Joy Dawning!

“Blessed be the God...of our Lord Jesus Christ! By God’s great mercy God has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:3-4, NRSV adapted)

She was lying in her bed when I went to commune her. It was in my first year in my first parish. She was on the housebound list. Not only was she physically unable to leave home, in the aftermath of her husband’s death, she was also spiritually exhausted. As we talked, she told me how she frequently saw her husband standing at the foot of her bed. In the middle of the night as she lay awake, she would see him there. And they would talk. It was a great source of comfort to her.

Years later in my second pastorate, my wife and I walked into the hospital room of a dear friend diagnosed with terminal cancer. She had been heavily sedated for the pain. But this day as we walked in, we saw her apparently resting peacefully. She smiled easily as she lay there with eyes closed. As she became aware of our presence, she opened her eyes and said, “Oh, it's so good to see you. I’ve just been watching the angels dancing in a circle above my bed.”

A young woman upon recovering from surgery for what turned out to be a benign tumor awoke from sleep and noticed someone leaving the bedroom, closing the door behind. There had been no person in the room. Every person present was in another part of the house. No, She was convinced the “person” was an angel, whose comfort was no longer required.

An elderly man, whose wife of sixty years died from her battle with Alzheimer’s, suffered a stroke a week after his wife’s funeral. As he lay on the floor waiting for the strength to signal for help, his wife was there with him, easing his mind and talking with him.

On Easter we are confronted with the nub of the challenge of believing. We want to believe. We hear the story of how Jesus was resurrected from the dead and appeared to the women and to the disciples and later to hundreds of others. We know that he was raised so that we all might be raised to a life lived eternally and blissfully with God in heaven.

We “know” this, but still, belief comes hard. Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene in the garden. But when she told the disciples they didn’t believe her. That night Jesus appeared to the disciples in the Upper Room, but Thomas was not there. And he wouldn’t believe until he saw the Risen Christ for himself.

It’s difficult to believe even as it is easy to look for reasons to doubt. We conjecture that the woman who spoke to her husband and the man who was comforted by his wife were both so affected by their grief that they imagined their spouses from the power of their loneliness. We surmise that the young woman recovering from surgery was really still dreaming and only thought that she saw her guarding angel. And the hospital patient who saw the dancing angels was drugged. She couldn’t have really seen any angels!

Yet, why is it any more plausible to deny what these people said they saw and heard than it is to acknowledge that there is more to life than what we can see, touch, hear, taste or measure? Paraphrasing the words of the Simon and Garfunkel song, too often “we hear what we want to hear and disregard the rest.”

No, I believe in these visions. I haven’t “seen” these for myself. But, I do believe. I believe in the joy and the peace that the experience of these visions have brought to those whose stories I’ve told here and the many whose stories are not told.

That’s right even a cynical, sarcastic, too often silly, critically questioning life long liberal believes! Of course, being liberal it’s okay with me if you don’t. But I hope you do. Because, we have been given this new birth of hope through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Happy Easter,

Rick