by Kimberly Knowle-Zeller
Christ is risen!
Alleluia!
Can you hear the shouts?
Can you feel the joy?
The screams of excitement and shock?
Christ is risen!
Can you feel the excitement?
The hope?
The reality that death need not be feared?
Christ is risen!
We find ourselves on the other side of the empty tomb.
We’ve heard the Good News that Christ is risen, but we still may question what those words really mean for our lives.
We still may be fearful of all the violence in our world.
We still may have a medical diagnosis that scares us.
We still may have broken relationships.
We still may have addictions and abuse tearing our lives apart.
We still may have doubts.
We still may have sleepless nights.
Christ is risen!
But we still shout those words, or at the least we hear those words shouted by others.
It’s the week after Easter and life can feel just as it did before that Easter morning.
Only, everything has changed.
Life has claimed victory.
Death is no longer the final word.
Christ rose from the dead for us.
Christ rose from the dead for the world.
This year I found the joy of Easter in my two-year-old’s eyes. She took part in several Easter Egg hunts throughout the weekend. And with each one she became more and more excited and confident in the task at hand. She would run to an egg and throw it in her basket. Then when she opened the egg you’d see her pure joy.
Christ is risen!
By the final Easter egg hunt she figured out how to open the eggs herself and she would immediately open the egg and squeal in delight.
Pure delight.
She doesn’t eat much candy and in some of the eggs there were tickets used later for picking out a prize. But for our daughter, the joy was found in opening the egg and delighting in what was found. Pure delight in the act of finding and opening.
This is our joy, too.
We come to the empty tomb, we come to the other side of the cross, and we find pure joy in the reality that Jesus has risen from the dead. Each time we peek into that tomb we are surprised. Our rational minds tell us that it can’t be so to be raised from the dead.
But Christ is risen, indeed!
So this week and in the weeks to come this Easter season I pray that you will be full of that joy; that pure Easter joy knowing that what greets us on the other side of the empty tomb is nothing short of life itself. And it’s the gift of life that stays with us even when we feel nothing but darkness and doubt.
For Christ is risen!
Alleluia!
Kimberly Knowle-Zeller is an ordained ELCA pastor, mother of a toddler, and spouse of an ELCA pastor. She lives with her family in Cole Camp, MO. Her website is http://www.kimberlyknowlezeller.com
Image: Public Domain, Link Ukrainian Easter Postcard