Which Side of Easter? by Kim Reisman

Scripture Focus:

Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.

Matthew 27:27-31 (NIV)

A dear friend of ours always comes to my mind around this time of year. Almost 20 years ago during Holy Week, we received some discouraging news. This friend, whose friendship with my husband and me had stretched almost 30 years, had experienced heart irregularities and the ensuing medical crisis revealed that the cancer he had been battling for several years had returned in the form of a tumor in his heart. Being married to a physician, I had heard about all kinds of strange tumors, but never inside the heart. Cancer is scary enough, but a tumor inside your heart – that ratcheted things up considerably.

Each year, I remember receiving that bad news and I reflect on my friend and all that he meant to me and my husband. That reflection always leads me to a powerful truth: Holy Week is all about power – the powers of this world standing violently over and against the astonishing vulnerability of Jesus. Easter is about power too. But perspective is everything. The world’s perspective is a lot different than God’s perspective. The perspective of Good Friday evening is a lot different than the perspective of Easter Sunday morning. Good Friday is about death. Jesus really did die. But Easter Sunday is about life. Jesus really does live.

Easter Sunday is about the deeper reality of power. The reality of power manifest in the resurrection is that what looked like a failure on Friday is shown to be a victory on Sunday. The reality manifest in the resurrection is that truly liberating power comes only through a noncoercive kind of weakness, a power that shows itself in vulnerability, a power that lives by dying.

The deeper reality of resurrection power is the fact that you can’t experience Easter delight without also experiencing Good Friday despair. It’s a mystery. It’s a paradox. But it’s a reality. For Christ followers our joy is tied to our suffering; our strength to our weakness; our resilience to our vulnerability, our power to our humility and service.

My experience with my friend always brings me back to what matters most: the power of the resurrection is that we claim the joy and hope of Easter even as we’re experiencing the heartbreak and hopelessness of Good Friday. We claim it because as Christ followers we live always on this side of Easter. On the other side of Easter, Good Friday looks like the end. On this side of Easter, we know it’s not. We may experience Good Fridays, but we know that Sunday’s coming.

A few years after we graduated from college, my friend had a transformative experience of the Holy Spirit of Jesus and decided to begin deliberately living his life on this side of Easter. The resurrection power that changed him all those years ago was still at work, even as he suffered through his Good Friday. The resurrection power that changed him was still at work, even as it moved him from death to life.

My Holy Week ritual of remembering my friend keeps me firmly planted on this side of Easter, claiming that same resurrection power. And yet, our world remains in the midst of one long, painful Good Friday. That makes me immensely sad; heartbroken really. But I’m realizing that it’s a peaceful kind of sad, even a hopeful kind of sad. Is that possible? Hope in the midst of sadness? In the midst of heartbreak? Maybe this is what people mean when they talk about assurance – the deep knowledge that Sunday is indeed coming.