Bucket Lists and Resurrection Hope

Easter Sunday    B    April 5, 2015 

Act 10:34-43   Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Mark 16:1-8

Lectionary Link
  Perhaps you remember the movie several years ago about two middle aged men who had terminal illnesses.   They made what they called their "Bucket List."  In one way or another whether we've actually made a list or not, we all have bucket lists?  We have some specific expectations about what we want to achieve in our lives before we die.  What is the status of your bucket list  today on Easter Sunday?  Did you set your hopes too high?  Are you on your way to achieving all of your bucket list goals?  Climb Mount Everest?  Not going to happen?  Machu Picchu?  Maybe?  Hole in one?
  But really should I be bringing up "bucket lists" on Easter Sunday.  Aren't bucket lists inspired by the thoughts of our death instead of being inspired by our afterlife achievements?
  Can quick and easy resort to the afterlife result in us losing intensity and purpose in our lives?  O well, there's always the afterlife of the eternal to get done those things that have eluded me in this life.  Like being the President of the United States.  Or keeping my office clean.  The thought of an endless after life gives us the ability to tolerate the fact that we will never be the utopian people that we so desire to be or become.
  It might also be wrong to think of death and resurrection in terms of just the individual person; we should also think about death and resurrection in terms of society.
  Societies have bucket lists and these bucket lists are are so utopian in their ideals that we realize that full achievement will not be attained in this life as we now know it.
  Our Declaration of Independence is such a social "bucket list."  Imagine the situation where all are regarded to be created equal and have the equal opportunity to justice, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?  Sometimes we have laws, practice and events of justice when it seems that the ideals of justice get approximated but sometimes it seems as though the actual widespread practice of justice is but a future utopia to achieve.  Utopian life, no such actual life is still meaningful life because it the beckoning future life of the possible.  And I would submit that we cannot live our actual lives without narratives of the possible life. 
  Good Friday and Easter give us pause to consider both the motivating power of death but also the motivating power of the afterlife.
  The bucket list philosophy provides for us the urgency to achieve as much as we can in our bodily existence towards the excellence of a virtuous life consisting of love, justice, faith, wisdom, knowledge, life expanding experiences and compassion. A bucket list philosophy says, "Get as much done in one's life as one possibly can."
  There is something about our scientific and empirical minds which require proof about our life attainments.  The bucket list appeals to our scientific matter of fact minds.  The bucket list scientific mind might hold death as such a brick wall that a scientific mind does not want to let the mind wander beyond life as we know it.  A scientific mind might be happy to remain a complete agnostic about the afterlife.  A scientific mind might be content to have the serenity to accept death as something one cannot change, the courage to do as many things before death, and the wisdom to let the afterlife remain a mystery.
  But does anyone ever actuality live consistent with letting the afterlife remain but a mystery?  Just as one thinks about how situations would be if one moves to another location, so one thinks about the afterlife of others when one is gone.  We have an entire insurance industry built upon practical monetary expressions of our afterlife to the people who live after our deaths.
  On this day, I would build a natural theology of resurrection afterlife upon the reality of the human experience of hope.  
  Hope is the unavoidable experience of human beings always having a future either individually or collectivity.  The imaginations of the afterlife, the life of resurrection are born from the reality of the human experience of hope.
  We have some important questions to address because of the unavoidable experience of hope.
  Hope is like the power of desire on steroids because with hope and the visions of hope we contemplate much more than we can ever actually achieve in our bodily lives.  Hope drives our dreams, wishes and fantasies.  Hope ultimately must co-exist with what we actually achieve with the words and deeds of our lives.  The experience of hope means that we always want and expect more than we will ever achieve.
  And so here is the question: Are you and I embarrassed by hope?  Are you and I tortured by a hope that places before us an unreachable carrot in front of our noses to motivate us without ever attaining the full actuality of hope's vision?
  Is it wrong to have hope?  Are we mistakenly made and constituted as human beings to have as much hope as we have?  
   Are we hopelessly naive people?  Imagine wanting justice, equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people.  Where did we get such hope to have such impossible utopian ideals?
  Did our maker bring us to the experience of a cruel hoax by simply making us hope and want for much more than we can ever achieve?
  The human experience of hope, I believe compels us to the experience of narratives of hope.  And if one does not admit to them in one's conscious life, one's fantasies and dream lives will compensate with hope for even the most brute factual person.
