Welcome words, these…like cool water after hot work, like lotion on cracked skin, like greeting an old friend. Like chocolate after a lengthy Lenten fast. The wilderness of wild beasts and angels recedes in the rear view mirror (Caution: Objects are closer than they appear). Far behind us, now, the smudge of ash, the Ten Indictments, the mea culpas. Alleluias embargoed, crosses veiled, bleached bones on the altar, the somber silence. In sheer relief (if nothing else), the words burst out like daffodils, like redbuds, like birdsong.

Behind us, too, the master all the time up in their faces, and their scheming and the bag of silver, torches in the garden, heart-stopping fear, Peter’s feathered wake-up call. Wanting to do something, knowing there was nothing to be done. The hitting, the mocking, the nailing, the weeping. Watching him die. Taking him down. The aloes and spices. The heavy stone door. The hiding, the numbness, the despair. One word from the Marys put all that, all that behind us and, now, in awe and wonder, scarcely believing and pinching ourselves, laughing, wanting to dance. Wanting to shout, but daring only to whisper;

Alleluia! Christ is risen! - The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Do you hear what we are saying? An empty tomb? How can this be? He is risen? What do we mean? You could look it up…there are many thick books. But the last sentence always reads the same, in German, English or Greek; “It is not to be explained, but only experienced.”

If our voice is ever to rise above a whisper, ever to be heard beyond these walls, we must speak, not words of explanation but of experience…poetry, not dogma. Offer welcome words like cool water to parched throats. See the signs of the risen one in a fallen world, then dare to point to them; pottery bowls and good soup, habitat homes, vigils for the children, truckloads of bleach. Be not content merely to point to them…multiply them.

Sense that living Presence in times of sorrow, or doubt, or fear, or watching the news. Then find welcome words to share, cool water for thirsty companions on the way.

Go spelunking in dreams. Traffic in symbols of bees and phoenix, eggs and lilies. Speculate wildly on empty tombs and String Theory. It need not be correct, but only true. Draw analogies where you find them; a reconciliation, a child hitting bottom and getting help. Make stuff up (Jesus says it’s OK). Pretend there’s a lion, a witch and a wardrobe, a broken down jockey and his broken down horse, a little church that almost closed…but didn’t, a hurt that was healed, a faith demolished by grief and then restored, piece by piece.

Alleluia! Christ is risen! - The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! Welcome words, indeed.

AMEN