Happy Easter, everyone! He is risen!

First of all, thanks to Jen Ross yesterday for a powerful testimony about her work with V-Day on the Rhodes College campus. If you’re interested in starting a similar group on your own campus, I would definitely recommend that you talk to her about how to get something going.

So I guess I dropped off the face of the earth last week, right in the middle of the big Holy Week action. Well, Good Friday is actually a holiday in PresbyLand, so David and I were shuffling around my hometown in Washington preparing for our upcoming nuptials. We now have a ring and a marriage license, so I guess that counts for something! Oh yes, and a buttercream frosting wedding cake. That is very, very important. But despite my proclamations at previous shindigs, I have not made arrangements to serve shrimp cocktail at our reception. The buck literally has to stop somewhere.

I spent Easter Sunday in church with my family, which is always heaps of jolly good fun. It was a nice service, to be sure, that methodically laid out Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross with several references to Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.

Nothing against The Passion, but sometimes I feel like a bit too much attention has been invested in that film lately. Personally, I tend to be very Protestant in my emphasis on the Resurrection in contrast to the Passion. Because if you focus so much on the pain and suffering of Christ’s Passion, I think you miss a lot of what gives our Christian faith life.

Over 2000 years ago, a religious/political dissident named Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by the Romans. To the Romans and to the religious leaders who instigated this execution, such a thing happened every day to hundreds of people throughout Rome’s vast territories. The pain and suffering of such an execution was horrific, to be sure, but such violence was just the way things were. This is the Crucifixion.

Yet Paul tells us that “…if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14). Because it is in the Christian belief in Jesus’ resurrection—that he ultimately conquered the forces of sin, death, injustice, oppression, whatever you want to call it—that makes this story unique among all those Roman crucifixions. If we believe only that Jesus suffered and died a terrible death for our sins, without focusing on the full meaning of the Resurrection, too, then how does our story differ from the ancient Jewish practice of continual animal sacrifice?

Now, there are feminist scholars who question atonement theology—the orthodox Christian doctrine that Jesus’ sacrificial death was necessary for the work of salvation to be complete. In writing this post, I don’t want to argue about that, simply because I don’t have enough knowledge of the discussion itself to posit an opinion on the topic (although you’re welcome to discuss this at NNPCW’s message board).

The point I’m making, rather, is that whatever you believe about the meaning of Christ’s death, Christ’s resurrection ushers in something totally fresh. The old ways of violence and exploitation can’t contain or stop God from working in the world. Atonement in blood for wrongdoing is no longer necessary, because Jesus’ work has rendered it obsolete. If we end at Jesus’ death, then the world wins in its attempt to extinguish the light. But evil didn’t win, violence didn’t win, and because of that we all have hope.

So when I go to church on Easter Sunday, I come to hear the Good News—through Jesus Christ’s resurrection, we are freed and forgiven, empowered to serve, children of God. And regardless of how hopeless the world seems, we can live without fear as followers of one who triumphed over the darkness of the world.

For when we believe in the impossible, when we live as if the impossible were already here, we only follow in Jesus’ footsteps… to the cross, the tomb, and praise be to God, back out again.

“Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her.” --John 20:18

Kelsey

He is risen indeed!

Hi Kelsey,
I have enjoyed listening to your wedding plans as I have a granddaughter living here at the moment who is planning her wedding in June. I hope you are having as much fun as she is.
I wanted to make a couple of comments about your post today. I am glad that you affirm the resurrection. My sripture reading today was on the resurrection and the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians which of course is all about the resurrection and how if it wasn't so our faith would be nothing. But I have never really known anyone who affirmed the resurrection who didn't with joy affirm the death of Christ on the cross for our sins be they personal or institutional sins. In fact it is the same Paul who encourges the Corinthians about the resurrection who also writes, "For I intend to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified." (1 Corinthians 2:2)
If you are interested I have started a series called "The Rise of Radical Feminism in the Mainline Churhes: A History." The first part is posted and I think the second part will be this week. I am working on the third part which will address doctrines like atonement. You can find the first part here, http://www.vow.org/viewpoints/essays/06mar17-vlarson-rise_of_radical_feminism_part_1.html. On VOWs web site.
Its very long so you might not be interested. (Also lots of footnotes) Does anybody read them?

Boy did I get in a hurry! This is Viola in case you didn't guess. What a lot of spelling mistakes--I should have checked that first. Sorry about that!
Blessing in Christ

Kelsey,
I wasn't sure anyone else felt the same way I did about the whole Passion/Easter debate, so I'm glad you do. Viola, I think Kelsey's point is that so much time now is dedicated to the Passion aspect of Holy Week that Easter seems to be almost forgotten. She still affirms the Passion aspect, but makes a valid point that so much emphasis is placed on the suffering and not as much seems to be on the resurrection. And it seems to me that's the main difference between Christianity and other religions: our Savior conquered death through the resurrection.

I myself have gotten frustrated that Palm Sunday has turned into Passion Sunday in the last 3 Presbyterian churches I have attended. It seems that there should be seperate Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday/Good Friday services so that each story is told. What happened to children processing waving palms during the first hymn? What happened to our Savior riding in on a lowly donkey? It's been replaced by an emphasis on his suffering in the last days of his human life. While I think that part is vital to the story as a whole, it should not replace Palm Sunday which it seems to have done.

But the news is definitely good. We can rejoice that Christ has risen; He has risen indeed.

Hi Lindsey,
I think you are right about the different services. On Palm Sunday at our church even the grownups have palms and wave them during every song and when the children march around the church. On Friday we hear about all the sayings of Jesus from the cross and have all of the lights out right before we go. And we go without talking.

Yes, He is risen indeed.
Viola