Newspaper Columns by Bishop Paul V. Marshall
What Should Die so New Life can Happen?
By Bishop Paul V. Marshall
March 2002I once told a colleague that I was going to include in a sermon a reflection on Woody Allen's line, written in his thirties, "My one regret in life is that I am not somebody else."
My colleague in his late sixties replied, "At my age, I'm amazed to think of all the different people I have been."
We may not all think of ourselves as centered in religion or spirituality. I suspect, however, that most of us have experienced dying and rising more than once in our lives.
Christians celebrate this reality in the religious context of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We celebrate the paschal or Easter mystery and our mysterious immersion in it during an integral three-day celebration of the Lord's Supper (his Maundy Thursday bonding and leave-taking with his friends) his passion and death (Good Friday), and his resurrection (the Great Vigil of Easter).
We celebrate our immersion and transformation in Christ: the possibility of our own passage from bondage to freedom, from selfishness to self-giving, through death to resurrection. We celebrate the life, dying and new life of Jesus Christ as both the pattern and the substance of life.
This pattern of dying-rising-transformation is meant to shape and direct persons and institutions.
We recall also, if I may, the words inscribed on the stone that blocked Jesus' tomb: "We've never done it that way before." We know that stone. It keeps us fearful.
What about my life should die so new life can happen? What should die about this place where I worship or work so new life can happen? These are among the questions we ask as we celebrate this great mystery of our faith and life.
Where is God calling individuals and groups to walk the mysterious path to joy today, calling persons or communities to roll away that heavily-inscribed stone and engage Life? That is the Easter mystery.
The idea that God is with us as God was with Jesus as we break free and pass from one mode of being to another is as old as the Exodus and gives us courage to take the first step to freedom.
What compels me about this mystery is the new reality God offers. It is the reality Woody Allen sought, that we only really live when we do as Jesus did, loving consistently, fully and actively.
It means that the only path to overcoming estrangement and sin is to die on the cross: letting ourselves actually feel the hurts we are tempted to deny or resent or be enraged about - and, surviving that pain, find ourselves able to love freely and find ourselves growing in union with God.
The God who did not abandon Jesus in death gives new and greater life to those who face life's issues head-on.
You may know that Puccini never finished the opera, Turandot. When he died in 1924, friends reverently finished it from his notes.
Arturo Toscanini conducted its premiere at La Scala in 1926. When he came to the last passage Puccini had written, Toscanini put his baton down, turned to the audience, and, through tears, said: "This is where the master ends."
Then he raised the baton, and said: "This is where the friends continue."
Easter is a springboard into God's future. We have the notes. In fact, we have the risen master with us. May we his friends in our jobs, homes, and even in our churches continue the story.
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