Resurrection Hope

By Rev. Dr. Trisha Miller Manarin

Holding resurrection hope for one another is a radical act of leadership. While the resurrection is considered a fairytale to some, the leader is challenged to frame and reframe the life-giving, audacious notion of life amid despair — the hope of resurrection. Unfortunately, the limitation of our English language often misrepresents the hope of which I write. We offhandedly hope the weather will be nice for the ball game, hope the restaurant has our favorite entrée, hope there is still milk in the fridge or hope for things that bring us pleasure. “Hope springs eternal!” is declared when the outcome is most likely not that which is hoped for.

Hope — resurrection hope — is vastly different from these flippant desires. I’m all for hoping for a good meal, but I wish our language was a bit more nuanced so I could speak of resurrection hope and you would grasp the gravitas from which I speak or the desire from which I declare.

Resurrection hope declares God’s faithfulness in the presence of death, for God is always doing a new thing. God is not a once-and-done creator who forgets about His creation. From Genesis to the Book of Revelation, we read how God desires to come and be with us, as the British New Testament scholar N.T. Wright reflects so frequently. This is a hope that’s always at work. Leaders, along with all followers of Christ, must strive to carry this hope wherever they go. Leadership that demonstrated this kind of hope is not “large and in charge” or commanding and strategizing in a vacuum. It is open and honest in the struggles of life while simultaneously looking to the future as a result of the life that comes through death. In A Gospel of Hope, author Walter Brueggmann defines it this way: Resurrection of the dead is God’s capacity to take a circumstance of complete shutdown and hopelessness and make something new from it.

Easter is the parade example of God’s readiness for newness that the world knows as inexplicable miracle.

Resurrection hope shatters the finality of death while acknowledging the necessity of dying for new life to burst forth. It is not a pie-in-the-sky notion that comes from a sappy song or an Easter basket. It is a daily act of surrender and receiving that involves the despair of the Via Dolorosa, the pain of Calvary and the anxious waiting of Holy Saturday. Glossing over the trials and struggles of the Paschal Triduum (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday) leads to a cheap resurrection and undermines the power of living into the newness of life.

“Struggle forces us to confront our illusions both about the world and ourselves,” writes Joan D. Chittister in Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope. “It requires us not simply to seek hope but to become hope ourselves.”

The embodiment of hope sustains not only the person but those in whom they invest. It requires engaging in life honestly — living truthfully into one’s identity as God has called and shaped each person. Leaders must not only work out their salvation in solitude, but must also engage in this process in solidarity with others. It also requires a level of vulnerability that’s foreign to many leadership approaches and can be dangerous if not handled with the utmost sacred trust and mutuality.

We are created to live life together. From the very beginning of creation, God created the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea in pairs. Scripture is filled with stories of togetherness, including Aaron and Hur literally helping to hold Moses’s worn-out arms, Deborah and Barak going together into battle, Mary and Elizabeth shared pregnancy tips, and the man without mobility being lowered through the roof by his friends to be healed by Jesus.

The best leaders do not lead from a pedestal (dare I say from a pulpit) alone or solo. They join with others so that collectively they may see more clearly, increase their strength and prepare more fully. The gifts of each person (leader and follower) are necessary for the development of the whole.

Chittister points out that an individual’s “limitations make space for the gifts of other people.” As leaders, we must reinvent and reshape structures that once were sustained by society but simply are no longer viable in the church. We must do all of this while telling and living out the old, old story of “Jesus and his love” — the hope of resurrection insists on both.

Marjory Bankson in The Call of the Soul shares the story of a widow from Iowa who “gardens to tend her soul ‘because it reminds me that I belong to forever.’” As we hold the hope of resurrection, we remind people of their belonging to all that has been and all that will be. Through the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection, we are intrinsically connected to our ancestors and to those who have yet to be born.

Every Sunday, we gather for worship in a mini-Easter celebration, declaring the resurrection. Every time we celebrate the risen Christ, we are radically embracing the hope of resurrection. It is not simply a wish for some time to come, but the hope — sacred and holy, binding us to one another throughout all time considering God’s story into which we are woven.

Leadership is holding this hope of resurrection for others and inviting them to hold it for us. While holding the hope, we acknowledge life’s challenges, struggles, pain, and our eventual death. Never offering pat answers or trite saying that are not even in the Bible, like “God needed another angel,” leaders are called to hold the sorrow amid the resurrection. Perhaps that is what makes a leader radical: on a day as horrific as Good Friday, the leader mourns and weeps, but knows, as Pastor S. M. Lockridge preached, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!”

Leadership can be isolating, and the leader can feel disconnected from others while living into the call of Christ. In the loneliness, the weight of sacredly holding others’ burdens and pain, along with our own, can be discouraging. Henri Nouwen put it this way in the Daily Meditation on March 18, 2023:

I really want to encourage you not to despair, not to lose faith, not to let go of God in your life, but stand in your suffering as a person who believes that she is deeply loved by God. When you look inside yourself, you might sometimes be overwhelmed by all the brokenness and confusion, but when you look outside toward him who died on the cross for you, you might suddenly realize that your brokenness has been lived through for you long before you touched it yourself.

Suffering is a period in your life in which true faith can emerge, a naked faith, a faith that comes to life in the midst of great pain. The grain, indeed, has to die in order to bear fruit and when you dare to stand in your suffering, your life will bear fruit in ways that are far beyond your own predications or understanding. Leadership simultaneously holds the pain of crucifixion and the joy of resurrection, acknowledging one’s own sins and shortcomings while living the call of God’s beloved child and experiencing the fruit as it forms and grows. We must develop rhythms in our lives where we live out truth, where we are able to be vulnerable and where we allow the exposure of pain to encounter the healing power of resurrection hope. In doing this, we are strengthened as disciples of Christ and as bearers of the Good News — we are leaders. As a Convention, DCBC seeks to equip, engage and empower our churches, leaders and communities. We do this through the work of the board and committees, as well as the Ministry Roundtable that discerns and executes what we believe God is calling us to do. The Roundtable serves in some ways as a larger staff might. This group is committed to holding the hope of resurrection for you and invites you to collaborate and share your expertise as we prepare and offer programs and experiences. We call this “making honey.” We all need to do our part in building the comb for DCBC to be all we are called to be. https://www.maxpixel.net/static/photo/640/Crown-OfThorns-Cross-Christ-Jesus-Christianity-1295057.png

Come join us on April 29 for the Leadership Forum, designed for all leaders within and outside the church — deacons, trustees, teachers, prayer leaders, PTA leaders, community activists – everyone — as we explore ways to hold the hope of resurrection in meaningful, spiritual and practical ways. Together, may we find ways to hold the hope of resurrection for each other, not just on Easter but every day of the year! As Chittister says, “Hope sends us dancing around dark corners trusting in a tomorrow we cannot see….” Let’s dance as we hold the hope of resurrection, DCBC!