Letting in the reality of Easter

The older I get, the less preoccupied I am with what any aspect of Jesus' time on Earth "means." One can impose layer upon layer of "meaning" onto the virgin birth, the various miracles, the parables, and, of course, the event we commemorate this morning.

But the first step is to let them in as historical fact. When you look at the chair across the room, or the coffee cup on your desk, your first thought is generally not what it means. You just let it in. Observe it. Acknowledge it.

So it is with Jesus of Nazareth rising from the dead.

And soon afterward, there he was, the only begotten son of the creator of all that has ever existed and is ever going to exist, cooking some fish over a fire on the shore, asking his buddies as their boat came in, "You guys hungry? I have some breakfast going."

You start to see that this man is a proper object of worship. He's not a stained-glass icon. He's a breathing, walking, fish-cooking guy, and we are to fall at his feet and call him Lord.

Then some questions about what it means start to arise. The more steady our gaze, the more we yearn to be spotless in his presence. He understands that.

I know I also feel inclined to express gratitude. Exactly what I mean by that is something that forms organically in my thought processes. I just know that this whole thing called reality has a new kind of significance glimpses of which become more frequent.

It's big. Real big.

It's the central fact of all human existence.