The Crazy Claim of Easter

Beloved in Christ,

This week, we observe, remember, and relive the heart of our faith—the decisive act through which God has saved us, healed us, and overcome the worst our world can be through the power of love. 

Easter makes no sense, and means nothing at all, without the betrayal of Maundy Thursday, without the brutality and death of Good Friday. The drama of Holy Week and Easter, taken as a whole, makes the outrageous claim that the one rendered powerless by the full power of empire is, in fact, the Lord of all creation. It makes the outrageous claim that love is the most powerful force in the universe. It makes the outrageous invitation to live together in the face of evil and violence as people of unrelenting love. 

This week, the painful and ever present reality of death is met by the unstoppable power of God’s loving life. 

It’s a crazy thing to claim. I am a follower of Jesus because that crazy claim is the only thing that rings sane in a world of madness.

I hope you will walk every step of the holy three days with your local faith community. I hope you will bring the depth of your own suffering to the foot of the cross, that you will meet again the unstoppable power of God’s love, and that we can renew our commitment to standing in the places where Jesus continues to be crucified in the bodies of the disregarded, the powerless, the oppressed, and the forsaken, shouting our defiant and joyful alleluias, lending our small lives to God’s tidal wave of perfect love, that even now is coming into the world, on earth as it is in heaven.  

Grace and Peace,

The Right Reverend Craig Loya