by Pastor Dan Baumgartner

"If you don't believe in Easter," Owen Meany said, “don't kid yourself-don't call yourself a Christian.” So says the main character in John Irving’s magnificent novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany.

Perhaps Owen’s straightforward advice seems a little like preaching to the choir. Don’t most people recognize that the Christian faith is so intimately tied to the actual resurrection of Jesus that separating them is an astonishing oxymoron? Not necessarily. Periodically it becomes fashionable, usually in the interest of being “original” or “relevant,” for someone to rework the thinking about resurrection. In recent years Bishop John Shelby Spong, Dr. Marcus Borg and others have come along to inform the faithful that it is just the spiritual idea of resurrection that is important, not the actual physical resurrection of Jesus.

Somebody forgot to tell the Apostle Paul. “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith…you are still in your sins” (1 Cor 15:13-17). Owen Meany has nothing on Paul for refusing to beat -around the bush. Paul preached a Christ who came to redeem, to fix His creation. When Christ was raised from the dead everything changed— future, past and present.

The future changed because death is no longer the end of the story. Death is not a wall we slam into and bounce back from, nor the edge of a cliff where one drops off and disappears. Death is not a friend, and we will all have to go through it. But we go through it with One who has been there before and who stretches out more life in front of us.

The past changed because we are no longer limited by what we have done nor who we have been trying to make ourselves into. The grace of God is poured over us from the cross, and the resurrection assures us that God is more than able to set things right. No matter what has come before, it is different now.

The present changes because anything is possible. Anything. If in Christ’s resurrection God was redeeming his creation, that includes us. And because we know the end of the story, we live differently now. We can be a sign of the extravagant, wild party in heaven that Isaiah points to and that Jesus went to prepare for us.

We can live life in the Spirit. We can live life with no holds barred, free to love others. We are free to cheerfully oppose the powers that stand against God. Free to choose what is right and reject what is wrong. Free to live sacrificially, free to pray and work for the transformation of people trapped in life, free to understand that we are brothers and sisters with people next door, in South Seattle and in Kenya and free to learn how to reach out our hands to this large family we belong to. Free to declare “I choose to follow Jesus Christ.” Free to wonder at the beauty of snowy Olympics, a swooping bald eagle or the feel of misty sea breeze on your cheek. Free to go against the grain of a world which mostly has no grasp at all on what is good or right or beautiful or true.

“You shall know the truth,” Jesus said, “and the truth shall set you free.”

The truth is, Easter means resurrection, the real, historical, skin and bones resurrection of Jesus. It changes everything. Ask the Apostle Paul. Or Owen Meany.

Whispers
a poem by Dan Baumgartner
(Good Friday, 2003)

“Stay on the cross.”
The words drip like acid,
steam and sizzle as they
strike wood.
No lips should ever speak so:
vile, cruel, selfish.
These words are final.
Somewhere in the deep dark,
the coffin lid creaks and groans,
closes until the deed is nailed and done.
“Stay on the cross.”
Four words, they pound my head,
pulse through every fiber.
I am desperate,
I who cannot speak
who must speak
who cannot speak these words.
“Stay on the cross.”
If you heed the taunts and climb down,
then I must climb up
to that familiar place
I have ever known and dreaded.
If you stay on the cross,
then I stay off.
I am desperate.
I cannot ask.
The words are final,
vile, cruel, selfish.
No lips should yield their sound,
I will not ask.
The coffin creaks,
and above me a moan escapes your lips.