He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said.
Matthew 28:6
Dear members and friends,
The story of Easter is, at its heart, a story about living. In our language, “living” is a versatile word — a noun, an adjective, and a present participle of the verb to live. We use it to describe anything that moves, breathes, and reproduces. Yet, when we endeavor to define what it truly means to be “alive,” we find that biology only tells half the story. The “living” of Easter is not merely about biological survival; it is about the transition into being spiritually alive.
In the Gospel of Matthew, the first Easter morning begins with a “great earthquake.” As Mary Magdalene and the other Mary approached the tomb, an angel with an appearance “like lightning” rolled back the stone and sat upon it. To the women who were trembling in a mix of fear and joy, the angel gave a definitive command: “Do not be afraid… He is not here, for he has been raised.”
This moment is the gateway to hope. It suggests that our real breakthroughs — our “living” solutions — are rarely found within the familiar, habitual circles of our lives. Too often, we search for spiritual cultivation in the same places we have found our old disappointments. The inspiration from the story of Easter is that we tend to look for growth within our comfort zones only to find that the stone has been rolled away by a force greater than ourselves, inviting and guiding us to look elsewhere.
True hope is the courage to acknowledge that our self-created reality is often too small for the life we are meant to lead. We build systems of reality that tell us what is possible or real, often excluding the very spiritual growth we crave and are meant for us. Matthew tells us that as the women ran to tell the disciples, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” (or “Rejoice!”). He met them not in the tomb, but on the way — in the movement toward a new future.
The dead are not those who have passed from this world, but those who remain trapped in the stagnation of the ego and the impossible. Resurrection, then, is the ultimate message of hope. It is the invitation to step out of the self-created tomb of our own limited expectations and to connect with a Divine reality that is moving and reproductive of itself.
This Easter, may we have the ears to hear the angel’s message: do not look for the living among the memories of the dead. May we find the hope to transcend who we are right now, stepping into the vibrant, so-called impossible life that meets us on the road ahead.
Blessings,
Rev. Junchol Lee