An Easter Story from the Margins

Beloved in Christ, 

Easter arrives as a preposterous, laughable story from the margins. When the women who first witness the resurrection run and tell the apostles, the fact that “it seemed to them an idle tale” is an understatement for the ages. 

It’s a literally in-credible thing to claim. The idea of resurrection works just fine as a pleasant metaphor, or an interesting idea. But when the physical, tortured body of Jesus is first totally missing, and then later shows up breathing, talking, eating, and touching, that’s not something any reasonable person can buy. Even worse, it is first told by women who are a marginalized subset of an already marginalized group. 

Easter is a preposterous, laughable story from the margins, and it’s the only crazy thing that can truly save us in a world gone mad. It makes the outrageous claim that the forces of death, hatred, and oppression have no lasting power, despite all the evidence. Being irrational enough to center our whole life on this story gives us the power to resist those forces, and live as an alternative community of love, peace, and justice. Easter isn’t something to be explained, or rationalized, or rendered more accessible to modern sensibilities. It is to be claimed, and boldly announced to a world held in the grip of death. 

Let your Easter be crazy. Take time to just soak in what it means to just believe the women who tell it. The world has gone mad as it digs around in heaps of bones, looking for life in acquiring more, or bringing back some imagined past long dead. In such a moment, let God’s crazy overtake you, that we might join those holy women in running into a world hell bent on death, and announcing, with every moment we are given, God’s irrational, unreasonable, world-healing life, love, and endless joy. 

Grace and Peace, 

The Right Rev. Craig Loya