

Happy Easter to each of you. And I don’t think our Lord would hold it against the Easter Bunny for his role in our lives!

Bud Hearn
Easter, April 4, 2010