No partial resurrections

An Easter reflection

On this Easter, I have a confession: I sometimes I want to focus on the Christ that lives within us, a Christ that operates here and now and embodied in us, because I struggle with ideas around the afterlife.

A cynic has always dwelled within me. When I felt burned by the Church and left Christianity, this cynic protected me from delusional hope. I never wanted to be a naive idealist again, nor do I now.

This means that so often I desperately need this resurrection story to not be a debated historical event about Jesus or something that happens to us later, or only to our bodies. I need this Gospel to matter more than just preserving my starring role in the movie of my life. And so, in those biggest moments of doubt around what “really happened” or what’s going to, I focus on a Christ of the interior.

But this means my faith in Christ’s power in the here and now sometimes limits my faith in his power in eternity. Yes, like most Christians, even my faith can confine my belief in Christ.

Many times I’ve wondered: can it really be true that Christ can resurrect all souls—all souls that have been, all souls that are, all souls that will be—can it really be true that all souls will be reconciled into unity with God?

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Like most everyone, I have lost many people over the years, people that I loved and that loved me.

Someone told me that losing a person you love is hard because it’s not just the death of that person, but the death of possibilities. And so when we mourn them, we are in part mourning a future that can no longer be.

I also think it’s the death of a particular kind of love that we could only know through that person. A particular flavor of love, opened through a particular dynamic of love that can never be replicated. A style of love unique to the two of you.

Not only was it unique for you to experience that kind of love from them and through them, you were also the key for them to experience that style of love through you. So the grief is not only about losing a love not received, but losing a love given. Someone goes, and with them, the hidden parts of ourselves that were discovered and given life through the shared transmission of love.

While all love is a unique expression of love, in my faith all love is Christ’s love in some way. So to me, the celebration of Christ’s resurrection on Easter is in part a celebration and an affirmation of the belief that all these parts of ourselves, known through the past lives of others in our midst, will be restored.

As the psalmist says in classic #23, “He restores my soul.” This is not a half-measure. The psalmist isn’t like, “Well, God restores about 70% of my soul, and if I keep working at it—” No, he restores all of us.

So when we remember and mourn those who are no longer here, I invite us to also remember the parts of ourselves that feel like they died along with them. The exiled lost sheep within us who cannot hear their shepherd anymore.

That old hopeless cynic of mine still struggles with this. But when I’m quiet enough, I know my cynicism can be just as naive—even more naive—than idealism.

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In the midst of mourning of all the things and people we’ve lost beyond our control and our choice, Easter is the celebration of the completion of the cycle of death Christ chose. The death that told us all death is wedded to all life—it always has been, and it always will.

And today I do truly believe, friends, that the parts of ourselves that died along with the love we once knew can be resurrected. We can be restored.

Whether we lost an experience of loyalty, sacrifice, generosity, trust, or something else, I believe all these things can be resurrected through Christ. Here and now, today, even right now. I believe that we can still be each other’s key into the love of Christ, and it will be a different flavor than the love we lost, but it’s the same ice cream. I believe we can do this when we commune with the Christ within us, which allows us to see the Christ in all creation in one present, ever-flowing moment. I believe that is the dynamic of all true love whether we call it that or not.

But today, I also believe that Christ is more than a Christ of our interior, and more than a Christ of the now.

Today my faith is that if it can happen here and now, in my body in this place, then it can happen after my body and mind are aware of it.

And if it can happen after my time, it can happen before my time.

And if it’s available to me, it’s gotta be available to everyone.

And I can hear the cynical disciple in me asking, “Really, eternal life?” And Christ saying, “Yeah, eternal means eternal.”

Because why should a little thing like time stop the love of Christ?

I believe that through Christ, there are no partial resurrections—it’s all of us, and it’s all of all of us.

And we can be resurrected not only later, but here and now...and not only here and now, but forever.