  As Christians we are are those who have come under the influence of the art of the resurrection.  The art of the resurrection is known to us in the literary art of the Bible which relates to us an immediate afterlife of Jesus in the appearances which he made to his disciples after he died.  The death of Jesus did not end his life.  His life went on after he died in such a profound way because he became accessible to his disciples in new and expanded ways.
  Since the life of Jesus continued to be accessible to his disciples after he died, the disciples came to believe that their own lives would still include relationship accessibility to Christ and others even after they died.
  The logic of resurrection hope is different from the logic of the bucket list.  The logic of the bucket list states: I will achieve what I will achieve and do in this bodily life, and that's that.  The logic of resurrection hope is more of an art than it is a logic.  It is the art of learning to live our lives as yet incomplete but knowing that there is always a surpassing target for which we are aiming.
  The art of resurrection means that secretly we have had many things that we didn't dare put on our conscious bucket list because they were too far fetched.  Hope inspires the utopian and the utopian is always beyond us and yet that which is beyond can inspire narratives which can function to motivate us even while we work at the details of our current bucket lists.          
  Probably the actual bucket list of all of the friends and disciples of Jesus included this:  To develop a life lasting friendship with this wonderful person Jesus as a teacher and friend.  To serve his vision for the world, a vision of hope, faith and justice.  They wanted Jesus to live for the duration of their bodily lives and some of them envisioned being in his earthly administration with Jesus, himself, sitting on a throne in Jerusalem.  But the details of that bucket list did not happen.  The disciples of Jesus had to come to know the risen Christ.  But as the the risen Christ, the narrative of hope, the art of the resurrection could be more widespread.  Jesus left the physical world and returned to his eternal Wordship; and as eternal Word the risen Christ became the motivating carrot of each human person in the quest to surpass oneself in this life and in the life to come.
  The art of resurrection and the brute facts of bucket list living mutually reinforce each other.  We know that we should never give up in achieving what we need to achieve in our bodily live; at the same time we know that we will leave this world "unfinished."  I will leave this world "unfinished" in not having said a proper thank you to all of the mentors who helped me even when I did not know or was able to acknowledge them.  I will leave this world unfinished in all of my friendships and relationships.  The human heart is too vast and complex to think we can ever be finished with each other in final ways.  And in the experience of being unfinished, I look to the narrative of eternal life to be a compensatory state to inspire me even now as I continue take on the items on my daily bucket list.
  Does anyone of us think that the even practice of justice has ever been achieved in this world?  Does the failure of realized justice make us quit believing in justice?  If we believe in endless narratives of what justice might be, how can we deny the many narratives of what the continuing future rearrangement of what our lives will continue to be in the eternal memory of God?
  Even though we cannot empirically verify the afterlife now,  the narratives of the afterlife of love, justice and hope are incredibly meaningful.  Truth is not just about what can be verified with our seeing eyes; truth is also about the great motivational meanings of our life.  And one of the greatest motivational meanings in our life is the resurrection because it means we never give up on believing in the triumph of justice.  It is most meaningful in life never to cease to believe in the possibility of justice.
  Today, I invite us to continue to work on our bucket lists.  Let the thought of our death inspire us to live with intensity and urgency.  But also let the narrative of resurrection eternal life be the inspiration of the life of what is possible.  We know that in the providence of actual living, human experience will be very uneven in what we actually will achieve.
  On this Easter day, the death and resurrection of Christ invite to live the meaning of what is actual and what is possible.  With our bucket list mentality we convert the possible to the actual with a check list mentality.  But with the hopeful narrative of resurrection, we live artistically towards what is possible.  And to deny the artistic narrative of the hope of the resurrection is to restrict, limit and censor meaning in one's life.
  The life of Jesus continued to have a profound relevance after he died and reappeared.  With this knowledge we can live our actual lives believing that we will have continued relevance because of our faith in a God who has the memory capacity to preserve and maintain us forever.  And most of us want God's memory of us to air brush those memories with the many touches of forgiveness.
  Today, let us accept the motivational excellence of this Easter feast.  Let us not feel inferior in always feeling "unfinished."  Let this unfinished feeling be but the evidence of more future perfection which beckons us more clearly because of the witness of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  So once again today, we state the most famous narrative of hope of all time, "Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!  The Lord is Risen Indeed.  Alleluia!

