Yes, we may believe it. Believe that Your merciful Heart listens attentively to our confused, searching, often broken hearts. Believe that the good and healing Plans of Your Heart for us and for all your people will live on forever. But saying"I believe" isn't enough. How do we live out that belief? How do we find Your Risen Presence in our lives TODAY and live out our belief in You? Find Easter Joy in You?
When we search for You, Lord, where will we find You? You've told us that we will find You Everywhere and In Everyone, when we surrender to the Reality of Your Presence. Even when that Reality is broken, battered, tear-stained, You are there, Your glorious hands with their glorified wounds touching ours. Your voice that cried out in abandonment on the cross now whispers Hope into our ears. "I am Risen," you whisper. "I will not leave you orphaned. I am HERE - Can You see Me? Can You whisper my Hope to others?
HERE - In the glory-lit faces of couples who have just proclaimed their wedding vows till death do us part, and pray they can mean it.
HERE - In the wrinkled, age-blotched face of a loved one in a nursing home, who smiles, a silver line of spittle running from her mouth.
HERE - In the warm cuddliness of a new-born baby, smelling of that fresh-from-heaven dewy smell, mixed with the odors of fresh formula and wet diaper.
HERE - In the spine-chilling sound of a piper playing "Amazing Grace" on a Rocky Mountain peak, and in the gut-wrenching cry of a woman missing her dead husband.
HERE - In the exultant laugh of a teenager passing his Driver's Test, and in the moans of a driver who's had an accident and suffers from whiplash.
HERE - In the tearful, hard hug of a drug addict in NA who has been free from drugs for a year, and in the convict behind bars who was an accomplice in a robbery that went violent and tearfully regrets what went down.
HERE - In the tentative hand-shake of a Veteran, drenched in nervous sweat, safely home from war, yet brutalized by war nightmares that never go away.
HERE -In the confused eyes of the mentally ill, overwhelmed by visions or emotions that drive them into the depths or up to the heights.
HERE - In the hurt, challenging eyes of the victim of MS or MD or ALS now using a wheel-chair.
HERE - in the self-conscious woman who works but who is on Food Stamps, who is choosing food and shampoo and sanitary pads in a local Food Pantry because she doesn't have enough for her family for the month, and then reaches for Depends for her aged grand-mother because my God they cost so much.....
Yes, if we search for You with open eyes, we will find You, Risen Lord. All Reality comes sifted mysteriously through Your Hands. But - are we ready to receive all of You? Are we ready to find You and speak to You, understand You, love You, give You Hope, exactly Where You are? Even when You come in surprising, even distressing disguises?
Can we find You in the serpentine corridors of our lives? In All the joys? In All the mistakes? In All the tragedies? We can't conceive of Who You Are, or What You Do, or Why You do it. We know our will dances with Yours as You allow us free will to make choices, which, because we're limited humans, are never truly, fully perfect. We still need You to bring all our choices to fruitful fulfillment. And how can we reconcile the truths that No, You don't cause bad things to happen, You don't zap babies in their cradles so they die of SIDS, and yet, and yet, we know You know the time of our dying, and we believe You wait to bring all of us Home until our purpose, our mission on earth, is finished. Perhaps we even cooperate with You on the time of our deaths, because some die surrounded by family, and others seem to wait until a loved one has stepped from the room... How can we understand all of this? We can't. Somehow, Leader of the Dance, You integrate our steps with Yours until our Dance is final and complete and You bring us Home to You.
In the end, on all things, we have to surrender to Your vast, incredible Promise that eventually all will be well with all of creation. That, day by day, Your Word is speaking and evolving our Universe to a final eternal Newness, a Freshness, an All-goodness, that is saturated with eternal, joyful Love. You are evolving all towards a newness for the physical united with the spiritual, a renewal of our bodies, minds, spirits, hearts and all of physical creation in which Your Spirit already dwells - pet dogs to flowering dogwood trees, barracudas to black holes..... For in the Creed we say that we believe in the Resurrection of the Body, Your Body and our Bodies, the Resurrection of the physicalness of the entire Universe, because all is good that has been created by Your Hands, all is being called by You to evolve towards that final glory. That glorious Future when every tear will disappear as Mary of Magdala's tears began to dry on her cheeks when she discovered that the gardener was her Risen Lord. Rejoice, Alleluia!
But until that day, we have to wait. We have to struggle to see how our serpentine lives dip down into problems, then rise to heights of love and fulfillment, dip down into human error and frustration, then rise to new understanding, new patience, new glimpses of Your abiding, Risen Presence holding our hands. Even when Your Face is hidden from us, we know You are there, at work, because we choose to open our lives to Your Spirit.
But - how can we keep Your Spirit of Joy within us? That Rejoice, Alleluia! He is Risen indeed? That Easter Joy that should saturate and soothe our entire beings because we believe that You are Risen, Alive, in every face, every touch, every sound, every experience - TODAY! Joy in spite of our emotions that rise and fall, moment by moment, governed by tears, grief, love, questionings, confusions?
Ann Voskamp says wisely,
"True saints know that the place where all the joy comes from is far deeper than that of feelings; joy comes from the place of the very presence of God. Joy is God and God is joy and joy doesn't negate all other emotions - joy transcends all other emotions. Though my marriage tree may not bud and though my crop of children may fail and my work produce little yield, though there is no money in the bank and no dream left in the heart, though others may choose different ways to live their one life, till my last heaving breath, I will fight to the death for this: "I will take joy" (Habakkuk 3:18) ....and I will listen and again I will listen and I will wrestle to put skin on it: "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!" (Philippians 4:4)....
"Joy is a flame that glimmers only in the palm of the open and humble hand. In an open and humble palm, released and surrendered to receive, light dances, flickers happy. The moment the hand is clenched tight, fingers all pointing toward self and rights and demands, joy is snuffed out." (from "One Thousand Gifts.")
Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy at Boston College. He loves his five grandchildren, four children, one wife, one cat, and one God. He asserts, "No one who ever said to God, 'Thy will be done,' and meant it with his heart, ever failed to find joy - not just in heaven, or even down the road in the future in this world, but in this world at that very moment. Every other Christian who has ever lived has found exactly the same thing in his own experience. It is an experiment that has been performed over and over again billions of times, always with the same result." (from "Joy.")
Moment to moment, then, we can strive to say "Your Will be done, Lord, for You are the Risen Lord. You are with Me, TODAY. You are upholding me - TODAY. You are upholding every person I am with TODAY, whether I or they can see it, or feel it; I know this, because I trust You. You, God, are alive and working in every circumstance, for our good, for You are our Three-Person God, merciful Father-Mother-Creator, merciful Healer-Redeemer, and everlasting merciful Spirit of Joy. For this reason I can cry out "Rejoice! Alleluia! He is Risen indeed!" I can search for You and trust that I find You - in every face and in every circumstance. Yesterday, Tomorrow, TODAY - MOMENT BY MOMENT, brim with Easter Joy, because, You God ARE Joy, and You are there."