A Reflection on God’s Nature as Revealed in Jesus’ Birth
A Reflection on God’s Nature and New Life
I’ve written about this before for The Parish Post, but it bears repeating: Resurrection is not restoration.
One of the subtle mistakes we make as Christians is believing that resurrection belongs only to Easter—that it’s a seasonal message rather than a sustaining one. We even get Easter wrong sometimes. We forget that Easter is not a single day but a fifty-day feast, one that doesn’t actually end with Pentecost so much as it transforms into the rhythm of the whole Church year. Every single Sunday, by definition, is a feast of the Resurrection. That’s why, in a bit of ancient liturgical humor, people have argued that you can’t “fast” on Sundays during Lent—because every Sunday is, in essence, an Easter.
But I digress…
Resurrection in its truest sense, is new life—not old life restored, not the past returned, but something new being born from what was lost. “That which has been cast down is being raised up, and that which had grown old is being made new,” the prayer book exclaims. Resurrection is not a rewind. It’s renewal.
Anyone who has walked through grief, divorce, addiction, recovery, or the long night of illness knows this truth intimately. Resurrection is not restoration—it never brings us back to the way things were. When new life rises, it always carries the marks of the old. Laughter returns after loss, but maybe with a sliver of pain or longing at its base. Hearts mend, relationships rekindle, but they remember the desperation and loneliness of a sacrament severed and lost. Sobriety is found, but then one has to face the very real wreckage of their addicted past and begin the lifetime work making amends to those their addicted life harmed. Bodies heal, but they bear scars, marks, and sometimes permanent limitations of the infirmity they bore. In truth, resurrection does not erase the tomb; it redeems it.
We see this tangibly in the world around us. No two springs are ever the same. Some years, the daffodils burst into bloom early; other years, they linger. The colors of autumn shift depending on factors such as moisture, soil, sunlight, and wind. Nature renews itself again and again, but never by restoring itself to what it once was. Creation is not a photocopy—it’s a living promise.
And I think our church community can learn something from this, too.
After Sunday’s combined JoyMass and principal liturgy, I was speaking in the parking lot with a handful of longtime parishioners who reminded me of the “Bob Dendtler days” of the 1990s—when Christ Church’s attendance was larger, the buildings newer, and the program life well resourced and attended. Those were wonderful years, they told me—vibrant, new and alive! “But what I see now is no less alive,” one lady continued. Our music, our worship, our children’s and youth ministries, our outreach—all of it is pulsing with vibrancy, newness, and vitality.
I share this same observation in my own tenure as Rector. Christ Church is not what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. It is different. But it is resurrection through and through. We have had to let go of some very good things to make space for what has emerged. And had we not let some things go, we would never have encountered the mission, ministry, and callings that have led to this aliveness and energy we are now enjoying as a multicultural, Christ-centered, and worship and community-focused body.
God is truly on the move all around us! God’s movement is evident in our individual lives, as we are renewed and transformed by the losses and resurrections that occur in our families, households, and communities. However, it is equally evident in our parish’s new life and renewed community. Our prayers each Sunday bear the subtle imprint of a restored and renewed community—of each week being a festival—a festival of resurrection and new life.
So as you pray, as you hope, as you long for what was—remember this: God is not in the business of bringing back what used to be.God is making all things new. The world, your life, our church—they will not be what they were. They will emerge as something new and something better.
When we open ourselves to that mystery—when we stop clinging to the past and begin to trust the unfolding future—then we begin to glimpse the face of the risen Christ in our midst. That is resurrection. That is grace. That is why every Sunday—every single one—is Easter.
Pax et Bonum!
Fr. Ben +
