In this Easter message, Pastor Eric concludes our Lenten sermon series exploring how to live an integrated and whole life beyond simplistic binaries and dichotomies by reflecting on grief AND hope.With this reframing, we realize that the first Easter began not with joy, but grief; not with hope, but despair. In fact, it was only in moving toward the site of their grief--Jesus's tomb--that they were able to move toward hope.Rather than simply being about believing historical facts about an event 2,000 years ago, the Easter proclamation of resurrection is a radical assertion that the religious and political forces of death that sought to silence, humiliate, torture, and disappear Jesus do not--WILL NOT--have the last word. Life does. Now as then--hope is not mere wishful thinking or staying positive. It is a force that compels us to move beyond the shadow of fear and guilt and shame, move toward our grief, with the promise that Life will always rise from the ashes--even when and where it feels impossible.
