Thread by @sniequist

Yesterday, I wrote our church’s Easter benediction:
And now, my dear brothers and sisters,
as it was said in the very beginning,
let there be light.

And more than that, let there be life.
Let there be resurrection.
Let there be hallelujah.

Let there be dancing where there was once only mourning.
Let there be daylight where there was, for so long, only dark.
Let there be cool, clear water after a drought, nourishment after starvation, love after aching loneliness.

Resurrection after death,
spring after winter,
dawn after what seemed
an eternal midnight.

May we come to not just understand with our minds, but absorb into our very bones this beautiful, transformative pattern, like a drumbeat, like a song we’ve known all our lives—
life, death, rebirth.
life, death, rebirth.
life, death, rebirth.

May we believe in Christ’s resurrection so deeply that we begin to see the possibility of resurrection everywhere we look.

May our spiritual imaginations be renewed, and may we have the bravery to consider that things we have long pronounced dead for all time might yet come back to life—
possibly even our very own hearts barely keeping time in our very own chests.
Let there be life.