Easter Monday - What Resurrection Never Says

Holy Saturday was a silent one for me - not that I was not talking but silent in sharing.  We also spent most of the day outside doing a ton of yardwork so there’s that too.   Yesterday was a glorious day and a beautiful day in so many different ways.  It began with a a stunningly beautiful sunrise, continued in a wondrous morning in worship and then some blessed time with my family the balance of the day.  

So I simply wanted to share some glimpses of the beautiful day and then resonance between the core line from my sermon yesterday and David Long-Higgins Easter prayer...

From Rob Bell - Resurrection never says, “That’s just the way it is.”  

And from Rev. David Long-Higgins in which. I hear a similar message of what Resurrection can and does do in the world...

Surprising Risings - An Easter Prayer - by Rev. David Long-Higgins

Resurrecting God,
Continue Your surprising
Rising against all odds
Of everything that cages
Or resists Your power
To bear beauty and hope
Resilience and relief.

Let yesterday’s awe
At Your amazing arrival
Give way to the new bud
Of today’s beginnings
Ready to burst forth
In something yet unseen
By anyone except You
Whose delight answers death
With unexpected angels
In unlikely forms
Announcing a new beginning.

Let no weightiness of the world
Dare suppress Your surprise
Turning every death around
Rising in Your Holy time
In gladness and goodness
Measured only in wonder
At Your bounty breaking forth
In unexpected places
To unlikely people
No matter their past
Made alive by Your presence
Loving presence making
All things unexplainably new.

Yes, cast aside every stone
Daring to block discovery
Of the opening You make
In continual risings of Life
In dramatic witness
Of Your way of weakness
Bearing strength beyond
Every death the world deals.

Yes, O Love of Life,
Bear Yourself again
In forms little and large.
With surprising risings
Announcing again and again
Christ is risen and rises still!
Yes, indeed! Yes, indeed!
Yes, in every deed
Brought to life by You.

Grant again Your grace,
And power to notice
Your loving lurch
Evoking life-giving
Choruses of alleluia
Irresistible and everywhere
In all time and beyond time
Especially in today's time.