Easter Message, 2022

Easter celebrates the Resurrection, and calls to mind the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. In the Northern Hemisphere, it is celebrated as a spring holiday. Spring seems like the appropriate season to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. The rebirth of the natural world around us reminds us of Jesus’ restoration to life. The world in 2022 seems to be in the spring cycle as it emerges from the scourge of Coronavirus pandemic and destructive authoritarianism. Slowly, we see our freedoms coming back to life. Most of us at least, can work, play, and worship with renewed freedom and with restored vigor. But, just as not every tree and plant grow back its foliage, and just as not every flower will bloom at the same time, nor will every nation, state, and town be restored. The total restoration takes time, but the arrival of summer is a force of nature. Mammals awake from their winter slumber, they may be weak at first, but nature drives them to seek nutrition. Humans also emerge requiring sustenance, not just for the body, for their minds and spirit as well. We’ve lived through a two-year winter of death– physical, moral, and spiritual. Just as nature drives the newly awakened bear to search for what will give it and its family life, nature calls for us to restore the spiritual, intellectual, and emotional balance to our lives.

Easter reminds us that just as Jesus was reborn as a higher eternal form of himself, that we can and must strive to do this same. Life and freedom are the twin gifts the Creator has given to us. As one or the other becomes diminished, their restoration, rebirth, resurrection, once started becomes a force of nature. As we will it, death gives way to life, fear to courage, and oppression to freedom. Become one with that force of nature that demands the scales be re-balanced in favor of our Divine right, and perhaps achieve in the process, a rebirth to a higher form of spiritual life.

Paschal blessings to you!

-J.P. Mac