Tish Harrison Warren’s most recent piece on Easter for Christianity Today dropped after I had recorded my Easter “message” for school, but I was glad to see it when it came time to put together the reflective follow-up piece.  In the article, Warren makes the point that Easter is Easter regardless of how much we “make of it.”  She’s writing this, of course, as Christians around the world, most of them used to planning all kinds of things for the holiday, are now doing the celebrating at home.  The part that I adapted for the reflective follow-up piece:

I am a Christian today not because it answers all my questions about the world or about our current suffering. It does not. And not because I think it is a nice, coherent moral order by which to live my life. And not because I grew up this way or have fond feelings about felt boards and hymn sings. And not because it motivates justice or helps me to know how to vote. I am a Christian because I believe in the Resurrection. If it isn’t true, to hell with it.

On the other hand, if Jesus did in fact come back from the dead on a quiet Sunday morning some 2,000 years ago, then everything is changed—our beliefs, our ethics, our politics, our time, our relationships. If it is true, then the resurrection of Jesus is the most determinative fact of the universe, the center point of history. The Resurrection is ultimately truer and more lasting than death or destruction, violence or viruses. It’s truer, too, than our celebration of it, however beautiful, however meager.

You can read the whole piece here.