Rise Up!
For what may or may not be the umpteenth time, E and I were belting out Hamilton on our way to her confirmation class this morning.
Maybe because I was mulling anyway my Easter blog post, as I listened to to the track “My Shot,” it was singing resurrection to me today, I tell you what.
Come on, let’s go/Rise up/When you’re living on your knees, you rise up/Tell your brother that he’s gotta rise up/Tell your sister that she’s gotta rise up…
Rise up/I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory/When’s it gonna get me?/In my sleep, seven feet ahead of me?/If I see it comin’, do I run or do I let it be?/Is it like a beat without a melody?…
We have to make this moment last, that’s plenty/Scratch that this is not a moment, it’s the movement…
Foes oppose us, we take an honest stand/We roll like Moses, claimin’ our promised land…
I’m past patiently waitin’ I’m passionately mashin’ every expectation/Every action’s an act of creation/I’m laughin’ in the face of casualties and sorrow/For the first time, I’m thinkin’ past tomorrow…
There’s gospel embedded in there, people.
Gospel, of course, eu-angellion, Good News, is that Jesus rose up. He didn’t stay dead.
He rose, people.
And he didn’t just rise up for his own sake.
No.
He rose up exactly for those living on their knees.
And those of us who hear and see that he is risen rise up and in turn invite the brothers, the sisters, who are still on their knees to rise up.
And even in our rising we also imagine death, we know it’ll get us, and we wonder what it is, but we look at it squarely on because we know we will anyway rise up.
And we realize that the news of Jesus’ resurrection isn’t day-old news, stale like saran-wrapped cookies from yesterday. That first Easter wasn’t just a solitary moment in the past. No, it was a moment that began a movement, a movement that announced to all of creation that it will, we will, all rise up.
And we know that the world stands against the resurrection news that the poor, the oppressed, the grieving, the hopeless, the hapless, the outsiders, the misfits, the offenders, the offended, the wounded beautiful earth itself and even the rich and the privileged will all be redeemed and made whole because like Moses we are claiming our promised land here and now believing that we don’t have to wait for it because we are invited now to rise up.
And we tap our feet and we walk those feet in the streets and we tap our fingers and we write our governmental leaders with those fingers because we have been blessed with Holy Impatience that there are still too many people on their knees and kept on their knees and it is time that we in the name of the risen Lord help them rise up, and that they in the name of the risen Lord rise up.
And we know that every act is an act of creation because God is a God of creation, and while we might not laugh in the face of casualties and sorrow but rather engage in holy lament we know even while we weep that we can think past our pain and past our uncertain tomorrow because we believe that we’re going to rise up.
Jesus is risen!
Rise up people!
He is risen!