By Rev. Katy McCallum Sachse | FāVS News Columnist
The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News.
“So the women left the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples.” (Matthew 28:8)
I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve read the resurrection story. Twenty-six Easters of preaching is a place to start, but as Christians, we return to this mystery time and time again.
What would it have been like, that first morning, to see your executed friend in the flesh? To hear your name called by someone you had watched die, seen buried, just a few days before? What does it mean for us, 2,000 years of distance away, to worship a God who refuses to let death have the last word?
And the eternal question of the preacher: what new thing can I say this year?
“The women left the tomb with fear and great joy.” Fear and great joy. What’s that like? Can you feel them at the same time?
Fear, deep anxiety, complete confusion – and joy, the lightness of hope and possibility you had never imagined. Not one or the other: both. Fear and great joy. Loss and hope. Death and life. Easter as God’s great, “and.”
The tyranny of “or”
So much of life is fueled by the tyranny of “or.” Right or wrong. Left or right. Pass or fail; immigrant or citizen; male or female; young or old; faith or doubt.
As if you can only have one or the other, not both, and not something utterly new because both are present. We live with binaries of all kinds, forced to choose one thing over another, when the truth is that most of us experience all kinds of in-betweens. All kinds of “ands” for which faith has not always made enough room.
If resurrection is God’s great “and,” then there is room for newness of all kinds. We can have fear and great joy: Think of yourself at the top of a roller coaster, both terrified and delighted by what is about to happen. We can know both death and life: The fullness of life as you might find it in a chemo room, or a hospice center, or holding a loved one’s hand in their final days.
God is present in both faith and doubt, both questions and certainties, both passionate conviction and the complete unknown.
There is hope not just in a destination, but in a journey; there is beauty not just in what is perfect, but what is messy. There is courage in recognizing that separating ourselves on opposite sides of the “or” can only hurt us all.
The holiness of dawn
Should you suspect that I am making too much of one small word (another temptation for every preacher), consider, too, that Easter arrives not in the complete darkness of the night nor the fullness of the morning, but at dawn.
Not night or day, but sunrise; not dark or light, but the beauty of the in-between. That orange-pink-bright-dark-sun-moon moment unlike anything else in the hours yet to come.
Inviting us to consider the holiness of “and.”
FāVS News uses professional journalists and thoughtful commentary to explore faith, values and ethics. Support journalism like this by making a tax-deductible donation. FāVS is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. © FāVS News. All rights reserved. Reproduction permitted only to authorized media partners or with written permission.
Thank you for this thoughtful commentary on the importance of “and” rather than “or”…another important link is between doubt and faith, at least for me.
This is such an important topic you wrote about. Thank you! Why? Because many beautiful, loving, worthwhile relationships are crushed and not resurrected because people refuse to live in some grey of everyday living and to embrace that as life-giving. The “and” implies possibility of much and inclusivity and “or” segmentizes, divides. My personal reflection only, here. Just what I’ve experienced. Change involves much “and”–I also have contemplated this Biblical “fear and joy” phrase this Easter season. Fascinating! I determined at this very moment–I have both fear and joy which I never would have expected in my personal circumstances coexisting equally in an odd harmony.