Sunday School, Easter B

Perhaps there is time along with the Easter Egg hunt to teach children:

Easter Sermons for Children

In this sermon, have the entire congregation, one by one share the Easter Message "Christ is Risen."  Make a baton and write on it the traditions that the church has passed on.  This is to illustrate to the children the transmission of the Easter message for all of these years.

Sermon One: Passing the Baton in the Great Relay Race

   What Christian Feast Day is more important? Christmas or Easter?  They are both very important but Easter is the most important Christian day of the Christian year.  Why?  If Jesus had not come back alive, we would not celebrate Christmas and we would not even exist as a church

  When the resurrection of Christ happened, the friends of Jesus who saw him alive again after his death began to share the story.  And now that story has been share for about 2000 years.  If the church is about 2000 years old, that means that there has been about 100 generations using 20 years as the average length of a generation.  So how has the message of the life, the death and resurrection Jesus been remembered for 2000 years?  By one parent sharing the message with their children and their children share the message with their own children. 

  If we have about 100 people here let us see how long it takes to share the message. One by one, let’s share the message, one time for each generation.  Let’s see how long it takes to say Christ is Risen around this entire gathering.  Okay start.

   But the church has not just passed on spoken message.  We have passed it on in things that we can see and touch and feel.  And so I have made a baton for a relay race and I’ve written some things on the Baton.  The Bible.  The Old Testament Stories.  The New Testament Stories.  Creeds. Holy Spirit. Water of Baptism. Oil of Baptism and Confirmation.  Fire of Baptism.  Bread and Wine of Eucharist.  Prayers for the Sick.  Bishops, Priests, Deacons and Lay Persons.  Marriage Rings.

  These are things of the church that have been shared for 100 generations.  These things have been passed on from family to family for 2000 years.  And that is why we are here today, because someone told us the message about Jesus Christ and because the church has passed on the various things that have helped us to remember that Jesus rose again.  And because the Holy Spirit is inside us giving us the hope that we are going to live beyond our deaths.  And why do we believe that we will live beyond our deaths?  Because Jesus Christ lived beyond his death; he did it to show us what will happen to us after we die.  We will live beyond our death and we will live with God.  That is why this day is such a happy day and it is why we shout: Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!  Amen. 

Sermon Two:  The empty Easter Egg

  Let me tell you today about an Easter Egg hunt that took place on Easter Sunday in a church.  And the Sunday School teacher wanted to teach a lesson to the children on Easter Sunday.  So Mr. Jones during Sunday School on Easter Sunday, said to his class, “Today is Easter Sunday and so we want to do something special.  We are going to have an Easter Egg hunt.  I’ve have already hidden the eggs.  So let’s go outside and look.  And I want each of you to find only one egg.  And when everyone has found one egg, then we will come back to the classroom and each of us will open our egg in front of the entire class.  So the entire class of twelve children ran outside to look for the eggs in a place on the lawn where Mr. Jones had hidden the eggs.  One by one each child found an egg.  One child said, “I’ve found my egg.”  Another child said, “Please help me find my egg.”  And finally after about 10 minutes each child found an egg.  Mr. Jones rang a bell and said, “Come into the classroom.”  And so the children came back into the classroom each holding an egg.  Now these eggs were not real eggs, they were plastic hollow eggs so that there could be a hidden treat inside of the egg.

   When they were seated in the classroom, Mr. Jones said, “Now one by one we are going to open each egg to see what’s in the egg.  And let me tell you, there is a surprise in one of the eggs and whoever has the surprise will get something special.”

