Easter Day, Yr B
April 12, 2009
G. Hendree Harrison, Jr.
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Say Something Simple
My head is swimming in Easter glory, my heart beats to the perfectly rhythmic cadence of Easter drums, and my very soul swells and bursts like an Easter bloom, with the joyous fragrance of…Resurrection.
Jesus Christ is Risen today, Alleluia, Alleluia!
I could go on and on shouting out soaring Easter metaphors and color soaked Easter images, what a day this is! I could spin on for hours talking of Easter symbols. I could sing Easter Hymns all morning- songs about the miracles of salvation and God’s good Grace.
But I won’t.
No, a wise, long tenured, old preacher once told me, “Keep it simple on Easter, now.
Just say, He is Risen! and then shout, Alleluia!”
She said, “you have fifty-one other Sundays, a hundred holy days in between, and hours and hours of Sunday school classes across the space of the year to mire and dance in the complicated, today, Easter, keep it simple and glorious –He is Risen, just tell them, He is Risen!”
It’s a good word, He is Risen. I would have done well to remember it last week when instead of keeping it simple, I made things very complicated for my three year old and almost wrecked her image of Jesus.
I have a three year old little girl, her name is Gracie, many of you likely know her, she’s the most extroverted person this side of the Great Smokey Mountains, she’ll probably be the mayor of Athens before her fifth birthday.
We talk about all sorts of things, she and I, she cooks up questions that routinely blow my mind and catch me completely off guard.
Here’s what happened last week. Gracie, my wife, Kristin, and I were eating supper in our usual way at the dining room table. We were happily ensconced in the typical stuff, How was your day? What did you do at school? Did you b
Along the way, there was a brief moment of quiet, a lull in the conversation while we chewed our food.
Gracie scooped peas up in her spoon, my mind drifted off, Kristin looked out the back window, it was peaceful. Then Gracie broke the silence.
“Daddy?”
I came back from my daydreaming. “Yes?”
“Daddy, after Easter can Jesus come to live with us?”
I laughed. And I got nervous. Here’s what went through my addled, complicated head.
I thought to myself, Okay, this is a big moment, a moment in which I can teach this precious daughter of mine something really important and meaningful, maybe even life-saving about Jesus. Don’t screw this up. (Yes, I know I have issues) But what to say?!
I knew I should tell her that Jesus is always with us, and that yes he will be with us after Easter. But she’s three and her sense of the abstract is not exactly fine tuned. So, I didn’t want to give her the impression that an actual man, the historical Jesus, was either in our house right then hiding or was going to come live with us next Monday morning. And I didn’t want to say, No, Jesus lives in heaven, you’ll have to wait to see him when you die.
See, while I don’t believe that Jesus is hiding, or literally present in body, I am also certain that Jesus is not simply residing in the distant heavens waiting to welcome us there when we die. I believe, we Christians believe, that the Risen Christ is very much present in our lives right now and His presence is real and felt by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Oh, it would be easy to say, “No baby, Jesus is not going to come live with us after Easter, He lives in heaven with God and granddaddy. We’ll see him someday. But I don’t want her to spend her whole life working toward getting into heaven so she can be with Jesus.
Rather, I want her to devote her life to seeking after the very real, salvific presence of the Risen Christ in this world, in our time, in every moment, in every neighbors face, in every breath, and every smile.
But how to drop that lesson on a three year old? all of that ran through my mind like lightning…. and I said, “Well sweetheart in a sort of a way Jesus always lives with us.”
“Where is he?” said the ever clever little girl.
“Ummm. Well he’s inside of us.”
“Where?”
Well, he’s in our hearts.
She touched her hand to her chest as if to ask, here? and she screwed up her face with a questioning look as if to say, I’m not sure you know what you’re talking about. She glanced at her mom who shot me an amused look and silently said, better you than me buddy.
I scrambled like a rookie quarterback overwhelmed and desperate for someplace, any place to throw the ball.
“Yes,” I said, “it’s sort of like that song this little light of mine, you know that song?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Jesus is sort of like the light in that song, like a fire that can’t be put out, like a fire light lit inside of us.”
“Is he hot? Like the grill? What if he burns me?”
“Oh, no baby, Jesus won’t burn you he loves you.”
She looked at me like, you are crazy dude.
Bad throw.
Mercifully, the prospect of dessert distracted her from her theological curiosity.
“Oh, can I have a piece of chocolate if I finish my peas?”
Yes, you can have two if we’re finished with this biblical interrogation… I returned to my own supper and thought to myself, Good work, some fancy preacher you are, you just taught your daughter that Jesus Christ is a flame throwing ghost haunting her insides to the tune of a VBS song.
The next evening when I got home from work, Gracie and Kristin were sitting on the couch watching a program on the television. I unpacked my stuff in my usual way and started getting ready for supper in the kitchen. I heard Kristin say from the front room.
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask your daddy.”
Gracie shouted, “Daddy!”
I walked into the den where they were snuggled up on the couch.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What happens when Jesus comes out of our bodies?”
“What?” I said. Even though I heard her perfectly clearly.
“What happens when Jesus comes out of us? With the fire?”
Kristin smiled broadly, and mouthed, “nice work last night, now she thinks Jesus is an
alien living inside of her chest.”
I sat down on the edge of the couch. And I’m pretty sure Jesus came to inhabit my insides to save my daughter from my misguided yammering because I answered saying something very simple, “We love, and we help people. When Jesus comes out of us we love, and we help people.”
“Oh, like I love mommy?”
“Yes, like you love mommy.”
I sat back on the couch, whew. By some uncommon miracle we moved from thinking Jesus was a monster making a fire cave inside of us to the notion that is, well, simply closer to the truth, which is that Jesus comes into our lives and pushes us to love one another.
Trying to teach a three year old about the unseen presence of Christ is humbling and helpful. Humbling because it’s hard, and helpful because it calls us to think and speak about what we believe in very simple terms, which always helps, me at least, unclutter my head and my heart of all the complicated concepts, difficult words, and wild old symbols.
The next time my little girl asks me, Daddy, can Jesus come live with us after Easter?
I’m going to say, Yes, He is Risen, of course He can come live with us. Yes, Yes, Yes.
And when she says, Daddy what happens when Jesus comes out of us?
I’ll say we love, sweetheart, we love, we love, we love.
That’s it- simple. Good friends, it is Easter Day. He is Risen, and we are free to love.
Jesus Christ is Risen today!
Now, may we rise up, may we rise up too and love, love, love.
Simple. He is Risen. Alleluia, alleluia, Amen.