“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” — Luke 24:5
In our part of the world, it is a beautiful reminder how the Easter season coincides with the burgeoning life of spring growth. Greening of grass, blooming trees and flowers, seeds sprouting. It’s God’s way of reminding us of how new life can spring forth from death and decay; how resurrection continues to happen all around us.
Barbara Brown Taylor is a renowned preacher, teacher and author who recently wrote a reflection on this very idea. “The morning after Hurricane Helene ripped through our part of Georgia, I gave thanks that the oak outside my bedroom window had held. But then I walked the path to the river and started counting corpses of trees. The first few came into view; huge flat saucers of red dirt held together by roots that had never seen the light of day until now. The massive trunk lying flat on the ground was like finding a person face down in wreckage. Something had gone terribly wrong. There was nothing I could do to help. I moved on and kept counting. By the time I reached the river, I had passed 38 now dying trees toppled by the storm.
On my way back to the house, I spotted a tree that was long dead but still standing. It was full of woodpecker holes and green coats of moss. The tree had lost its bark a long time ago and there was a small cave in its side. When I leaned down to look inside, it was full of nutshells, I guessed it was a chipmunk’s clubhouse.
People who study trees call these “nurse logs,” since even when they’re dead, they are not gone. They draw creatures who leave fertile droppings behind making compost-rich nooks where new seeds can take root. They shelter seedlings that might not make it on their own. They give mushrooms food they need to grow and salamanders places to lay their eggs. Insects hatch and birds find their lunch.
It reminds me of the passage, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit.”
As Barbara Brown Taylor observed, the signs and processes of new life are all around us. Tree corpses become nurse logs. Grains of wheat bear much fruit. A crucified Savior becomes a risen Christ. The Good News is that the resurrection was not a one-time event. God reminds us constantly of this so that we might live into it even now.
But in order to experience the new life, we must stop clinging to the old one. We must stop “looking for the living among the dead.” Stop allowing anxiety to hover over us in careers or life at home. Stop fantasizing about our perfect lifestyle, perfect financial situation, the perfect body type. Stop building boundaries between peoples based on gender, race, ethnicity, or orientation.
On that first Easter morning, the women visiting the tomb were terrified but then they remembered Jesus’ words. “The Son of Man will be crucified and on the third day rise again.” The angelic figure pointed them on the way and they rushed back to tell the others about their experience. With hearts and voices they praised the power of God who had raised Jesus to new life. Which is, after all, exactly what God asks of us.
— Reflections appears regularly on the religion page. The column features a variety of local writers, coordinated through the Monroe Area Clergy Group. Todd Hackman is senior pastor at St. John’s United Church of Christ in Monroe.
