I began preaching in 2012. Since then, I have preached on every Easter Sunday. And yet, I now realize that I did not truly understand the essence of Easter until this year.
Whether symbolic or real, to enter into the dark tunnel of death or dying is terrifying and painful. And yet, precisely because of that, it becomes both a gift and a challenge, a way through which Easter can be understood, experienced, and held as something real within us.
When I began my first solo ministry as a student supply from 2012 to 2014 at Chemainus United Church, I went there to replace someone.
Fran had only recently been ordained. She had come to her beloved home congregation with hope, with dreams, with passion. She had left another career behind to become a minister, a preacher, to share her spirituality and vision. She began a weekly communion circle. She had so much she wanted to do.
But a terminal illness stopped everything; she had to go on medical leave and hand the ministry over to me.
Many people deeply loved and supported her. She preached when she could, even while she was very ill. Her last hope was to share one final Easter message, a message shaped by her understanding of faith and life; that message was shared with the community ahead of time.
And then, on Holy Saturday morning, she died. Even one Holy Saturday can hold a long silence.
I still remember the next day, Easter Sunday. The sky over downtown Chemainus was so clear, so deeply blue. The cherry blossoms were in full bloom, postcard-bright, as if Fran’s spirit had painted them for us. And every year since then, those of us who were there remember Fran Darling, her passion, her love, her ministry.
Some deaths, especially the deaths of those who make an impact on us through their passion, service, and love, leave a deep mark on those around them. Their lives continue within our lives. Those who were part of that community live with a small shining piece of them in a corner of our hearts.
Those who were with Jesus, not only in his life, but all the way to his death, the disciples, the women, the crowds, their lives could never be the same after his death.
Jesus was crucified, an act of Roman imperial terror, because his life’s work was seen as subverting the order and the rule of fear that the Empire wanted to maintain. And “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” this loud outcry, held until his final breath after a long silence, would have echoed painfully in the hearts of those who stood beneath the cross, especially the named and unnamed women, touching the deep sorrow and unresolved grief of their lives in a subjugated land. And yet, through his teachings, they had come to dream and believe in the Kingdom of God, not as the kingdom of a human king who sends children to war and exploits power, but as the true reign of God: love, justice, and mercy.
Crucifixion was a brutal form of capital punishment and social terror: bodies were left hanging for days without dignity, with the intent that no prompt or proper burial would be possible.
And yet, those who stayed, especially Mary Magdalene and the other women who had been with him from the beginning, who had cooked, listened, given their attention and their service, and followed him all the way to the cross, faced that death, a death that deeply wounded them, and they accepted it. In their grief, their shock, their pain, their anger, they still accepted the reality of Jesus’ death.
Before sunset, before the Sabbath when no work could be done, they tried to take his body down. They wanted to prepare a proper burial. And when the Sabbath ended, at the first light of Easter morning, they went to the tomb, carrying spices and ointments worthy of a royal burial.
And yet, they had no idea what would come next: what would come next, unexpected, unheard of, Easter—the completely uncharted path of Easter, so close after their tearful, trembling acceptance of their loss. The greatest sign of Easter, first witnessed by the women and later by the other disciples, is the appearance of the risen Jesus in their eyes—or through the eyes of the heart.
Is it a historical fact to be reported? Or is it only a dream, without substance, a wishful shadow on a misty morning?
Perhaps it is neither.
From that time until now, the experience of Easter continues not through fixed doctrines or inherited understandings, but in the living reality of today’s world. With their hearts, with fire, people continue to write the meaning of Easter.
When I was in Grade 3, I had a dream.
I was in a cemetery, playing with other children. The sky grew dark, and the children ran away in fear. I remained alone. Then the sky opened. Light came down. Jesus appeared before me, lifted his hand, placed it on my head, and blessed me. I remembered this dream again only after I was in my twenties—forgotten, but saved. It has been carried in my heart since, and lets me know it is more than a dream.
How is Easter experienced within oneself?
The greeting of the risen Jesus is: “Peace be with you.”
Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, “Receive my Spirit.”
Easter, bringing peace, is a deep releasing of han, almost a shamanic, deep unbinding ritual for sorrowful and wounded hearts.
Easter uplifts the wronged and wounded, and comforts those who are shattered by grief.
Easter does not erase death. Rather, it embraces those who have been deeply impacted by death, those who carry deep sorrow and unresolved grief.
Easter is a healing power. It is the power that comforts, heals, and resurrects those who have come to an end without yet finding their new beginning. Easter is found in compassion, binding the wounds of the living, transforming the sorrow of those who suffer by weeping with them. Easter reconnects us through the heart, as we seek justice, truth, and peace.
Those who experience Easter, the people of God on earth, are received and accepted as they are. Easter people begin to see what they could not see before, to perceive what was previously unseen.
Easter, like the radiant blue sky and sunlight that filled Chemainus that one Sunday, is God’s gift and possibility, where hope for life emerges again.
Passion for the Kingdom of God killed Jesus, but this passion resurrects the community, so that it may truly live by the Spirit given by the risen Jesus. This passion for the Kingdom of God will lead us to confront and collide with dominant systems, a daring hope that the fire of Easter and the Spirit of Pentecost will continue to resurrect new life in us and among us.
The risen Jesus still meets us, appears in our lives, and teaches us:
Love is the soul of justice,
and justice is the revealed, material form of compassion.
Jesus lives.
Jesus abounds.
Jesus transforms, rising and rising again, even today, in those who see the Easter fire through the eyes of their hearts, in this beautiful, fragile, enduring world such as ours.
Thank you for your thoughtful and deeply personal insight into resurrection in our lives!
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