A Sacrifice of Praise 8 The Resurrection

The Resurrection

I was the one who waited in the garden

Doubting the morning and the early light.

I watched the mist lift off its own soft burden,

Permitting not believing my own sight.

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If there were sudden noises I dismissed

Them as a trick of sound, a sleight of hand.

Not by a natural joy could I be blessed

Or trust a thing I could not understand.

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Maybe I was a shadow thrown by some

Who, weeping , came to lift away the stone,

Or was I but the path on which the sun

Too heavy for itself, was loosed and thrown?

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I heard the voices and the recognition

And love like kisses heard behind the walls.

Were they my tears which fell, a real contrition?

Or simply April with its waterfalls?

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It was by negatives I learned my place.

The garden went on growing and I sensed

A sudden breeze that blew across my face.

Despair returned but now it danced, it danced.

(Elizabeth Jennings)

Whether intended to or not, Jennings’ poem is an exposition of Luke’s description of disciples who ‘disbelieved for joy’. The triumph of the resurrection came later, on reflection. The more immediate responses were fear, bewilderment, disbelief, panic, the consequent confusion of thought and emotion when confronted with impossibility dawning into a clear perhaps. The mist lifts, and sight is permitted, but faith needs more than sight, and how do you ‘trust a thing you do not understand?’

Today I will celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. And like those first witnesses, there will be the thrill of recognition, that ‘sudden breeze’ of new possibility, of fresh and refreshing movement, and that inner redeeming movement, as despair is reborn in hope, and sorrow is turned to dancing. There will also be, I trust, time for deeper reflection of how a resurrection faith can be practised and lived by the community of Christ who are witnesses to the Easter faith. And in our worship, the affirmation that life overcomes death, darkness gives way to light, and ‘love, like kisses’, is heard behind the walls’, and then lived out in the streets.

A joyful and reflective Easter to all who now and again come by here.