What Did You Say?

  By The Rev. Dr. Russell Levenson, Jr. Fox News | Published March 28, 2024 2:00am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/holy-week-easter-sunday-offer-message-change-life

What does Easter offer us in the year 2024? The same thing it has offered since the first Easter. A name as synonymous with the Christian faith as any other ancient teacher, Augustine of Hippo, (d. 430 A.D.) wrote, “”There is an insatiable hunger in each of us, that God alone can satisfy.”

Fast forward to our own day, and we are given wise words from author Douglas Coupland who coined the phrase, “Gen X,” — “Now – here is my secret:
I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God—that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.”

What do these two men separated by nearly 2,000 years have in common that may speak to this present moment in history? Put simply, we need God.

EASTER REMINDS CHRISTIANS HOW RESURRECTION RESONATES IN OUR PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

This week, Holy Week and Easter Sunday offer a message like no other. No amount of power, wealth, notoriety or success will keep any of us from facing a final day.  We will all – all of us, breathe our last.  At face value, that could be at the very least daunting, at its worst terrifying. But the days around this week’s Holy season for those who seek to have that insatiable hunger filled, and who know deep down, they need God – are a potent reminder that in God’s great economy, He has the final word.

Why? How? The most ancient and perhaps some of the most amazing words ever spoken, shed light on the fact that, “He is not here, He is risen,” These are the words spoken by an angel to the two Marys who had gone to visit the grave of their dead Rabbi, (Matthew 28:6). And these words changed history – the door that opened between B.C. and A.D. was confirmed by the realized promise of resurrection.

Here is what Christians believe in – not a resuscitated Jesus, not a reincarnated Jesus, but a resurrected Jesus.  No zombie here – a reminder, from the God who feeds our hunger and meets our needs, that in the hands of the Resurrected One, there are no dead ends.

Here is what Christians believe in – not a resuscitated Jesus, not a reincarnated Jesus, but a resurrected Jesus.  

A troubled marriage does not have to end in divorce.  A divorce does not mean the end of love.  Job loss does not mean one has no purpose and no future.  A wayward child does not mean a child lost forever. Cancer does not have to mean death and even death, when it comes, does not mean the end.

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This is why so many are not just drawn to the Christian faith and its resurrection hope, but also why their lives have been transformed by it.  In the last few years, studies consistently show a growing number of Easter-believers.  This Sunday more than 2.3 billion people on planet earth with gather to worship this risen Jesus not in fumbling and hesitant hope, but in expectation and faith – that is, by the way, more than tuned into the Super Bowl, the Oscars or the most watched news story of the year.

If you are a believer – take a moment in these Holy Days to thank God for the faith He has bestowed on you to believe. 

If you are not… bear with me, bear with this pastor – even historians find a hard time denying this central truth of the Christian faith. Jesus’s resurrection did not happen in secret. The whole of ancient Palestine knew it, and in time — whole of the Roman Empire. There are at least a dozen historical references to Jesus meeting people, touching people, talking with people.  

At one point, the Risen Jesus spoke to some 500 people, and He even cooked breakfast for a few of them! After His resurrection, the Apostles who had scattered to the wind, when Jesus was brought to trial and crucified – re-engaged and they were re-commissioned, such that all but two of His original Apostles, gave their lives as martyrs not for his moral or ethical insights, but because when He rose from the grave – it validated the incomparable truth that everything else he said – was, true.

So if you doubt – this day… let me ask you to do just one thing. Turn over your hand, and look at your fingerprints – the only set like them that has ever existed on planet Earth.  Those lines on the tips of your fingers tell a story – that there is no one like you in all of history, in all of the universe – they tell you that you were uniquely created.  And if you were uniquely created, surely that was done by a loving Creator. 

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I could go on, but you get the point – even your fingers testify to what Augustine, and Coupland – and the Angels tell us – in the hands of the One Who lovingly created you, all the things that you think could be dead and lost, can, in fact, be raised to new life. 

If you are holding onto that – be grateful.  If you are not – give it a try.  In the end, my hunch is you will find out why we Christian folk call our great story “The Good News.”

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The Rev. Dr. Russell J. Levenson Jr. is the rector of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, in Houston, Texas, the largest Episcopal Church in the United States. He is the author of “Witness to Dignity: The Life and Faith of George H.W. and Barbara Bush” (Hachette, 2022) and the recently released “In God’s Grip: What Golf Can Teach Us About The Gospel,” (Insight Press, 2023).