BLOG 4/16/14. EASTER BELONGS IN THE STREETS AND MARKETPLACE, NOT TRAPPED IN CHURCH SERVICES

BLOG 4/16/14. EASTER BELONGS IN THE STREETS AND MARKETPLACE … NOT…

Easter is a radical redefinition of hope and, please note, it belongs to be intentionally taken by those who believe in it, not primarily into much-hyped Easter Sunday church services … but turned loose into the marketplace and onto the streets. If it is trapped in once every Spring church celebrations, then its ostensible adherents have missed the point.

Twenty years ago this April, Kurt Cobain killed himself with a shotgun. Kurt Cobain was a huge figure musically, and the leader of the musical group: Nirvana. Nirvana was at the forefront of the grunge rocks scene. Kurt Cobain is reported to have said or written about his despair at the end of his life: “But what I really need is God.” [I would be grateful is some of my readers can track this quote for me. I had it in a book about him but can’t find it. Thanks.] Cobain was plagued with despair, hopelessness. He desperately needed hope, and found himself alone, though in a community populated by folk who celebrated Easter, but were not contagious with it.

On the other hand there would be the Pussy Riot, that Russian protest musical group of young women who staged a major protest concert against Vladimir Putin in the cathedral in Moscow, for which they were arrested, beaten and imprisoned. They were more recently released, and in an interview were asked why they staged their concert in the cathedral? What did Christ have to do with their protest against the policies of Vladimir Putin? they were asked. Their answer: “Christ has everything to do with our protests against his injustices.” They publicly invoked prayers to Mother Mary to remove Putin. The Pussy Riots hold the radical hope that ultimately Christ’s resurrection guarantees the triumph of justice.

But then there is the remarkable and creative phenomena of the Millennial and iY generations, who are pressing the boundaries as a whole new digital culture takes shape by their hands. They are so often bright, attractive, unconventional, not-trapped-by-what is, but changing the whole way we live. And yet, often when you engage them in serious conversion you find that when the iPhones and laptops are turned off they are faced with a subliminal hopelessness about their future.

So, where do we go with this? Palm Sunday (if I may give my interpretation) was the celebration of a misplaced and merely human hope. The Jewish folk in Jerusalem longed for a religious and political messiah to deliver them from the oppressive forces of religion and empire, but their hope had no place for such a deliverer as Jesus. So that false and merely human hope was demolished on Good Friday, on the Cross. The Emmaus Road companions lamented: “We had hoped that this was the messiah.”

What Easter declares is hope radically redefined and turned loose in the world. Easter authenticated Jesus radical agenda, which is called: the Kingdom of God / New Creation. With Christ’s coming that New Creation was announced, on the Cross it was secured, and with the resurrection it was authenticated and turned loose in the world. It did not fit any of the anticipated patterns held by those early witnesses. The resurrection brought eschatological hope, fearlessness, the willingness to suffer and die in order to see it ultimately triumph. It was turned loose in the streets and in the marketplaces, and it changed, and is changing the world.

Paul would later write: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope” (Romans 15:13). Gordon Fee, commenting on this passage writes: “Such future oriented people live in the present in such a different way, different from the rest … as so confident I the future that they can pour themselves into the present with utter abandon, full of joy and peace, because nothing in the present can ultimately overwhelm them. Such people make the Christian faith a truly attractive alternative.”

May such Easter blessings be yours. Turn it loose in the streets and marketplace. Blessings!

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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