Change

My grandparents, William and Katie Belle, were remarkable people who lived in remarkable times.  Within their lifetimes the Wright brothers successfully flew an airplane at Kitty Hawk.  After thousands of years of human beings trying to do that, my grandparents were alive and read about it in the newspaper when it happened for the very first time.  My grandparents were still alive 65 years later when human beings set foot on the moon for the very first time.  And if they had stayed awake past 8:00 at night, which they did not, they could have seen two human beings walking on the moon via a live television transmission. 

Now as astounding as it is to have been alive for both the first flight at Kitty Hawk and the first landing on the moon, unfortunately my grandparents did not believe the latter had actually happened.  Their theory was that it had been staged at some remote location in Nebraska.  My grandparents, who never went outside the state of Georgia except the one time my grandmother went to visit her sister in Jacksonville, did not particularly believe in Nebraska either.  But they found Nebraska a whole lot more plausible than people walking on the moon. 

Within the lifetimes of these two somewhat skeptical farm people, the entire reality of the world was changed, both by the events they had seen happen, and even more by the rate at which that change had occurred.  Thousands of years to get to the first short flight at Kitty Hawk.  Just 65 more years to get to the moon.  It is no wonder at all that they didn’t believe it.
 

Whatever the rate of change my grandparents had to deal with, it is nothing next to the rate of change that our ancestors in faith must have experienced in Christ.  For century after century, the people of Israel had waited for the messiah.  And then, onto the scene comes Jesus of Nazareth.  It was a rate of change that made it difficult to believe.  And not surprisingly, as John puts, “although he had performed many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him.”
 

We know something about so much change that it becomes hard to believe, even if we see the signs live on television.  When change comes at a rate so fast we cannot take it in, it makes us anxious, unsettled, and fearful.  One of the ways human beings cope with so much change so fast and the anxiety that comes with it is to cling to what has been instead of what is becoming.  It is the same with the great moon landing hoax brought to us live from the most remote parts of Nebraska as it is with Jesus and his signs brought to us live from the most remote parts of Galilee.
 

Any rate of change that any human beings have ever experienced, like going form Kitty Hawk to the moon within one lifetime or even having experienced the presence of God in the flesh in Jesus is nothing, absolutely nothing, next to the rate of change we must experience in Easter.  In the instant of Easter, everything, absolutely everything changes.  Death is changed for life.  Sin is changed for freedom.  Alienation is changed for reconciliation.  In Easter, everything, the whole creation, is made new.  The powers, the principalities, the forces that corrupt and destroy our humanity are defeated.
 

Jesus himself is changed.  Jesus is so changed in the instant of Easter that Mary, meeting him in the garden on the first Easter morning, mistook him for the gardener.  Jesus is so changed in the instant of Easter that some of his disciples walked the six miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus with him and did not recognize him.  And even after the reality of the resurrection has begun to set in, Jesus is so changed that his closest friends failed to recognize him calling them along the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  In the instant of Easter, everything, absolutely everything, is changed.
 

As much as the historical events my grandparents witnessed in just a single lifetime changed the very nature of the reality they knew, as much as the signs the people witnessed within the lifetime of Jesus changed the very nature of the reality they knew, the event of Easter changes everything of the reality we think we know in the twinkling of an eye.  It is a change that is too unsettling, too disturbing, too unnerving to believe in because it changes the very nature of reality as we know it.  Easter is intended to threaten our reality.  It is no wonder that it makes us fearful.
 

We must choose whether to allow our fear to stand between us and the resurrection.  We cannot proclaim the resurrection and cling to what is old, to a reality that no longer exists, to a reality before the resurrection.  What we have got to do is live into change because at least until the kingdom arrives, change is the only way God has to work. 

Peace,

+Stacy