6) Death/Rebirth/Resurrection
Ok, so I've skipped Part 5 because I'm frankly having a hard time with that one. Lots of pent up issues...I don't know why. I've started it several times and it just turns into a tirade that really has no purpose. I'll find the issue and come back to it. So, forward we march....
This part of the Easter story is fairly simple. Christ died, he came back. But of course, it gets more complicated when you dig deeper.
Death is a way of life. Everything begins to die from the moment it starts life. Ideas, feelings, physical life itself, everything dies. But what is left in death's wake? A beginning. For every death there is a new life. In some ways this death is simply nothing more than a life change. I used to get what I would call "end of the world" feelings. I felt like life was about to end, everything was about to cease existence. It terrified me, until I recognized that these feelings came before a big change in my life. Basically, somehow, a part of me knew that the way I knew life was about to end, to die, and in it's place was going to be reborn a new chapter. The feelings are still terrifying, but now that's because I simply don't like change. That's a personal issue, though.
Christ and the Disciples were preparing to celebrate a time of death and rebirth. Passover is the season where the faithful reflect upon the Angel of Death passing over those Moses chose to share the secret with. Those slaves in Egypt so long ago marked their door with the blood of a sacrificial animal so that death would pass them over and spare their first born. So here at this time of reflection and celebration of God's mercy in sparing His people, death was about to claim a first born son. The first born Son of God, and the first born Son of Man. Not to sound heartless, but that was just too fitting. God's symmetry amazes me sometimes.
But not only was Jesus' death that of a first born, it was the death of a teacher, a leader, a friend, a force. To those who were with him, at first, it would also seem like the death of a movement, a hope, a dream. I cannot know exactly what that would feel like on such a scale, but I've known loss. Either of a loved one or a place of safety and warmth. I know what it's like to stand in that void of darkness, absolute darkness, and have no concept of what light is. You cannot see that there will ever be an end to this night. I don't even know how many times I would have to magnify that feeling to understand what Mary, Joseph or the Disciples were going through. Or even the people whose lives' Jesus touched. Lazarus, Zacchaeus, Mary Magdelene, and scores of other lepers, gentiles, Jews, women, children, etc. did those who were not there hear of the miracles later? Did they feel that death spread through their limbs like the chills we get and jokingly say "it's someone walking across your grave." ?
The Angel of Death did not spare this first born, covered in the blood of sacrifice, it came and snatched the life right out of that body and out of the souls of those that being inside the body had touched. I imagine the stillness of that death sitting on them. Unable to officially mourn their dead because of the sacred holiday, did they reflect on how perfectly that message tied into what they were all a part of now? The slaves in Egypt were led out by Moses shortly after the Angel passed and on that journey they were given a covenant with God. Ten rules to govern themselves with. They were reborn into a people under one God, The God, and would be set apart from the rest. Did they sense that history was about to repeat itself in a far grander way?
Was it the same Angel that sat on the stone? Had he held onto that soul, more precious than any treasure in the world, until it was time to return it? But if it was a part of God, then how could any being touch it and live? Was this a new Angel reborn? No longer to tell us of the death that stole over God's people, but one of life to tell us that death had been conquered, and that now it was an Angel of Life? No body in that tomb, no first born son lying and waiting for the weeping to begin. As the women ran to tell the news, as the Disciples saw their teacher again, did they know they were part of a new covenant with God?
One sacrifice to end all sacrifices. Now there was but one commandment to stand in the stead of the other ten. "Love each other as I have loved you." And unlike Moses, this time the ascension of God's chosen to Heaven was witnessed so that the new covenant could be sealed. No more was their a 'chosen people' there was simply people. In those days and moments, we were all reborn and resurrected back to the God who created us. There was no more separation, no more exile, no more 'us' and 'them'. There was, and is simply 'all.'
Our souls can go through many deaths and rebirths, the earth rotates on it's axis and dies and is resurrected over and over again. There have been times of great darkness and the world was reborn with a new light to shine upon the future. Great men have led causes, died, and those causes have been remade for those carrying on. Ideas, thoughts and lessons have been burned, ripped apart or erased only to be replaced with newly hatched concepts to fill the void. Life is nothing more than birth, death and birth. But it is the death of what we were and our rebirth in what Christ made us that breaks the cycle and conquers the pattern.
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