We Rise Again

By Rev. Janice Meighan, for CSMC, Easter 2022

All four Christian New Testament Gospels report that it is the women who are the first witnesses and messengers to the risen Christ. They are the first apostles.

Sunrise behind cross Specifically, the Gospels tell us that in the early morning on the third day, it is Mary Magdalene, along with “the other Mary,” in Matthew’s account, “Mary the mother of James and Salome,” in Mark’s account, “Joanna and Mary the mother of James, and other women,” in Luke’s account, and only Mary Magdalene in John’s account, who go to the tomb. Mary Magdalene and the women have come to anoint his body with spices and oils. The scene is dramatic. When they arrive, they find the stone at the tomb has been rolled away. Jesus is missing. Mary Magdalene weeps and is confused. Where has he gone?

Mary Magdalene and the other women are then visited by an angel in a translucent white robe. The crucified one they seek is not there – he has risen. Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene first in a form she does not recognize until he addresses her. She is utterly amazed. Mary Magdalene, and the other women, are then told to take the message to Peter and the other disciples that Jesus of Nazareth, the one who was crucified, has risen, and has gone to Galilee where they will find him.

Mary Magdalene, the apostle to the apostles, goes and tells Peter and the disciples all that she has seen. They do not believe her. Would you?

What does it mean to be resurrected?

Do you believe that resurrection is possible?

What form does resurrection take? Physical, spiritual, pure energy, emotional, psychological, any of these or all?

Have there been moments of resurrection in your own life, along your own sacred journey? If you told another about it, were you believed? Perhaps you witnessed a resurrection in others?

Many people proclaim a “spiritual not religious” identity. If this is you, do you believe that springtime or places on the planet that regenerate are nature’s way of also teaching us about resurrection?

The global pandemic continues. It has taken much from many. As of March 12, 2022, the WHO reports that over six million people have left the planet from the Coronavirus alone. And there are many who have died from other illnesses, famine, accidents, suicides, other tragedies, and we witness this continuation with the outbreak of war against Ukraine. Dramatic stories appear minute by minute on our social media feeds, online, and on TV news. There is more death, shock, and despair than perhaps we have the bandwidth to take in.

The deaths all seem senseless and even preventable, dare we say, as was Jesus’s.

So, how can this annual ritual of Easter resurrection speak to each one of us – in our own hearts and souls in the midst of the world we are living in? And how do we go on without those we have loved and cared about? What if we haven’t physically lost someone in the last year, but perhaps it was a job, a home, a dream, or some piece of ourselves and are anxious about how we can possibly go on?

We are invited once again, this Easter, to pause, breathe deeply; to look to nature’s cycles, as well as to the women in this story. Each points the way forward. Whether we or our loved ones are on this side of the veil or the other, we and they, like Jesus, can rise again.

We are invited each day to bear witness to the challenges as well as the good; to see what is real, true, and taking place around us and within ourselves. And in moments of fear or being overwhelmed, we have the opportunity to turn to our friends and others for help and support. In small moments throughout our daily lives, we have a chance to be the eyes of love, compassion, and kindness for another (or ourselves when we look in the mirror) who won’t turn away. We are invited to be the ones who will stand at the foot of someone else’s cross and not run, and then to be a messenger for wherever God’s light and love are needed in the world. And in doing so we make manifest the resurrection.

Back in April 2020, during the early days of the pandemic, The Choir of Women Physicians | Voices Rock Canada posted a video singing, We Rise Again. Many artists have recorded this song over the decades. However, this version is incredibly powerful. And so, this Easter, you are invited to engage your sense of deep listening and hear this version of We Rise Again in the knowledge that these women’s voices and witness, like ours, continue to be needed today. These women are messengers for resurrection; they are apostles this day, and so are we.

We Rise Again – written by Cape Breton’s Leon Dubinsky (1985); (lyrics in the public domain)

When the waves roll on over the waters
And the ocean cries.
We look to our sons and daughters
To explain our lives
As if a child could tell us why.

That as sure as the sunrise
As sure as the sea
As sure as the wind in the trees.

We rise again in the faces of our children.
We rise again in the voices of our song.
We rise again in the waves out on the ocean,
And then we rise again.

When the light goes dark with the forces of creation
Across a stormy sky.
We look to reincarnation to explain our lives.
As if a child could tell us why.

That as sure as the sunrise
As sure as the sea
As sure as the wind in the trees.

We rise again in the faces of our children.
We rise again in the voices of our song.
We rise again in the waves out on the ocean,
And then we rise again.

And then we rise again.

Easter Blessings and Be Well.