The church still knows. . . Resurrection

We know how to recognize endings. 

​Relationships that look done. People we've written off. Churches everyone assumes are dying. Parts of ourselves we've buried and stopped mentioning.

We're trained to spot finality. To call it. To move on. 

What we're not good at is recognizing what isn't actually over. 

The world calls it finished. The Church has learned to hesitate before using that word.

Resurrection doesn't always look like a stone rolled away. Sometimes it looks quieter than that. 

Sometimes it's a relationship that softened after years of silence. A conversation that finally happened. Words that were said that needed saying. 

Sometimes it's someone who came back to faith, to family, to themselves after everyone assumed they were gone for good. 

Sometimes it's breath after grief. Not the absence of sorrow, but the return of something you thought grief had taken permanently. Laughter, Hope. The ability to imagine a future again. 

Sometimes it's something small refusing to die. A church that keeps gathering even when the building's half empty. A person who found themselves again after years of just going through the motions. A hope you thought you'd lost. 

Resurrection isn't always dramatic. Sometimes it's just stubborn. 

The Church has always known this. We've practices the pattern for two thousand years. 

We learned to be silent because sometimes things need to die before they can live again. We learned to lament because what's lost matters, and resurrection doesn't ease grief. We learned to confess because truth clears the ground. We learned to wait because resurrection takes time, sometimes years, sometimes generation. We learned to celebrate joy because we've seen the tomb emptied and death fail to keep what it claimed. 

We know resurrection not because we read about it, but because we've lived through everything that comes before it. The dying. The waiting. The not knowing. The moment when breath returns. 

We don't manufacture resurrection. We can't force it or schedule it or make it happen on our timeline. 

We witness it. We wait for it. Sometimes we're surprised by it. 

And because of that, we are slower to give up than the world around us. We hesitate to call things finished. We keep showing up to places others have abandoned. We keep speaking to people others have stopped talking to. 

Not because we're optimistic. But because we've seen too many un-endings to be certain about any ending. 

The Church still knows this. And we're still here, still witnessing, still waiting for what looks dead to breathe again. 

Peace,
Travis Segar
Pastor for Care and Community

Image: "The Sower" by Vincent van Gogh