I Thought I Knew
Easter, April 9, 2023
You have likely heard the line, vastly misattributed to Mark Twain, that ‘the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.’ (Mr. Twain is quoting someone else.) Is not the fairest statement. Yes, many days in the summer in San Fran can be below 70 and intensely foggy, But I never found them to be anything as terrible as actual winter, well, here. I lived in the Bay Area in seminary (and I keep following their baseball teams). And twice I led youth on urban mission trips there. Both times we managed to have mostly outrageously gorgeous weather for summer., So much so that the young persons were convinced that my insistence on sweaters was a ruse. The last time our digs were at a retreat center on the trolley line that ended at Ocean Beach. San Francisco has a beach if you didn’t know that. That neighborhood is one where it can be so constantly foggy that parents organize trips a half mile inland just so the children can get some vitamin D processed. I was sure I knew what we would find. I enlisted locals to back up my claims. Still each day when we got on the trolley titled Ocean Beach they asked to go. Finally, I relented. I thought, I’ll show them. They seem to have trusted my doubts enough that no one even brought a towel. There are plenty of people who still don’t believe it, but that afternoon was two hours of sunny and warm. The water wasn’t even as cold as it should have been for that Alaskan current. They threw themselves in. Each and every one, for hours Soaked to the core and covered in sand in their t-shirts and jeans.
Easter is a surprise wave crashing over you, knocking you down, filling your lungs with laughter and salt and confusion. Easter is the very waters of creation breaking over the heart that was lost and dried up. Jesus was dead. Buried in the tomb. And is he alive, Alleluia! Not a ghost or a phantasm but truly resurrected, wounds and all. Why do we domesticate and disn-ify the extraordinary wildness of the resurrection? People believe much more ridiculous things every day. Do we sugarcoat it because we don’t want to get our clothes wet? Why do we turn an ocean of amazement into a chlorinated lazy river? It is because the love of God bursting from the tomb like this washes away the enslavements and falsehoods that we have come to love more than God? Is it perhaps because the infinite compassion and mercy displayed are simply too different from our expectations? The Resurrection of Jesus, his being fully alive and present comes from the love that is eternal and beyond ourselves. This beautiful crashing wave of surprise is wildness itself, the wild power and transcendence of God that is joy and compassion and uncontainable truth. These crashing waves are glorious and they are dangerous, Part of what makes them thrilling is that they are both.
This resurrection of Jesus is drenched with the love of God that sustains life, connects all who truly follow him, and is an embrace that is deeper and broader and full of more holiness than we can begin to comprehend from any place of safety. If you come here because you love a good Easter dress up – I wonder if that is just a sign on a trolley line inviting you to enter the waves of authentic deep holiness – and I am glad you are here. If you come here in the foggy wilderness of confusion and heartache in a strange time – if you have come here to the empty tomb looking to be held and heard – God loves you – I am glad you are here. This Easter may we feel in our whole selves that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead Is a new creation, a way where there seemed to be no way. A new eon is crashing on our shores – are we going to jump in or stay home?
There are plenty of people who don’t believe that a sunny July afternoon at Ocean Beach happened. People who say my pictures are from somewhere else some other time. The very next day was as chilly and foggy as it could have been. The core impulses of doubt and delight that are the new creation of Easter all flow through the memory of that day. The same sacred thrill returns as water courses through my fingers at baptism. It reminds me that I don’t always know what I think I know. It calls to me of the glorious merciful beautiful joy and delight that is more powerful than doubt and despair and even rejection. I hope you have a day like that one, a vivid Alleluia breaking into your soul with the wild presence of God, the life-giving love of Jesus, and the surprising wave of the Spirit. Alleluia!