After Lent, Easter Son-Rise, and Changed Lives
“The bright Morning Star” came to mind, compressing the Bible’s entire message into one word: Jesus.
“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.” Rev. 22:16
I awoke thinking about Resurrection Sunday: church, family at lunch, Easter eggs, and the flowers of Spring.
Early, when it was yet dark …
Something else came to mind. A movie I wanted to watch.
The evening of Easter Sunday, I watched the movie Ben Hur. I’ve seen this movie many times, but I first saw this film as a young girl at the drive-in movie with my mom. My dad and my sister were both gone, dead and buried in Prescott, Arizona where Renée and I were born. During the years Mom and I lived either in Las Vegas, Nevada or Henderson, going to movies was one thing we continued to do together until we moved to California.
Hollywood tends to overplay its hand, to dramatize to the extent it diminishes the story it tries to tell. But in this case, I cannot describe the effect that movie had on me then, and the effects that linger. Ben Hur won 11 Academy Awards and set a benchmark for all other biblical epics or films about Jesus. What sets this movie apart for me is that it never showed Jesus’ face. Instead, it shows the effect Jesus had on those He faced, including the main character, Judah Ben Hur.
Driven by hate and a desire for vengeance, Judah’s hatred for Messala kept him alive during the three years spent serving as a slave in the Roman galleys. Yet God had in store for Judah Ben Hur a destiny where love triumphed over evil.
When Ben Hur watched the crucifixion of Jesus, he saw in His face the face of the Man who had given him hope to go on when all hope was lost. All the hatred drained away and was replaced with love, even for his enemies.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.
IRL (In Real Life)
Since seeing that movie as a young girl, for me any attempts to portray Jesus fall short. Whether in a play, a production, on film, or a person “impersonating” Jesus, all fall short of the glory of God. Putting a mere man in a costume to pretend to be Jesus diminishes Jesus.
He is not here, for He is risen, as He said.
Matthew 28:6
The real power of the Person is the personal impact Jesus has on individual lives. Jesus rises again in every life He inhabits.
Some of my family attend a church where the tagline for that church’s mission states, “Changed lives. Period.”
Jesus continues to change lives.
If the gospel doesn’t change lives, it isn’t the gospel. Period.
40 Days of Lent to prepare for Easter
Looking west from sunrise, panorama shows the moon on the left. Taken with my iPhone.
This year, I explored the practice of Lent. In a previous post, I wrote about my curiosity and promised to report afterward my experience. As I said then, “Lent provides a season and an opportunity to stop and think about things you and I take for granted.” Some Lenten practices involve giving up things and others focus on adding something. I went into Lent to discover something about myself, not expecting some benefit I could derive by giving up something I wanted to give up anyway, or to gain some false sense of rightness through penitence and absolution, or by rigorous adherence to some goal.
As a guide, a friend gave me a copy of a book with readings for each of the 40 days, plus the Sundays during those weeks. Like most devotionals, the thoughts and commentary come through the mind of the writer. Same for what you read here. We are each of us curators of what we believe.
The first reading, which this year “Ash Wednesday” began on Valentine’s Day, was titled appropriately “Another Start!” Well it may be that the liturgical year starts anew as we prepare our hearts for Easter. The final reading on “Holy Saturday” was titled “Liminal Space.”
Limen is the Latin word for threshold. A “liminal space” is the crucial in-between time––when everything actually happens and yet nothing appears to be happening. It is the waiting period when the cake bakes, the movement is made, the transformation takes place. One cannot jump from Friday to Sunday in this case, there must be Saturday! … The tomb is temporarily the womb.
Wondrous Encounters, Scripture for Lent by Richard Rohr1
Waiting. For the cake to bake. Take a cake out too early and it falls in the middle, leaving a gooey, inedible mess.
Waiting. For all the promises. For the stories to unfold.
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee …
The in-between time is a time of grieving––necessary “grief work,” he said. “Now you are ready for the first day of the week, the ever-new day of Resurrected Life, which will allow you henceforth to read all your life backward and understand, and read it forward with hope.”
Maybe that hope and reading my own life backward is what sent me back to watch Ben Hur on Easter Sunday. Seeing myself as a child living through experiences impossible for me to comprehend, then I wondered whether I would see Jesus’ face and He would change my life too.
The prospect of change captured my heart. Now I can testify to countless changes, impossible beyond my imagining and power that Jesus has made in my life.
The Son has Risen. Lives changed. Period.
1 Not an endorsement of everything in that little book, yet I appreciated having a guide that focused my thoughts each day.