Easter Theses

Holy Week is something to live, to experience, but it can also help us think about God as Trinity in profound ways. So I offer here, at the beginning of Holy Week, a set of Easter Theses.

I. The cross signifies Jesus Christ’s deep faithfulness to us. It is the outcome of Jesus remaining steadfast, loving the entire cosmos even in the face of persecution and torture. The cross does not signify a divine transaction. It does nothing for God. It is a real death, most certainly, God’s Son dead on a cross. But the real death is in the end only confirmation of Christ’s faithfulness itself.

Ia (the corollary of I). This is all to say through the cross nothing happens “in God” but lots happens “in death.” Death is changed. “To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier” (Whitman).

II. The resurrection signifies God’s deep faithfulness to Jesus Christ. It is the outcome of God remaining steadfast, loving the Son even in the face of his betrayal and death. It does nothing for God. It is a real loss for God, the death of God’s own Son, but this real death is in the end opportunity for God to do what God does… creation. In this case, resurrection, new creation on the other side of death.

III. So we see that Christ and the Father are one in their faithfulness. In fact this is one of the great gifts of Easter… in and through the Easter events, we discover Christ’s faithfulness to us and God’s faithfulness to Christ.

IV. The Spirit is the continuing faithfulness of the community of those who now live in Christ, in God. In this way Christ’s faithfulness to us, God’s faithfulness to Christ, is continued in the faithful.

V. Resurrection should not be especially surprising to those who already believe in creation. If God created all that is, resurrection is no more miracle (though certainly miracle) than creation itself. If God can breath into existence all that is, God can breath life back into the dead. Both show us who God is, the one who breathes life.

VI. Resurrection is in this way much more than we suspect it to be. It is not just the resurrection of one man, Jesus the Christ. It is instead the first fruits of creation beyond creation, a hint at the even greater fulness of creation coming about in the continuing creativity of God, given as it is through faithfulness.

VII. So it is given to us to “practice resurrection” (Wendell Berry).

VIII. Practicing resurrection is discipleship: it is a life shaped by Christ’s faithfulness and God’s love, enacted in compassionate solidarity, justice-love, and care for the poor, the oppressed, and the suffering. The triune God’s faithfulness is not only revealed in cosmic events but continues in our tangible, faithful response to the world. To walk the “way” of Jesus is to participate in the ongoing work of resurrection through acts of mercy, justice, and communal care (Siobhán Garrigan).

IX. Discipleship, like resurrection, is learned over time. It is often slow, imperfect, and costly. Yet each act of faithful love, every word of truth, every gesture of care, every stand for justice, participates in the ongoing work of God in the world. To practice resurrection is to join the triune God’s faithful creativity, trusting that small, faithful acts can bear fruit far beyond what we can see.

X. The triune God shows us that hope is relational, not solitary: Father, Son, and Spirit persist in faithful love together, even amid death and betrayal. As Luther insists, hope rests not in what we can secure but in God’s unshakable fidelity. In this, we glimpse a divine dance, not unlike the lila of Hindu thought, where creation, destruction, and joy flow together. To live in hope is to join this wild, faithful, creative life, practicing resurrection in every act of love and justice.