Easter and our Divine Story
“Resurrection is not limited to Christ alone, it is the vocation of all of us...
Resurrection is ours, it is now.”
— Raimon Panikkar
— Raimon Panikkar
“Jesus is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!”
Really?
For many persons, their answer to that sincere question determines whether they consider themselves “Christian” or not. Either we believe that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead was historical fact or it is superstitious fiction. Or perhaps we simply do not care one way or another.
I (Robert) respect all of those perspectives. And this reflection is not going to try to dissuade anyone.
Rather, here is a more fundamental question about resurrection:
Is it True?
How is it True for you?
Each day this Holy Week,
we have tried to look through the life of Jesus to find ourselves in it, to see the Divine Story at the very core of who we are. For we believe that the story of Jesus discloses the Truth of our life: that we live and move and have our being in God, and that includes everyone, all things, always.
Each day,
we traced the Last Week of Jesus’ life through scripture to see more clearly our own struggle to experience our Divine Story amidst the cacophony of lesser stories about us. We pass through our “jerusalems” of praise and criticism toward our own tombs.
Along the way,
we experience death in countless ways, sometimes only momentarily, sometimes momentous, arduous, excruciating deaths. After our final efforts to survive fail, when our life energy wanes and we are depleted, we find ourselves entombed alone, lifeless. There is only darkness.
Mark Rothko, The Black Form Paintings No 8
All along the path of our “passions” (sufferings),
everything we have… and do… and are
is stripped away.
Everything passes away.
Except One….
THE ONE….. Who holds us securely. Who never lets us go.
And at some point, we never know exactly when or how…
but the darkness of our tomb gives way to beams of morning radiance, ever so gently bathing our light-craving faces.
Our eyes struggle to open, our minds emerge from fog as warm, golden light penetrates into the cold recesses of our soul.
The cells of our body begin to quiver and buzz with a divine electrical current.
We notice an inner radiance as well, emanating outward from the center of our being, energy coursing through our body, awareness coming into focus, new life rising.
Light embracing Light.
Is it possible that I am alive again? I did not survive. I was no more.
But Now. Here. I. Am.
Resurrection. Death transformed into divinely inspirited life.
As awareness sharpens,
as we take in the fact that we are indeed alive, and
as we look around at our surroundings,
we notice that we’re standing outside a mysterious cave;
we seem to remember distantly its inner darkness.
A huge stone lies beside its entrance.
Memories trickle back into consciousness of our former pain, how we suffered, and that darkness seemed to swallow us whole.
But now we’re standing, breathing, soaking in all the life-giving sun can offer,
delighting in the feeling of being alive,
being more alive than we can ever remember.
We’ve changed; something is radically different in us, about us.
It’s going to take some time to settle into our new being, into our transformations, into who we are becoming, into the budding potential of our resurrection.
What are some of your stories of being brought from death to new life?
You might pause here and now. Reflect and remember. Feel it deep within.
How have you found yourself on the other side of the rolled-away stone, awakening to a new dawn of resurrection light?
The Divine Story and Our Resurrections
In a previous Easter reflection, we read that…
The resurrection of Jesus was not a one-time event that we hope will one day be repeated for all in a distant future. It was a waypoint to the resurrection of the Body of Christ that is already living and breathing, that is continuously being created and springing into further becoming at all times.
We are the resurrection of Christ among us
here and now
alive in our midst
full of hope
in and through us
becoming ever new
the salvation of the world.
This Easter, and throughout the weeks of Eastertide, we will be reflecting on our resurrections, when the Divine Story became more fully our story.
We will keep in mind Jesus’ resurrection and the surprising ways it played out, not only for Jesus but also for the disciplining community gathered with him. After Jesus’ resurrection and when he meets his closest friends and family, they couldn’t recognize him. Locked doors couldn’t keep him out or hem him in.
That happens to us as well. As Divine Life becomes our life, we change. Our whole lives change, perhaps in very surprising ways.
Settling into those changes, habitualizing those changes, is a subtle but oh so necessary work of making those transformations natural to us:
to be more aware of resurrection in our lives,
to be more intentional to live resurrection more fully.
To help us settle into and naturalize our resurrections, Beth and I offer a short examen reflection and a recorded guided meditation. We hope that the practice of reflection and meditation will be a daily discipline for you, for it is only through regular repetition that we are spiritually formed by our resurrections. Otherwise, if only episodic, resurrection power fades and we revert to default patterns. We live out our resurrections through consistent, regular practice.
Easter and Eastertide Examen and Meditation
We invite you to enter into these meditation exercises as regularly as you are able. The questions are modeled after the Ignatian examen. Take a couple minutes to ponder and write your reflections on these questions in a journal or tablet. No need to over-think; all reflections are welcome.
When ready, start the recorded meditation.
When today did the eternal shine through the ordinary?
What lesser story from today can you say, “It is finished”?
Following the meditation:
What changes do you notice in your being, here, now?
This is the Christ Logos, the universal pattern of God’s creativity still coming into being, every and always.
And it is our divine WeCreating invitation.
To sing the song of love in the world, composed from nothing less than the Living Origin of eternal wholeness and union in God.
Join Us in Practice and Communion this Easter!
This Sunday at 10am central, come partake in a sacred gathering of sharing in the divine story of our resurrection together:
Statement of WeCreating Authorship
This article was WeCreated with authoring by Robert Martin and Beth Biery, with editing support by Luke Healy.
All of the wisdom, creativity, and spiritual emergence in ICN comes from the communal field of wisdom and spirit speaking in and through the “We.”
All text in this article is human-authored without the use of AI beyond light editing, according to our AI policy: 1 out of 10
All Images are open-source, used with permission, or created by ICN with the use of AI