Turn to the Infinite Light of Love to Find Resurrection Today
by Rev. Cory Coberforward
Readings
Luke 24:1-11
On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” Then they remembered his words.
When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.
Isaiah 65:17-20a
(responsive reading for live service)
I am about to create new heavens and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating;
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
and its people as a delight.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
or the cry of distress.
No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth
Read the written message below with music videos
When I think of Easter I think of celebrations of life with vibrant colors and the diversity of community expressions of joy – and even for those of us not Christian or perhaps still wondering about religion, spirituality, and God, I think there’s a profound message of awakening and resurrection in the Easter story. Christ himself hadn’t set out to “start a religion” but to return us to our natural state in unity with love and God (known by many names and many stories), inviting us to a type of resurrection of spirit, society, and life. Even as we count Christ dead in modern culture due to the ignorance and horrors sometimes offered by those who take his name, I think we’ll find he’s not down for the count.
Emanuel Swedenborg, the 18th-century ground-breaking scientist turned mystic, believed that the growing diversity of heaven is what makes it more perfect, saying that there were countless cultures and religions in heaven that ultimately worship the same infinite source in their plurality. If he’s right, I can only assume that not every culture in the heavens approaches the idea of the resurrection of God in the same, if any, way. However, when it comes to the resurrection and renewal of each spirit, thanks to God, there must be no shortage of celebration there about that given where they are! But what about for us? I can’t say that I know for sure what the afterlife is like, whether there’s a heaven and hell, reincarnation, or all of the above, although I have a suspicion that the last option is true.
No, for me, I find a powerful understanding of God’s resurrection in our lives today. The resurrection of Christ, in a way, serves to drive home the very message that Jesus shared throughout his teachings. We are meant to find resurrection in this life, turning away from what the scriptures consider “dead” and towards the eternal “light of life,” which perhaps is the very light and warmth of consciousness within. Whatever it is, it’s said to be transcendent and closer to us than our idea of ourselves, which is enough to start quite the internal inquiry and meditation.
I suspect that one of the greatest powers of the resurrection is its power to empower as a stark, miraculous reminder of the everlasting life that each of us has within our hearts thanks to God. Christ said that we would do greater miracles than his own, and I think he must have meant the seemingly self-guided and community-empowered miracles of the resurrection and renewal of our very own lives through the insight and power that God grants us. What greater miracle is there than to find, accept, and embody our unity with God? Just like they might do in heaven, especially in their diversity.
Christ’s teachings, like many others, point us to what it means to be resurrected today. He continuously preached on the importance of turning to love and loving others as ourselves, not “like” ourselves but “as.” To have this type of love we must uncover it, not build it up, as it is the resurrecting and divine life that each of us partakes in and springs from. His message of turning away from our addictions and letting go of our attachments is the key to uncovering this life and love, as it is our identification with our bodies, habitual thoughts, need to control, and judgments that seem to cover it up even though it is our very life itself!
I think that often we find Christ’s insistent message of universal love and social justice, of uplifting the downtrodden and the poor, as a hard one to swallow, and so we tend to focus on more digestible ideas, like the importance of his death as a sacrifice for our sins. Unfortunately, we take this idea too far in thinking that this means that we are not called to transformation. The remission of sins is just that, remission, as our identification with our false selves pulls our attention and minds away from the heaven that Christ said is near to us. It’s not that a bouncer stands in front of the heaven that is “at hand,” stopping us from entering due to our sins until we say the password, “Jesus is my Lord and master.” But it is our non-heavenly interpretation of things, motives, and viewpoint that keeps us away from experiencing heaven, and our letting go of these things is the natural and understandable path into heaven, a process that God enables and greatly empowered as Christ in his life, death, and resurrection.
In our reading today, the women who witnessed the angels at the Lord’s tomb are dismissed “because their words seemed like nonsense.” Often this is true. Those who speak to the heart of God’s resurrection and life are dismissed as nonsensical because what they share seems too astounding and perhaps too strange to be true, even as the Lord himself said the same again and again. We are indeed children of God, not stepchildren, and are tasked with remembering so at heart, to awakening to our highest nature. Christ is our example in this, just as many others also help shine the way throughout the ancient scriptures. As we’ve explored before, the voice of the downtrodden and oppressed often have the most important (and yet most overlooked) wisdom to share, these women are no different and neither is Christ. We celebrate their example in listening to the angels, to God, and relaying the good news of resurrection!
It is our egoic idea of ourselves that fears and is drawn away from the awareness and work that Christ told us constitutes heaven, but thankfully, it is also that same egoic idea that beats itself up and feels the pressure to perform for Christ or for anyone – which should be let go of and seen for the construct that it is. Once we truly start to turn to the peaceful light of love within (a light that we all share), letting go of even our “favorite” thoughts and identifications, the work and love will start to flow from us just as it is natural for the sun to shine. In this way, we can find resurrection of life today as we celebrate the resurrecting and living God that’s close enough to each of us to make that possible.
Peace is you,
Rev. Cory