Spring is a miracle. All that we are beginning to experience in our yards and around the Valley — the grass pushing its way through the hard soil, the bees coming out of their hives after months in hibernation, even those gale force winds that comes rushing down the mountains — all of this is deserving of our awe. But what’s more, this speaks to one and the same intention, that Mary discovered in Jesus’ resurrection many years ago, and that is that God is about life.

Yet, I saw the quote that said, “You cannot understand the good news of Easter without first looking at Good Friday.” Good Friday is about meaningless death. It is about the forces of violence, greed, and power, dealing death for no reason. Christ is killed by the Empire for no good reason. But God’s response to this is life! God is so much about life that even out the pointless death of Christ’s crucifixion God brings life. There is resurrection. This is the good news that Easter speaks to. 

That same Christ is the same Christ through which everything came into being and through which everything continues to come into being. And that same Christ keeps rising and rising despite the death dealing that happens all around us all the time. 

For example, on Ash Wednesday this year, a gunman walked into the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and killed 17 students – meaningless death, but in the wake of this event students from that school have been raised to life in such a way that literally over a million people came out across the country in Washington DC, in Chicago, Portland, and countless other cities to speak out against death, to speak to the powers that collude with death, to speak up for life.

We see death all the time — the recent shooting of Stephan Clark, yet another wrongful death of a black man at the hands of the state, or an economic system that that has returned 87 percent of newly created wealth to the top 1 percent of the population, yet, continues to leave billions of people in the world in such grinding poverty that life is often cut way too short. This is death. These are the forces of evil.

Yet resurrection tells us that these things and things like these are not the final word. Life, and life abundant, is God’s desire for all creation. Wherever we witness darkness, there are places all around it that shine forth life. Christ is risen and we see Christ risen again and again! Resurrection is just how God works.

There will come a moment when school shootings will not just be another day in the news. This moment will come because God is about life. There will be a time where young black men being shot by the police is not a nearly daily happening in this country.  This time will come because God is about resurrection. There will come a day where we won’t see figures like the richest nine people in the world own more than the poorest four billion. This day will come because God is ever at work in this world, at work in you and in me, in all creation, bringing life out of death. 

And if you don’t believe me, go outside today and see if you can’t find a little green pushing up somewhere, see if you can’t hear the birds chirping, see if you can’t find a bee buzzing by. Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!

Rev. Donald Hanna pastors the Alamosa Presbyterian Church.