The time draws near, when Christ will be raised from the dead!
Great flashes of light, resounding trumpets, celestial music ringing through the plains and off the mountains – the chains of death are broken, in the twinkling of an eye.
Song, poetry and art from across the ages and the continents have offered magnificent portrayals of this jubilant moment, to quicken those of us who are still “mourning and weeping in this valley of tears”
I remember once seeing a moving painting of an angel struggling to pull a pale and lifeless Christ upwards from the tomb. I have seen this image lived out in many a mother struggling to pull her dying child away from the nearness of death, and sadder still, in the mother who hopes against all hope that a last, vigorous embrace will restore her already lifeless child to her now barren heart.
The angel in this painting is revealing a mystery, showing us something like “the beginning” of the resurrection. It shows angelic work being done in the dark time, right in between redemption and glory. This great work of God in darkness gives rise to the light of wisdom and the brightness of eternity. Like the way that coal, under enormous pressure over time, becomes a diamond.
The angel in the painting speaks of other slower, humbler resurrections, from within the heart of darkness.
The forty-year resurrection of the people of Israel was a desert transformation that brought them from obscurity as slaves to architects of a civilized nation, founded upon a moral code, born of communion with the One True God.
The scripture tells us that Moses, their leader and father, died just short of the fulfillment of this long quest. At 120 years old, in sight of the Promised Land, he died in his full mind, and with all of his teeth!
Since so many people far short of 120 years have already lost a good measure of both mind and teeth, it is curious that this detail about Moses’ death became part of Revealed Word.
You can argue that if one has full mind but no teeth, the words spoken through collapsed and floppy lips would not easily convince someone that a full mind is present. Moses’ teeth were the frame though which he clearly pronounced, unreservedly, the ongoing revelations and wishes of God.
A Haitian Creole phrase encourages you, when you need to stand undaunted against very strong opposition, to “show your teeth.”
God’s exalted vision of human wellbeing, and the obligations that vision puts on us as believers, do not rise and fall with economic trends. In season and out of season, in hardship and in plenty, when the sailing is smooth and when the going gets rough, God’s expectations and demands do not waver. It was clear to Moses that all of Israel was to be led to the promise land. Not select clergy, nor favored classes. Even the stiff-necked and rebellious were not to be left behind for the sea to close on them. It was all or no one, do or die, no one left behind.
Sometimes there were rivers, and sometimes Moses had to bring water out of dry rocks. Sometimes there were quail, and sometimes Moses had to make bread fall from the night sky. And all of this while tolerating times of rebelliousness against himself, even calls for his death.
In the darkness, Moses learned that anguish aimed upwards becomes prayer, and that heaven understands and delivers.
Poor Moses-he had to keep this up even in moments of doubt, frustration and rebellion against his own destiny.
When standing for a second time in the parched desert, between a large rock and his thirsty-unto-death followers, (and being quite unnerved by them), when told by God to strike the rock, he struck it twice out of anger. The people drank miracle water to satisfaction, but his melt down cost him his entrance into the Promised Land.
As in the time of Moses, our own worldwide worries and economic threats are not game changers. They don’t change one tiny bit God’s vision for us, and expectations of what we are to do. This is especially true for those of us carrying on the mission of Fr. Wasson. Our hearts and homes are full of orphans and vulnerable children. Our outreaches are all aimed at marginalized women and endangered youth.
We don’t say “let’s keep going, but with half as many in our embrace.” No, it is not possible.
We still believe in the small, slow resurrections, we believe in the work of God in the dark. We still send children like Chantal to the Dominican Republic for life saving heart repair, and we still pick up half dead women like Marie off the parched roadside where she lay dying, so they are not left behind.
Our anguish gets aimed upwards and becomes prayer. Water can still come out of the rock. The manna can still come from the heaven.
If we believe
We hit the rock twice at our own peril.
Thank you for sharing with us this clear vision of light at every step of the way.
Thank you, too, for showing the strong teeth of your determination all the way to the end.
It is precisely in the difficult moments, that we are called to make a difference.
A very happy and grace filled Easter wish, offered with much gratitude and friendship.
May your darkness be filled with angels, and your light bring radiant joy.
Fr Rick Frechette
March 14, 2012
Port au Prince
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