As we approach Easter Sunday, I've been thinking about what the concept of resurrection means for us all. While it's central to Christianity, the idea of resurrection - of renewal, of new life breaking forth, of life and goodness overcoming death and destruction - is something that I know resonates with people of many different faiths and life-paths. It's something we can all share in, too, in our own ways, as spring (finally!) begins to blossom forth.
For me, the Christian narrative of Jesus' resurrection is the greatest story I know of hope winning over despair, love winning over hatred, joy over sorrow, and life over death. Other great spiritual thinkers (in his faith tradition and others) had raised the dead and overcome the limitations of materiality in various ways, at different times. But Jesus' great self-sacrifice on the cross pulled it all together, proving once and for all that the power of divine Spirit triumphs, inevitably, over all else. His supreme victory has echoed down through history, bringing transformation and healing to countless lives.
Whenever our own thought is spiritualised, coming closer to the pure reality that is all that the Divine sees and knows, there is resurrection. I love this definition of resurrection offered by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Christian Science Church - again, something that people of all traditions can understand and appreciate:
RESURRECTION. Spiritualization of thought; a new and higher idea of immortality, or spiritual existence; material belief yielding to spiritual understanding. (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health, p. 593)
Finally, here's a poem I found recently, which I think beautifully explores what resurrection can mean for all of us, especially in the work we all share as healers and bearers of light to humanity: [url]Learning from the resurrection*/*Christian Science Sentinel[/url]
A joyous and blessed holiday season to you all.