  One by one the eggs were opened.  Johnny said, “I have a dollar bill in mine…I bet I won the prize.”  Mary opened hers and she found some very nice chocolates so she said, “No, these are really the best chocolates, so I bet I won the prize.”  Jimmy opened his egg and he had a little Lego man so he said, “I think I got the best prize.”  Grace opened her egg and she had a cute little furry bunny rabbit and she said, “I won!”  Gloria opened her egg and found a silver dollar and she said, “Wow!  I hit the jackpot!”  Jeremy opened his egg and he found a lovely ring that fit his finger and it had a red jewel on it, so he said, “Surely this must be the best prize.”  Betsy then opened her egg and she found a cute little baby chick, and she was thrilled because she knew she had won.  Todd opened his egg and found a shiny whistle and he blew the whistle because he thought he had won.  Everyone who heard the loud noise, said, “Stop blowing the whistle, it hurts our ears.”  Joey opened his egg and he found a little race car…just what he wanted, and so he believed he was the winner.  Margaret opened her egg and she found a cute little teddy bear and she was happy.  Harry opened his Easter Egg and he found a porcelain little Dalmatian.  And he just loved those spotted dogs.  And then there was only one person and one egg left to open and it was Lucy’s egg.  Everyone said, “Hurry and open it let us see.”  But Lucy got very shy and so she hid her egg under desk so that no one could see her open it.  She looked down as she opened it and when she got it opened, her face turned red and said.  Everyone shouted, “What did you get Lucy?  Did you win?  What did you get?”  And Lucy looked up and said, “I lost…I did not get anything…my egg is empty.”  And the children laughed at her and said, “Mr. Jones really played a joke on you.”

  Then the children asked Mr. Jones, “Tell who won the best prize?”

 And Mr. Jones said, “Children, Lucy won the best prize and so she get this special prize, a new Bible.”  The children said, “Why did Lucy win?  Her egg was empty?”

  Mr. Jones said, “Today is Easter.  And when the women went to the tomb of Jesus what did they find?”  They found that the tomb was empty and because it was empty they were winners, because that meant that Jesus was still alive.

  And so Lucy’s egg was empty.  And she wins the prize on Easter to remind us that the empty tomb of Jesus means that Christ is alive and that he is still with us today. 

   So as winners today let us be happy about the empty tomb of Jesus.  Let us say, Alleluia, Christ is Risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!

The Resurrection of Christ: Belief of the Weak-Minded?

Easter Sunday        April 8, 2012     

Isaiah 25:6-9   Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Mark 16:1-8

Lectionary Link

  Are you and I gathered here today to bear the scorn as those who are the weak-minded; those to be pitied for maintaining this ancient myth of the resurrection of Christ?  Well, we appear to be in good company and a rather large company of billions of people who have shared this “weak-minded” habit for 2000 years.  But does a large herd of people following a tradition for so many years make it necessarily true?

  Recent atheists have written their attacks upon our beliefs.  Richard Dawkins, the famous evolutionist has attacked our weak-minded silly thinking.  The late Christopher Hitchens, also wrote that “God is not Great” and essentially based his criticism upon the fact that people of faith sometimes act very badly, in their narrow biases and prejudices, crusades, holy wars and inquisitions.  Why would anyone believe in a God based upon the horrible actions of those who say that they do? 

  Part of the blame for the criticism of the atheists does rest upon the way in which people of faith have presented and lived their beliefs.  People of faith have gotten tricked by trying to give their right answers to the wrong questions in the wrong way and there has been incredible symbolic confusion.  And you and I may be lost in some of that confusion as we gather here today to ponder the resurrection of Christ and its meaning for our lives today.  We live in the age where the supreme criterion of truth is empirical verification; something is only really meaningful, if and only if it can be empirically verified.  How many resurrections have you experienced?  And can resurrections be replicated by further experience?  And when we retreat to the answer of the unique occasion of the resurrection of Christ, then we fail to satisfy the criteria for real truth, scientific truth.

  How did we as a faith tradition cede or give up the ground of exclusive truth to the scientific method?  What is called Fundamentalism essentially admits that scientific truth is correct and also the resurrection of Christ is scientific truth.  And then Fundamentalism does something that science does not do; they state that their propositions of truth are final and absolute and inscrutable and not open to any questioning.  At least scientists have the humility to say that their theories and laws are tentative until a better explanation can be offered.

