well here we are, easter week. it feels like christmas was yesterday and most of us are reminded yet again that time is moving faster than we can keep up with. there’s something about easter, though, for that creates a bright spark in most of us. good weather is coming. flip flops and tank tops and no more scraping ice off of our windshields. and with easter comes a reminder of life. jesus, the resurrection and the life. the songs that will be sung across the world in churches everywhere over the the next week will be songs of hope, songs of re-birth, songs of new life. that’s the message of easter. life. life out of death. joy out of sorrow. peace out of despair. so we can talk about it like it’s so easy to do—to embrace life. but in reality living, really living, is probably one of the hardest things we will ever do.
dan allender has a wonderful metaphor about how painful it is to let life spring forth into our protected hearts. think of when you are out in the snow and your fingers start to get frostbitten. they are numb. frozen. and so you seek shelter, you go inside and seek warmth by the fire, under the sink, near the heater. the thaw begins to happen, and we all know what happens next. it starts to hurt like hell. the nerve endings start to fire on all cylinders and tingling turns to brief agony. it hurts so bad sometimes you want to run outside and re-freeze them, anything to stop the pain. your body feels weird, shocked almost. it had adjusted to the numbing and it is angry at having to actually feel the pain of life.
eventually, the pain subsides and new life oozes in and makes its home in us. but the transition, the thawing, that’s the hard part. that’s the part we resist, and our human-ness is the part that keeps us wanting to run back outside to numb ourselves again with work or drugs or alcohol or sex or food or disconnected relationship, anything to not have to feel and accept life, goodness, warmth, God’s spirit. our theory is that we want the thing that’s good for us and we don’t want the thing that’s good for us.
our theory is that we we resist life because we are afraid of it. we say we are afraid to die, but maybe the reality is that we are more afraid to live. the thought of giving up our comfortable, unhealthy ways of coping and managing our lives, staying in control, and keeping our hands numb works for us. or maybe it really doesn’t? and the thing we are longing for—life, real life, Jesus life—is actually really possible if we’ll just let ourselves make it through the thaw instead of running back outside.
this easter, here’s our hope: we stay around the fire and warm our hands together. we become people of courage who will stay with the sting, comfort each other, and be brave enough to let the new life Jesus brings emerge.
