Resurrection is a Reality
Every year at this time, one hears the old saw that Easter is about springtime, the renewal of nature, and the promise of the summer to come. Well, I bore of that. The only affirmation at Easter that moves me is the bone-jarring, intellect-offending, and mind-blowing assertion that a dead man arose from his grave as he said he would in the days before his death. That's the only kind of Easter worth singing about; it's the only kind of Easter that would inspire me to go to worship. Anything less than that is lame. Or to put it in Flannery O'Connor's words taken from a slightly different religious context, "If it's just a symbol, then the hell with it!" Easter is at the very least about the physical rising of Jesus Christ from death, but certainly nothing less than that. Happy Easter! John Updike's (yes, that John Updike!) poem , "Seven Stanzas at Easter," says it all. Make no mistake: if He rose at all It was as His body; If the cell’s di...