  The truth of our faith and of the resurrection needs a different presentation than the one into which it is often forced by the modern skepticism that attends the scientific method.  I ask you to consider some other modes of truth.  What is the truth of the experience of the sublime in being moved by a piece of art or music?  What is the truth of the sublime in being moved by the ocean, mountains or the sheer delightful form of a beautiful unique tree?  What is the truth of a recovering alcoholic who has an event of grace with a Higher Power and states that this event is so real that it resulted in a life of sobriety?  How does science account for or replicate such intermittent and serendipitous events of grace and aesthetic events of the sublime in the works of art and music?  And why would a scientist want to deny the truth value of such events?  Certainly one might want to give endless psychological explanations for such events, but what good does it do to deny the explanation of the one who has had the experience?

  If you and I can understand the reality of such aesthetic events and events of grace that result in transformation, perhaps you and I can begin to embrace the truth of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

  Once the church moved from the reality of the transformation of personal lives, it moved into the world to offer its truth in a wrong forum.  The result was that it accepted a different truth criterion in a different forum.

  So I would submit to you that the accounts of the death and of resurrection of Jesus Christ were essentially the accompanying liturgy of people whose lives were dramatically transformed by what they could not but confess to be an encounter with the risen Christ.

  Once the growing and successful church begins to reduce its liturgy of personal transformation to creeds, doctrines, scriptures and schools of interpretation, churches and denominations, then it unwittingly moved to the grounds of truth criteria established by Plato and Aristotle and by modern science.  And it is no wonder that Christian truth suffered when it became like a fish out of water.

  So how can we correct our confusion?  I suggest that we return to the death and resurrection of Christ as ancient rites of personal transformation, otherwise known as Christian baptism.  Christian baptism is the path of personal transformation whereby we are being made Christian, and we assume this process continues even in our afterlives.

  In the blessing of the waters at Holy Baptism we say, “We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit. Therefore in joyful obedience to your Son, we bring into his fellowship those who come to him in faith, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

  The Gospel Narratives of the death and resurrection of Christ were essentially the liturgy that accompanied people who confessed that their lives had been changed by an encounter with Christ in his life or in his resurrection.  This is not essentially scientific, philosophical truth; it is a truth of the heart, an inward participatory truth.  If we remove the death and resurrection of Christ from the truth of the participatory encounter of the heart in a life that knows the grace of a transformational event, then the truth of the death and resurrection will suffer in the skepticism of a thousand qualifications.

  Easter is a baptismal occasion and we are going to renew our baptismal vows today as a remembrance that the crucifixion and resurrection story is primarily an accompanying and empowering narrative of the path of personal transformation to which we have committed to walk.  The truth of the resurrection is the truth of the transformation of my life and yours and we will never be able to prove either empirically.  What we can hope for is that the progressive transformation of our lives will be a testimony to the resurrection of Christ.

  It has been my job and occupation to study and present the death and resurrection of Christ for many years now and it is still for me all about personal transformation.  I am ready each day to die to the inadequacy of my current knowledge of God and Jesus and look for a resurrection into new knowledge and experience of Jesus and God each day.  And in my process of dying and rebirth, I cannot judge anyone else’s path of transformation; I only want to encourage each of us to be committed to being on this path of dying and rising, this life process of transformation.

  The event of the resurrection also calls the church and St. John the Divine to be on this path of transformation.  How many times has the church been called to die to her inadequate practices of the knowledge of the love of Christ?  We had to die to inadequate love in our failure to include fully in our midst people of color, women, children and gay and lesbian persons.  The event of the resurrection is an event that calls us as individuals and as a community to continuous renewal.

  We are not yet there.  We are not yet made fully Christian.  We are not yet perfect in love, but are you like I am today; do you want to be more fully Christ-like and more perfect in love?  If you do, just whisper with me, “I do.”

  It is okay for us to be tentative in our not yet perfect lives and not yet perfect church because we need to have the humility to admit that there is more imperfection to die to and to put away and there is more resurrection excellence for us yet to attain.  And it is the optimism of the resurrection that invites us to keep on progressing in this personal liturgy of transformation that is anchored in the death and resurrection of Christ.  And it is with this optimism we make the Easter shout: “Alleluia! Christ is Risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!  Amen.

