We Are An Easter People

The opening line of T.S. Eliot’s masterful poem, “The Waste Land,” reads: “April is the cruelest month…” For me and for my Easter Season reflections, Eliot so describes the fourth month as such because throughout nature, things are dying to be born. The knuckled bud on the branch is dying to bloom and then blossom. The bulbs planted in the Fall are striving to break the earth’s crust in order to be birthed.

Nature reflects human nature. Sit for a cycle of seasons in your own back yard and watch the story of the human journey played out on a tree. The green turns gold, then brown and falls. The gray neutral hue of Winter anticipates the re-birth of color as the next season springs forth.
We are an Easter People. We know that the heart beat and breath drawn of the Body of Christ is, life-death-new life; beginnings-ends-new beginnings; creation-destruction-recreation. That is the beat of the Christian drum: Christmas-Good Friday-Easter.
The Easter Season reminds us of the archetype of re-birth. There are no deaths that the Divine Love cannot overcome. The bad news is never the last news. That is the Good News. Resurrection is not resuscitation. We are not brought back to life, but called to a new life.
Hope is the rope we hold on to, as we are called forward. Hope is not wishful thinking, but a conviction based on experience. The experience of the Easter People is that we can begin again at any time. Further, our sacred story reminds us that there are no God forsaken places and no God forsaken people. If Judas would have waited three days perhaps the Basilica in Rome would be St Judas’ rather than St. Peter’s. Betrayal was no worse than denial.
Easter Season reminds us that we not need be desperate, if we wait with hope, we know as Dame Julian of Norwich reminds us,”All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
The Very Rev. J.Pittman McGehee, D.D. is the former Dean of Christ Church Cathedral in Houston and currently a Diplomate Jungian Analyst in private practice in Austin. He is also adjunct faculty at the Wessendorf Center at the Seminary of the Southwest. He is the author of five books and frequent lecturer in the field of psychology and spirituality.