a post-Easter encouragement by Jeff Fisher
It was the first week the pandemic had hit Seattle in earnest and I was on a mission: find toilet paper. We had five rolls left at home, a comfortable enough buffer for a family of four, but certainly time to restock. I’d heard the rumors, but I still didn’t believe them to be true. Of course, I could find I was looking for. I piled the kids into the car and headed out.
Oh, how naïve I was. How very, very naïve. The household cleaning and paper products aisle of Safeway had a couple rolls of off-brand paper towels, but was otherwise bare. I half expected a tumble weed to roll past as a guitar plucked mournfully in the background. Target was the same. And Fred Meyer. And another Safeway. And Walgreens. Bartell Drug. Safeway again.
With each store my panic level slowly inched higher and pushed me ever closer toward the brink of insanity. “Ugh, they don’t have it here EITHER?” Everett sighed, his voice heavy with exasperation. No son, they don’t. They don’t have it anywhere. This is our life now: to wander this wasteland snatching up what little resources are left before the next guy does. Between the two of us Amy and I visited FIFTEEN stores in two days, none of which had a single shred of TP. I finally found some the morning of day three, when I got a tip from a friendly Target employee and waited in line for the store to open at 6:30am. I was euphoric, and there is no hyperbole in that statement.
Whatever else they do, times like these melt away the decorum we constantly adorn ourselves with and reveal the truth of who we are underneath. Hopefully they reveal something good: kindness, generosity, a genuine interest in the wellbeing of our neighbors. At times they reveal a darkness in us marked by selfishness, behaviors like hoarding, and the sheer panic that leads us to stand in line at 6:30am for toilet paper.
It seems fitting that Lent started right about the same time the coronavirus pandemic was redefining normal for us all over the country, that we were being asked to refocus on God and repent of our selfishness during the time when we were most tempted to revert to it. Rarely if ever do we have the chance to see the two paradigms available for us to live out presented in such vivid contrast: that of sin and that of Christ. Paul presents them so clearly in 1 Corinthians 15:20-22:
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came from a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.
The sinful, selfish nature within us longs to follow in Adam’s footsteps. It tempts us to hoard the forbidden fruit (whatever form it may take) and to trust our own scheming over the generous God who loves us but at times may feel absent in the quiet of the garden.
But Paul is telling us that post-Easter Adam’s story is no longer our story. Jesus’ story is. While the resurrection of Jesus was indeed a miracle it is just the first of many to come. We are no longer living in the darkness of sin, but invited to participate in the resurrection into life that comes through Christ. This is our paradigm, this is our example to follow now. Or as Charles Wesley so elegantly put it, “made like Him, like Him we rise.”
I have seen so many examples of people doing that these past several weeks. In the church, in my neighborhood, even on the internet. As we continue to swim in these troubled waters and even once we make our way finally to the other side, I encourage you to keep living the life of Christ. Keep loving, keep trusting, and as we were encouraged to do in the Easter message last Sunday, keep “practicing resurrection”.
“But Paul is telling us that post-Easter Adam’s story is no longer our story. Jesus’ story is. While the resurrection of Jesus was indeed a miracle it is just the first of many to come. We are no longer living in the darkness of sin, but invited to participate in the resurrection into life that comes through Christ.”