Easter Puppet Show

Gospel Puppet Show

April 8, 2012

Easter Sunday

Scene: The Tomb

Characters:

Soldier guarding the tomb: Ed

Jesus: Eric

Young man (angel): Alex

Mary Magdalene: Michelle

Salome: Rylie

Peter: Ed

Miss Debbie (in front of the puppet theatre)

There is a tomb with a round stone on it hanging from the curtain at the back of the theatre

Miss Debbie:  Boys and girls let us visit the tomb of Jesus.  His friend Nicodemus gave this tomb so that Jesus could be buried there.  It was so sad for the friends of Jesus when he died.  They loved him.  He was a special friend and teacher.  Look there’s someone at the tomb now.

Soldier: (pacing back and forth) Stop young lady.  You cannot go near the tomb.  The chief priests told me to guard the tomb.

Miss Debbie: Well, why are you guarding the tomb?

Soldier: Well, I’m just doing my job.  Those chief priests were jealous of this man Jesus and they think that someone might come and steal his body.  That’s strange thinking, but I’m just doing my job.  Just run along.  You can’t be hanging around here.

(Miss Debbie moves to the side)

(Multiple Flashing camera lights in the puppet theatre)

Soldier: Oh my!  I’m blinded!  I can’t see what has happened.  I think that I’m going to faint. Oooooooooooooh!

(Soldier falls off scene)

The stone has been taken off the tomb a grave cloth hangs on the opening of the tomb

Miss Debbie: Children did you see some flashing lights?  I wonder what is happening at the tomb.  Maybe I should go back and check it out.  Do you think the soldier is still there?  Maybe I can sneak back and take a peek.  Will you take a peek with me?

(Mary Magdalene and Salome are now coming to the tomb before they look at the tomb Mary Magdalene says)

Mary Magdalene:  Salome, we’ve got to get to the tomb of Jesus.  We collected so many more spices from our friends to help prepare his body.  He had to be buried so quickly, but now we have more spices.  But I’m worried Salome.

Salome: Mary, why are you worried?

Mary Magdalene:  There is a big stone that is on the entrance of the tomb.  It is too heavy for you and I to roll open.  Maybe there will be some one there to help us open the tomb.

Salome:  Mary, you don’t have to worry.  The stone is already rolled away.

Mary Magdalene:  Oh, no!  Something has happened?  Where’s the body of Jesus?  All I can see is his empty grave cloth.  Who stole his body?   This is terrible.  Why would someone steal the body of Jesus?

(Young Man sticks his head out of the tomb)

Mary Magdalene(seeing the young): Oh, you frightened me!  Did you do this?  Did you take the body of my friend Jesus?  Where did you take him?  Why did you do this?

Young Man: Calm down and don’t be afraid!  Your friend Jesus is not here.  He has been raised from the dead.  You can see his empty grave clothes.  Now I want you to go and tell the disciples and tell Peter that Jesus has risen from the dead.

Mary Magdalene:  Wow!  What does this mean?  When will I see Jesus again?  Let us go quickly and tell Peter.

(Peter shows himself in the left panel)

Peter: Mary Magdalene and Salome…slow down, why are you running?  What has happened?

Mary Magdalene:  We went to the tomb to put more spices on the grave clothes…but the tomb was already open and the grave clothes were empty.  And a young man or angel told us that Jesus had risen from the dead.  He told us to come and tell you.

Peter: Wow!  You know what this means don’t you?

Salome:  What does it mean?

Peter: It means that everything that Jesus told us is true.  He said that he would come back to life after three days.  This is so wonderful.  God did the most special thing ever on this day.  I can’t wait until we see Jesus.

(They disappeared in the left panel and reappear in the middle panel and Jesus pokes out from behind the curtain)

Jesus: Greetings my friends!  Peace be with you!

Peter:  Thank you Jesus for coming back to us.

Mary Magdalene:  We were so worried.

Jesus: Remember this day.  All you will be witnesses to tell everyone what happened.

Salome:  Now I know why Alleluia returns on Easter Day.

Miss Debbie: Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!  Can you say that?

Everyone: Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!

Miss Debbie: The Lord is Risen indeed.  Alleluia!  And now all of us are witnesses too of the resurrection of Christ.  Because Christ lives in us too.