The Impossible, Improbable Love of Easter

I believe it is very important to talk with our families and our communities about the power of symbols. For example, in the Christian tradition, the dove symbolizes the creative Logos, peace, and the Holy Spirit.

Imagine the cross that so many Christians often slip around their necks. What is the cross saying to them and to the world? On a basic level, the cross symbolizes Jesus’ love and sacrifice, and it takes on so many different forms. Sometimes Jesus’ body is on the cross (what we would call a crucifix). A quick Google will easily reveal fifty different kinds of crosses, from Maltese to Greek to Coptic to Byzantine to Celtic.

I feel the need to confess that sometimes I wonder about whether I really want to wear an instrument of torture and death around my neck. Sometimes wearing a cross just feels like too much in a world where there’s so much… so much war, death, disease, famine, prejudice, sadness, and sickness.

I have sometimes wondered why in the world Christians didn’t adopt the symbol of feet instead of the cross. At the last supper, Jesus’ new commandment was that we should wash each other’s feet! Washing feet is so practical, loving, humbling, and kind. When we wash one another’s feet, we are helpful and hospitable. Washing feet makes us feel simultaneously safe and vulnerable. How different might Christianity have been if we all were wearing feet around our necks instead of crosses?

Now that I have confessed, I will tell you that I don’t have any feet pendants I wear around my neck, and I do have a favorite cross I often wear.  I purchased it for myself off of eBay a few years ago: a vintage sterling silver cross formed from dogwoods. I especially love this cross for two reasons. The first connects me to childhood memories of our church’s Easter morning tradition having children “flower” a small wooden cross with fistfuls of flowers we hand-picked from our yards on the way to Easter service.

The second reason is that my old cross made of dogwoods feels like the truest expression of the Christian story—love impossibly and improbably blooming forth from an instrument of hopelessness and despair. I cannot think of better symbol for Easter morning.

In one of my favorite poems, Wendell Berry’s “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” the poet concludes with two profound words: Practice resurrection.

To me, these two words sum up the Easter story. In a world that often feels scary and marked by decay, Easter invites us to wild, impossible, revolutionary, defiant hope. Even though death is certain, life and love find a way to bloom and burst forth. Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!