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One of my favorite scripture verses is John 20:15, when Jesus finds Mary Magdalene crying at the door of the tomb and says to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” In that moment, Jesus isn’t asking a rhetorical question. He wants to know why we worry and sob and fret when hope is underneath everything, if we could just tap into it.
Easter is about liberation, and it’s especially meaningful for a person like me who feels chained to moodiness and negativity so much of the time. The celebration of the resurrection is a chance for us to say, “Yes, Jesus, I believe,” and in so doing, grab the hope that is already there. Here, then, are nine ways we might live the resurrection.
1. Go Ahead and Touch Him
“Why are you troubled?” Jesus says to the disciples in Luke’s gospel when he appears to them after his resurrection. “Why do questions arise in your hearts? Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.”
Now if I were one of those guys, not only would I be troubled, but I can guarantee I wouldn’t go near the hands and feet. I would be afraid that everything I told that Ouija board at a fourth grade slumber party was now starting to register there on “the other side.”
But I do find huge relief in Jesus’ reassurance that his resurrection is the real deal. This is not some Jesus-on-grilled cheese that got sold for a few thousand bucks on eBay. Jesus is real; the resurrection is real; therefore, his promises are real. That means we can trust him when he tells us that he will be with us until the end of age (Matt 28:20).
2. Know that God is Good
In the days before his death, Jesus repeats that he was sent on behalf of his Father. In fact, the wording in many of his miracles, especially the raising of Lazarus, points back to the goodness of the Creator: “For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these, so that you may be amazed” (John 5:20).
Blessed Angela of Foligna, a 14th century mother and wife who later became a prominent mystical writer, wrote that “the first step that the soul must take when it enters the way of love, through which it desires to reach God, is to know God in truth…. To know God in truth is to know him as he is in himself, to understand his worth, beauty, sweetness, sublimity, power, and goodness, and the supreme Good inherent in him who is the supreme Good.”
I think that, right there–trusting that God is good and is there for us (unlike so many other people we know)–is the point of the resurrection. Is God good? Yes. We can say that with confidence because of the resurrection.
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